Comments on Silver Spring library skybridge rejected - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by Daniel M. Laenker

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:00:52 EDT

I apologize for the misnomer. I just assumed from the Greek.

Now if I'd have said "Indianapolitan", that would have been a bit of a tongue-twister.

Comment by Froggie

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:45:05 EDT

Alex: we've had that discussion before, and as I recall we disagreed then, as we do now.

As with most Minneapolitans (being a native Minneapolite myself), I'll agree that weather is the primary reason the skyways exist. However, I would not place the blame for lack of streetlife downtown on the skyways alone...or even as a primary reason.

Comment by Chuck

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:41:51 EDT

The three options all look the same. The designs look contrived, capricious and arbitrary. The building looks highly over-complicated and over-designed in an unimaginative way. It looks like it's a design from a forgotten page of an old sketchbook.

Comment by Daniel M. Laenker

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:55:34 EDT

Well, yes, some sculptures are Pop, and sculptures of everyday manufactured items were a big part of that. I misspoke. But I was trying to say that people don't necessarily disapprove of design that is also functional.

Tying this to the idea of skyways, one can be a critical regionalist without necessarily being traditionalist. It's about meeting the needs of a place, whether one does it in a contemporary idiom or not.

Comment by Bianchi

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:43:06 EDT

Daniel ML, are you familair with the work of Claus Oldenburg (SP?)and the whoile school of PopArt? Depictions of every day objects are kind of the point. Unless The Hirshorn and multiple other collections internationally aren't considered "people" then coffeemakers are definitely in the scope of subject matter of sculpture that people want. :-)

Comment by Alex B.

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:25:11 EDT

Daniel, I was born and raised in Minneapolis, and most Minneapolitans would agree that weather is the reason the skyways exist.

What most Minneapolitans seem in denial about, however, is the negative impacts the skyways have on the streetlife and urbanism of downtown.

Comment by цarьchitect

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:25:00 EDT

What's true in Minneapolis is also true in Montreal, but those conditions have to be placed in the context of many other failures in temperate places.

Comment by Daniel M. Laenker

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:16:14 EDT

@Steve: I'm pretty sure people don't want sculptures that look like coffeemakers either. But people do want design, which was my point.

Comment by Daniel M. Laenker

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:14:49 EDT

I'm pretty sure that given the climate of Minnesota, the Minneapolitans are comfortable with the trade-off they've made of raising pedestrian circulation 2-3 stories downtown in exchange for not suffering the boreal temperatures in winter.

The fact that the Twin Cities contain some of both the oldest and largest shopping malls is greatly informed by climate. There are bad days in the winter here, but I don't think there's anything in our (humid subtropical) climate that quite compares.

Comment by Alex B.

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:55:25 EDT

Froggie, I'd argue that Minneapolis' downtown streetscape is woefully underdeveloped compared to the number of people living and working there - thanks in no small part to the fact that the skyways dominate.

Aside from Nicollet Mall, there is very little street-level retail or pedestrian traffic. All of the lunchtime sandwich shops and whatnot are on the skyway level, and thus often closed on weekends or even after 5pm.

Comment by Froggie

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:20:46 EDT

Tsarchitect....if skyways (as they're called in Minnesota) dry up the downtown so much, then how do you explain downtown Minneapolis?

Comment by цarьchitect

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:15:36 EDT

w and JKS: Style and design have very little to do with the problem of skybridges. You can bling an enclosed pathway up or deck it out in ornament, but every bridge leaves a street of sighs. With a public or semi-public space, bridges and tunnels get people off the street and usually significantly damage the street-level business, an economic problem. The tubes usually have nothing in them, so theyÂ’re boring and nobody lingers. ThatÂ’s a cultural shame and safety problem. The streets are given over to cars, which make more bridges necessary to keep wayward pedestrians from incurring liability for drivers. Go to Newark, NJ and take a look at the CBD. ItÂ’s full of skybridges, and consequently most of the downtown has dried up, retreating into office buildings where people take no care for the city environment.

Hell, the bridges in the Rogers building donÂ’t even technically count as skybridges. ThatÂ’s inside the lobby of a private building! Where vertical separation has worked is only where the owner canÂ’t have mixing of groups, or there is so much traffic, there are people on both the streets and in the bridges. For hospitals, factories, courthouses/jails, and perhaps between large buildings that have the same tenant (see the Department of Agriculture), theyÂ’re an OK design. ItÂ’s always better to get people onto the public street, since itÂ’s cheaper

ADA compliance is something theyÂ’ll have to work on, but itÂ’s not worth wrecking the main boulevard of Silver Spring.

Comment by JKS

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:25:29 EDT

Follow-up: For those of you who think footbridges are sooooooo retro (see slideshow):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072203606.html?hpid=features1&hpv=local

Comment by JKS

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:00:58 EDT

The problem with this debate is that the original reporting is entirely one-sided. Economics: any on-site handicapped paking will be greatly more expensive than the bridge.

7 handicapped parking spaces are far too few, based on expected disabled attendance.

There is an ADA. And this is 2009. Some "urbanists" may not like that, but let's live with these facts.

Lets' have debates with informed reporting, and we get good debate. Note your own Gaitherbungle!

Comment by Thayer-D

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:18:50 EDT

"But most people, if given a chance, would prefer a coffeemaker that looks contemporary and "modern" to one that looks like it came from the 1870s."

Even if we see architecture as more akin to industrial design than sculpture, there's something to be said about quality or contemporary styling over kitsch."alid points. There are many things that people seem to prefer a "modern" look versus a "traditional" look. First of all, if you do it now, it's modern and contemporary by default. Maybe a more honest assesment would be to say "modernist" Bauhaus or what ever you prefer. Secondly our basic clothing styles (ex. suits for men) look a lot like they did in 1870, while coffemakers where probably not around back then, so that argument is a little more nuanced than you portray. Thirdly, architecture isn't industrial design (contrary to what Modernists believe), it's human design, and as for what people prefer, I don't really care to impose anything particular. What I do object to is architectural academics imposing their narrow view of what is proper architecture when the market clearly showes something else, which leads to the second quote.

"Even if we see architecture as more akin to industrial design than sculpture, there's something to be said about quality or contemporary styling over kitsch."

Absolutley true, but did you ever wonder why the traditional styles look kitchy next to their older bretheren? For that matter did you ever wonder why if it does look like kitsch, why do people keep buying it? First, it looks kitsch because architectural students aren't taught to work in traditional styles for previously mentioned reasons. Therefore when they get a job they don't have the appropriate skills to satisfy the
market and produce kitsch because people still want that look. Quality is a completely different issue (see acre upon acre of public housing, or soom "contemporary" condos)

To each his own, diversity is the spice of life, agreed. Just have an honest debate in schools and treat all architectural styles, modernist or traditional as what they are, historical styles, what ever revival is in vogue now.
This way you can focus more on quality of construction and place making and let people's aesthetic preferences evolve more organically and democratically.

Comment by MPC

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:00:25 EDT

The Council also voted to sustain the parking subsidy for libraries, which spends precious public funds to make sure it's free for people to drive to the Rockville library, but not free to take the bus or Metro there.

Lolwut? I don't know what car you drive, but I have to fill it up with gas ($$) and get maintenance on it ($$).

And since transit systems never run deficits, I'm sure that the costs of a rider riding the bus cover the cost of gasoline and maintenance...

Comment by Craig

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:38:32 EDT

@w: Downtown Wilmington? Which one, and why?

Comment by Omari

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:12:00 EDT

When it comes to skybridges I picture those between the Metro and shopping malls at both Prince George's Plaza and Wheaton. Fences were erected at both sites to force people onto the bridges. Going up and down the steps (or, even worse, ramps) on these bridges dramatically lengthens time to cross the street, which is of course why people avoid them, leading to the fences.

A skybridge is typically proof that there are lots of vehicles and people in an area, and the people are less important.

Comment by Lindemann

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:02:49 EDT

I'm also happy that there will likely be no skybridge.

I don't think of Wayne Avenue there as particularly unsafe to cross, by the way. I'd concentrate my energies on Georgia/Colesville and Colesville/East-West - intersections with traffic moving at high speeds oblivious to the numerous pedestrians. No one can drive too quickly at Wayne/Fenton anymore, so basically the main dangers are from idiot drivers.

Comment by Beth

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:47:16 EDT

I grew up in Iowa City, IA and our local public library gave out vouchers for either one hour of parking or for a free bus trip, but only on Tuesdays, I think to prevent people from regularly gaming the system for a free bus ride.

Comment by Steve

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:59:50 EDT

@ Daniel M. Laenker: On the whole I prefer libraries that don't look like coffeemakers.

Comment by Evan

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:48:26 EDT

Now that this has been settled, let's get back to solving the real problem at hand: making Wayne Avenue safer for all pedestrians to cross. That intersection will undoubtedly get very busy when the Purple Line is (hopefully) built adjoining the library.

Comment by Daniel M. Laenker

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:47:04 EDT

Also, incidentally: are you arguing that the library system should subsidize or validate transit fares, or are you arguing that a free public resource should not attempt to compete with bookstores or video rental shops that will subsidize their own parking regardless of what the library system does?

Seriously, I'm just as much for a walkable urban environment as anyone here (with the obvious exception of MPC), but why is urbanism more important than providing public services to the maximum possible number of people?

Comment by Daniel M. Laenker

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:41:12 EDT

But most people, if given a chance, would prefer a coffeemaker that looks contemporary and "modern" to one that looks like it came from the 1870s.

Even if we see architecture as more akin to industrial design than sculpture, there's something to be said about quality or contemporary styling over kitsch.

Comment by Cavan

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:57:27 EDT

Glad to hear that the skybridge is not going to happen. It would have been an unused waste of money.

Comment by w

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:31:47 EDT

Thayer

you are a person of deep feelings and I have a lot of respect for your views and the comments you have made for a long time.

I have a term for these kinds of disposable structures.

I call them buildings that are from;

" the Institutional School"

which to me, implies that it is somehow a product of art by committee ,or some kind of attempt at being "official" without being too "offensive" to those who might belive that the public is spending too much on "non-essentials".

To me, it is these "non-essentials" such as the architectural sculptures and ornament, the beautifully made rooflines, that are what makes a building into a work of art and not just a thing to be used that you have to clock in and out of and get out of as soon as possible before the flourescent lighting from the drop ceilings make you want to committ suicide.

I do not think that real beauty is "subjective" when most people naturally gravitate to what is - as you point out- more lovely things and places.

Most people, if given a chance, would rather live or work in a place with buildings and public art that is meaningful and beautiful- and most peope would not like to work in Crystal City or downtown Wilmington, or the Chicago Federal center with its dirty and ugly modernist boxes that overwhelm and try to squash any kind of feelings of grandeur or anything other than a kow-towing to authority.

Comment by Thayer-D

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:03:28 EDT

w,
I've been asking those questions since Architecture School. The only reasonable answer I can find is that Architecture School Professors keep teaching this crap because they would be out of a job if they allowed a truely open debate on modernism.

I went to the Library charettes and asked the architects (who seemed like very nice people) why their building was so full of glass in an era of sustainability. Why the architecture was chaotic, abstract, and almost hostile towards it's context. Granted these are subjective views, but the fact is the majority of people in the audience felt the same way.

I go back to Architecture Schools, that teach students to negate the public's views as uneducated or unsophisticated, while the market place clearly shows otherwise. People prefer the beauty of Foxhall, Wesley Heights, Cleveland Park, Georgetown, and on and on. But might a student actually be able to draw from these neighborhoods in any but the most denuded and abstracted way (read typological), no way. Then you get out in the job market and, what do you know? Most people would rather have a neo-neo tudor than the Villa Savoye.

None of this is to say modernist styles are bad, evil, or not to be taught. That would be repeating the same mistake most architecture schools make. It's just too bad for the public, especially since this blog even showed how "lovable" buildings (read non-antiseptic) where more sustainable by the mere fact that people where less likely to constantly tear them down.
Oh well.

Comment by w

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:24:30 EDT

I am not in principal opposed to skywalks- but they always make them so damn ugly that they become eyesores.

While in Dresden Germany, I saw a very very beautiful skywalk from the 17th century that went from the old royal palace to the big Catholic Church on the riverfront- it had bronze sculptures and was higly ornate.

Why is the wealthiest country on Earth seemingly incapable of building beautiful artistic and permenant structures like this?

Why do we in the USA always seem to settle for 4th rate temporary modernist garbage- or 4th rate cartoon modernism that takes up too much room and is a bad neighbor to all other buildings around it?