Wow at the Inner Harbor

This text was published with slight modifications in the Baltimore SUN of June 7, 2011 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-inner-harbor-20110607,0,4151803.story

Jim Rouse’s "festival market place" concept with the retail pavilions brought with it the retail industry's pattern of re-branding and call for ever new “attractions”. This put the Inner Harbor into a league not only with malls and their famously short fashion spans, but also with amusement parks and beach venues, essentially defining the Inner Harbor as a place of entertainment and amusement.

Maybe it is time to challenge this paradigm. Let's do the unthinkable, and re-think the pattern under which the success of the Inner Harbor operated to date!

After all, should really great locations have to re-brand themselves constantly?  Shouldn’t truly great urban places strive for more permanence? 

The initial concept  of the Baltimore Inner Harbor orchestrated a large frame of economic development around the Inner Harbor (the then USF&G building, the World Trade Center, the then IBM building, the hotels and other buildings) complemented by the original attractions of the Aquarium and the Science Center in the center. They were followed by two conversions of the Power Plant, the Columbus Center, and finally significant expansions of the original attractions themselves. A sleek visitors center rounded out the mix. 

What followed later was not always so well planned:  Restaurant barges and all kinds of kiosks and ticket buildings, at times even obscuring  attractions such as the newly restored Constellation. Tracking this pattern further, The Baltimore Development Corporation issued a request for proposals for “new attractions” this year. ("BDC is seeking written proposals from qualified respondents for the operation of new attractions meant to provide high quality amusement, entertainment, educational, cultural and other positive experiences – outdoors at the Inner Harbor – for visitors of all ages, incomes, abilities and disabilities." BDC RFP 2/11).

The proposals have been in since April, and BDC got what it asked for: Ferris wheels, zip lines, trackless trolleys and the like. Those ideas stand in stark contrast to the photo of the working port under which BDC advertised the RFP and in contrast with the original concept of seeing the harbor as an attraction for residents and business as well.

Image from the BDC website where the request for proposals is advertised

The photo might contain a solution to the problem of what should be the theme and defining pattern for the Inner Harbor. In the very early stages of the “renaissance” the warehouses along Light and Pratt Street had given way to an urban park on the water's edge. Once the fathers and mothers of the Inner Harbor added visiting tall ships, these parks became such a success that Rouse's Festival pavilions almost were defeated in a referendum. At that time, it was all about opening up the waterfront, removing filth and decay to serve the people of Baltimore. It was also about jobs and about urban renewal. That 15 million tourists eventually would come to see the Inner Harbor (a BDC figure) was not even in the dreams of the early visionaries. 

 However, they did come.  And, as every Baltimorean knows, they took over, to such an extent that BDC now only mentioned the visitors in their RFP, not the residents!

 The Greater Baltimore Committee and Ayers Saint Gross architects should be commended for picking up on the misery of our current Inner Harbor discussion and elevating it to higher levels with their proposals submitted to and published by the SUN. (Business leaders propose walking bridge, light shows, waterfront park for Inner Harbor).

 The proposed pedestrian bridge would certainly be a functional attraction, allowing connectivity and water-views without stepping on a boat.  The bridge would open up to let taller ships pass through, and that could be an attraction in itself. However, it could also further reduce the scale of the already small body of water that we call Inner Harbor. 

The proposals for Rash Field correctly envision a quality open space, a kind of resting space on the busy edges along the water, certainly a space that should also be used by locals.

But maybe it is time to go back to the early roots of the harbor renewal, its careful planning and the celebration of water and the ships. The Port of Baltimore, a mile down the Patapsco, is a source of pride for this city, the region and the state, and a huge economic engine that makes us different from Nashville or Pittsburgh.  It is the #1 East Cost US port for roll-on roll-off "bulk" goods and ranks on place two or three for automobile shipping. The modern port is serious business, with huge ships, portal cranes, tug boats, jobs and time pressures. It is not a place to send the tourists, and most residents have probably not been among the portal cranes either. But it can provide the guidance and themes for the celebration of water and ships. 

 

It is just that somewhat stealth quality of the port that would make its workings to be such a good theme for the Inner Harbor, our historic port. Wouldn't it be interesting to "theme" the Inner Harbor as Baltimore's global gateway, as the portal to the cities to which we used to maintain passenger shipping lines, such as Bremen and Liverpool, or the other big port cities such as Shanghai, Rotterdam, Singapore, Hamburg? To celebrate trade and immigration (Baltimore was the second largest port of entry after Ellis Island. Remember  (Barry Levinson’s "Avalon"?); to celebrate the exchange and openness that always has characterized seafaring nations and cities? Couldn't the World Trade Center live up to its name, and house exhibits and information about shipping, trade and other distant ports in addition to generic offices?  Couldn’t the topic "shipping" be expanded to include America's first railroad, the B&O, originating right here in Baltimore?

The fact that our historic Constellation vessel is partly obscured by its own ticket vending building has been cause for much derision. But what about the fact that we obscured pretty much the water itself as well with all the piers, marinas, paddle boat corrals, floating restaurant barges and the entertainment and amusement clutter that is so pervasive at the Inner Harbor that it makes residents shudder and leave the place to the tourists altogether?

 Look in front of the Power Plant Live building, reincarnated twice as the ground zero of generic urban chain restaurants such as the Hard Rock Cafe. Yes, there is a nice body of water between the Aquarium and the Power Plant building, but one can barely see it from Pratt Street because a broad, heavy pedestrian bridge which cuts across so low that not even a really low boat would make it through, not to mention views. Wouldn't it be great if here the stern or bow of a big ship would loom over Pratt Street? Or at least a tug boat? Something that says port, harbor, ships and marine economy and that would balance that gigantic neon guitar? And yes, right behind the Power Plant, where today the Columbus Center (failed of as a hybrid of marine biology research and visitor attraction) and the dumpsters and service trucks of the Power Plant meet, there is also water and another opportunity for a big ship. Think of Portland, Maine and its harbor with fishing boats, a fish market and authentic fish restaurants as defining elements of its waterfront. Wouldn't a fish market between the Power Plant and the Columbus Center a useful attraction for residents and visitors alike? It would also obscure a bit the Pier V hotel which would look too suburban even at Lake Kittamaqundi in Columbia, not to mention the tired pier six concert pavilion surrounded by a sea of parking!

Our proud history in trade, shipping, immigration, railroading and now cruises is fragmented all over the City, and not told in a comprehensive way. What better place to do this than our Inner Harbor? What better topic to "theme" the Inner Harbor in a genuinely Baltimore manner?

Thus, we open a new chapter for the future of our crown jewel, away from urban amusement parks, away from the short-lived fashion focus of malls and retail, and towards the information city of the 21st century, which once again can become an economic engine, a place of innovation, a mecca of ideas and exchange, a hub and a great place for all its citizens to live and work. 

What better model for this vision than our own history as a shipping port and railroad city? The entry point for tens of thousands of immigrants that came here by boat as well as the shipping point for millions of tons of goods to and from the entire eastern half of the nation. 

This is how we cut off the water from Pratt Street (in front of the Power Plant)

Piazza D'Italia

 

Piazza D'Italia May 2011, lost in the bleakness of the sixties

When I stepped outside my hotel on Poydras Street in New Orleans, I stared right at the entry to the Piazza D'Italia, a little shrine to urbanism, post modern and classic form vocabulary that was quite the rage when it was first built in 1978, designed by Charles Moore, one of the inventors of post modern architecture. 

My then design mentor and boss, Heinz Egenhofer, a progeny of the Behnisch office in Stuttgart, was very taken by Moore's ironic play with architecture and my very first project, a high-school in Reutlingen, Germany, was designed with a modernist and a post modernist side including what we called "Moore's wall": A traditional brick wall with punched out openings placed 5 feet in front of a standard curtain wall. This wall provided shade and was in a way a "rain screen", but foremost it was an architectural gesture. (The 1976 building also had a landscaped green roof).

When I traveled to the US in 1980 for the first time in my life, it was clear that New Orleans and the brand new Piazza D'Italia had to be part of the itinerary. I recall that I found the real thing much less interesting than the many publications about it. I was not convinced that this type of kitsch was really the answer to modernism's overbearing austerity. But most I was stunned how this little piece of European place making was lost in a part of the city that had little spatial quality and was the typical US downtown hodgepodge of high-rises and parking lots. This was, of course, in stark contrast to the historic parts of New Orleans. Back in 1980, I was only getting my first exposure to the American pattern of cities where density and abandonment can co-exist cheek to jowl. 

As the ARCHITECT Magazine correctly notes in its current issue "post-mortem article about the Piazza d'Italia,  New Orleans has made little progress in making this part of downtown any more urban than it was in 1980. Unexpectedly standing there and revisiting Charles Moore's experimental space and game changer  gave me a jolt: It brought me full circle from being a young visiting German tourist to being an old US citizen, from being an architectural greenhorn to being a Fellow and from being a casual observer of the American City to being an active participant in at least one US City. 

Pizza D'Italia looked aged, not only because of the faded colors but also because post modernism has proven to have been a fad that went nowhere in particular. Yet, the desire to make a compact urban place in the misery of hotel walls and surface parking lots has not lost any of its importance and relevance, not in New Orleans, and not in Baltimore.

The "screen wall" of the 1976 designed High School, my first project after architecture school 

Architects in New Orleans

Under the rather radical emblem of the raised fist holding a pencil molded after revolutionary placards of France in 1968 (La Lutte Continue) Architects from across the country and even some foreign places convened in New Orleans for their annual professional gathering. The topic "Regional Design Revolution Ecology Matters" was as convoluted as the schedule of three days of endless seminars, design salons, workshops, tours and keynote addresses followed by receptions of all kinds. Who found an unscheduled minute could walk through the cavernous exhibit halls and touch whatever the construction and design industry has to offer, doors, windows, facades, solar panels and the latest CADD software. Everything is electronic now: from the I-Phone app for the convention schedule to the LCD signs at each classroom which, ecology be darned, glowed day and night with the AIA logo up and down the endless hallways. The pass acted as a swipe card and each class and event that offered the so called CEUs (Continued Education Credits) started with a long line of architects trying to use one of several swipe machines and receive small printed receipt just like at the self service gas pump. Inevitably, inside the overcrowded classrooms half of the attendees stared at their smartphones, probably browsing e-mail or worse and getting their credits for not paying attention. Of course, they could also have taken their lecture notes on these devices, one never knows.

Keynote addresses came from New York Times writer Thomas Friedman ("Hot, Flat and Crowded") and Jeb Brugman, both non architects. The one contending that new media have made the world flat (instant news across the globe), that climate change is real and that old technology still makes the planet crowded, the other questioning that world is really flat and instead emphasizing that cities and density are the solutions. Both agreed that we deal with "system problems".
For the keynote addresses several thousand architects convened under a huge metal shed-roof in what seemed to be the other half of the expo hall. Double screens showed the distant speaker figure in larger scale and each address was preceded by awards and celebration of those on "whose shoulders" we stand. Japanese architect  Fumihiko Maki received the AIA Gold Medal this year and responded with dignity and modesty. A former AIA President who had fought in World War II was rolled on stage in a wheeelchair to receive standing ovations but was apparently not willing or able to address the crowd.

Looking around one could see finally quite a few women architects, even a few black architects while on the stage white males still pretty much dominated every aspect of the events. The crowd was also diverse in their wardrobe from professional to outright sloppy (shorts, tennis shoes and baseball cap). A good number of architects still sport the famous Corbusier glasses which one could also see on the face of the female Dean of an elite architecture school who showed up on screen to laud the character of the Gold Medal winner. The glasses made her look like an owl, even more so than it made her male counterparts look like one.

Conventioneers leave their digs to explore town in packs, preferably in air conditioned buses but also on foot with the name tags dangling around their necks and the black AIA bags over their shoulders.  This way one could easily follow their penetration into New Orleans which rarely went beyond the string of big hotels strung along the Mississippi from the convention center towards the French Quarter. 

A trip via the free ferry across the mightily swollen river to historic Algiers brought to light no more architects but some locals gathering on the levy, one of them uninvited musing about the history of Algiers, the source of the cedar wood on the old houses ("from abandoned barges") and the events during Katrina when he and his son guarded their house with a gun on their lap sitting on the front porch. His report was laced with the n word for all the bad elements in town including the police who looted homes and hauled the bounty away in school buses. Below the levy and a good 10 feet under the water level Algier seemed a lot more peaceful than this man, people tending their gardens or drinking coffee at the one coffee-shop in town across from the church.


 For me the convention ended with a festive "convocation dinner" in which new and formerly elevated "Fellows" of AIA appeared in tuxes and watched mug shots of the new class flash up on screens each accompanied with the applause that the colleagues from the same town or chapter could could muster. It was the Sheraton but the view was one of an architecturally unadorned parking garage made of precast. A band animated several to dance yet the free pre-dinner alcohol became restricted by a cash bar afterwards and thus curbed too much exuberance since only a few wanted to add further cost to the proud ticket price for this evening. So soon folks began to stroll out into Canal Street and across Sheraton lobby where translucent blue panels were unfailing proof of a recent remake. Hotels are slowly shedding their stuffiness, at least in the lobby. Out on Canal Street a small crowd emerged from the Marriott across the street and followed a marching band wildly swing butts and pompoms, police escorting this little invocation of carnival up the street front and back, blue lights flashing. Yes, New Orleans is still a party town.

Rotterdam, Baltimore and the Dutch Design Guerilla

Kristian Koreman a Dutch Architect and founder of ZUS (Zones Urbaines Sensibles) and George Brugmans, the Director of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam spoke yesterday as part of The AIA lecture series at the North Avenue Market. Topic: "Open City".

Kristian seriously drew some parallels between Baltimore and Rotterdam in terms of problems and referred to relatively high commercial vacancy rates. He spoke about the "leveraged economy" which supplanted the "real economy" and leads to wasteful and vast new developments leaving a lot of stuff lying fallow. He set out to reclaim such sixties calls B and C office space with guerrilla methods of design "spreading urban elements like a virus".



Kristian bought a 8000 square-meter building in Rotterdam and turned it into a design lab. (Schieblock).One floor is available as an "office hotel", i.e. people can get work cubicles on an hourly basis. His own firm resides in the building which was converted by using direct design. Sledgehammer and measuring tape in hand layouts were created right on the spot and within a few weeks a dead-zone had been converted into a lively area of experimentation including a "Centre for Unsolicited Architecture." Great inspiration for the Design Center we are starting up here in Baltimore! If you want to see some Rotterdam and hear some Dutch go to http://www.zus.cc/news/items/n013_RTV_update.php?1=y


Kristian admitted at dinner after the talk that Baltimore's "Wire neighborhoods" had quite depressed him, he hadn't quite expected THIS level of abandonment. He will be in New York a lot starting in June for the BMW-Guggenheim interdisciplinary experiment.  http://www.guggenheim.org/guggenheim-foundation/collaborations/bmw-guggenheim

This from the ZUS Mission link on their website www.ZUS.cc

ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles] researches and intervenes in the contemporary urban landscape with productions ranging from urban plans and architecture to installations and fashion. Within this complex field we find ourselves constantly in between two positions: as co-author and as critic.
YES
ZUS works with a belief that every place has the potential to become unique and thrilling. A spatial intervention should therefore always be inspired by the specific qualities of the situation and driven by an optimistic attitude. We have to deal with rapid changing conditions and adapt our tactics to give shape to our constantly modernizing society. With designs for urban districts, parcs, public spaces, buildings and installations we try to contribute to a collective and sustainable future.

NO
Architecture has become marginalized in the last two decades by responding mainly to the demands of the market. ZUS reclaims the public role of the architect by making social challenges explicit by means of unsolicited architecture and architectural activism. With proposals, exhibitions and publications we not only contribute but also question and criticize the field we work in.