Modern urban planning in daily life

 LAKEVILLE, Conn. — Architecture critic Paul Goldberger, author of “Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry,” spoke about the role of architecture in urban life and why it matters at the Salisbury Forum on Friday, Dec. 11, at The Hotchkiss School.

 Goldberger said good design in and of itself cannot turn a city or a neighborhood around. Good architecture “is not bread on the table, or justice in the courtroom. It doesn’t solve the problems of crime, poverty and disease.

 “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can add a few good buildings and problems go away.”

 However, good architecture can act as “a shot of adrenaline” in an ailing culture or economy.

 With a slide of Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (built in 1997), on the screen behind him, Goldberger said the museum helped “turn an industrial city on no one’s itinerary to a hot destination,” an effect that continues 18 years later.

 He said the “Bilbao effect” would be difficult to reproduce because it was a case of a regional government “eager to assert cultural independence” from the rest of the country coming together with a well-funded nonprofit.

 The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao came into being in the midst of an ongoing revitalization effort, including a new transit system.

 “The city was already committed to change, so the museum was not dropped into a wasteland.”

 Similarly, the High Line park in New York City, a 1.45-mile stretch of once-abandoned elevated rail line in the Chelsea neighborhood, was converted into a park, which involved  a decision by the administration of mayor Michael Bloomberg not to tear it down (a reversal of a decision by the administration of Rudy Giuliani, the previous mayor).

 “Hedge fund types” in the already gentrifying district were interested in philanthropy. “They wanted something of their own.”

 So the park was the result of multiple factors coming together, and was a function of timing. Or luck.

 What is needed to make such projects work is “a shared belief in strong design.”

 But “design does not have the power to realize itself,” Goldberger continued.

 It requires political and economic power to become reality.

 Goldberger, referring to real estate developer Gerald Hines (Pennzoil Plaza in Houston), said commercial real estate and quality architecture have come together, with tenants willing to pay more for a better product, preferably attached to some kind of architectural identity.

 The general public is now more aware of individual architects and more visually aware overall. “They make the connection between design and the quality of life.”

 The flip side of this is the “starchitect” phenomenon, which Goldberger said has more to do with the public’s “weakness for celebrity” than anything else.

 “I resent the implication that starchitects don’t have  a sense of social responsibility.” 

 He said there are cases where that has happened, but the client, who can always say no, shares responsibility.

 “Incompetence and lack of imagination is far more of a threat than arrogance.”

 Goldberger said the challenge moving ahead isn’t about “one-off, special buildings, “but about ordinary, everyday architecture.

 “This is not a new problem,” he said. “The legacy of modernism is great buildings and poor urbanism.

 “Modernists wanted to destroy the street,” finding it old, pedestrian and slow. They were oriented toward the automobile, and toward moving people across space — not people moving within a space. 

 Goldberger said that streets are actually more important than buildings. “To make a city work  you need great streets. Great buildings are an exclamation point. You need a lot of ordinary buildings for them to make an impact.”

 He cited New York, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco as cities with good downtowns — with a lot of residents, a “dense web” of buildings without vacant and/or parking lots, and where “the only open space is intentional.”

 Every building has an obligation to the larger whole, he said.  Architects “cannot design as if other buildings aren’t there.”

 And a successful street or neighborhood will have a mix of “background and foreground buildings.” 

 Goldberger said that modern architecture is much better at foreground buildings, citing the Seagrams building in New York, which looked quite different when it was built in 1958 and today, surrounded not by older background buildings but  by “lesser modern towers.”

 Looking ahead, Goldberger said “economic forces aren’t going away,” but they can be managed.

 Iconic buildings aren’t going away either, nor should they.

 In the best examples, such foreground buildings “confer a new identity” on their cities.

 “There was nothing Parisian about the Eiffel Tower until it was built.”

 Goldberger said that urban planners need to incorporate greater central density,  and to recognize pedestrian scale. “The more walkable a city is, the better day-to-day life is.”

 Historic preservation efforts, often neighborhoods rather than single buildings, should continue because they cannot be recreated.

 However, the old buildings should not be preserved “as hot house orchids, but integrated into modern life.

 “We need to be willing to trust architecture to help. It can’t save the day, but it can make an extraordinary difference.”