From: Sam Shipley <sas821@hotmail.com>
To: "ward5@yahoogroups.com" <ward5@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 1, 2013 4:18 PM
Subject: RE: [ward5] McMillan redevelopment plan clears major hurdle (Wash. Post)
Well, would you look at that - who said old ideas are dead? Back in 1986, there was a proposal to put the city Prison at the McMillan site, but Mayor Barry rejected it immediately. [Note that the 1986 Washington Post article image below is from the Bloomingdale History Project blog.]
It only took 27 years, but it looks like residents of Stronghold and Bloomingdale are finally going to get that prison!
No longer will those homeowners on North Cap have to endure nice views and overlook "greenspace," but instead they will now get views of amazingly-sterile, brutalist-inspired, "sanatorium-chic*" architecture worthy of places like ... Rockville! and Tyson's Corner!
Such a win for the community.
Grooooooan
DC is going to great lengths to rid the city of buildings like the 3rd Church Christ Scientist and the Hoover Building - and then going ahead and green-lighting this nonsense.
Why should we give future generations iconic architecture and classic space, when we can just give them mediocrity?!
- Sam in Stronghold
(who doesn't want a huge park and is not opposed to development - I just want something NICE and WORTHY of DC and Ward 5 - not some suburban strip-mall!)
And DC, if this is so important and necessary to rush, can you please allocate monies to Metro to build the Brown Line (http://tinyurl.com/mdl2hz7) so our already choked and congested streets (anyone on North Cap in the mornings or evenings??) can get some relief! This car-centric development is NOT good! My 80 bus is overwhelmed as it is and can hardly move during rush hour!
* description taken from a comment on the Bloomingdale neighborhood blog
It only took 27 years, but it looks like residents of Stronghold and Bloomingdale are finally going to get that prison!
No longer will those homeowners on North Cap have to endure nice views and overlook "greenspace," but instead they will now get views of amazingly-sterile, brutalist-inspired, "sanatorium-chic*" architecture worthy of places like ... Rockville! and Tyson's Corner!
Such a win for the community.
Grooooooan
DC is going to great lengths to rid the city of buildings like the 3rd Church Christ Scientist and the Hoover Building - and then going ahead and green-lighting this nonsense.
Why should we give future generations iconic architecture and classic space, when we can just give them mediocrity?!
- Sam in Stronghold
(who doesn't want a huge park and is not opposed to development - I just want something NICE and WORTHY of DC and Ward 5 - not some suburban strip-mall!)
And DC, if this is so important and necessary to rush, can you please allocate monies to Metro to build the Brown Line (http://tinyurl.com/mdl2hz7) so our already choked and congested streets (anyone on North Cap in the mornings or evenings??) can get some relief! This car-centric development is NOT good! My 80 bus is overwhelmed as it is and can hardly move during rush hour!
* description taken from a comment on the Bloomingdale neighborhood blog
4 comments:
Sam... Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Scott... I'd submit that posting comments like these on the blog do very little good (public shaming?) in the long run. Let the trolls play on the listserv
I'm with Sam...no excuse for something like this. It is "throw away" architecture...a box with some corrugated panels on it. Meant to be torn down in 30 years anyway. This and the medical buildings are beyond me....i guess you have to "be in the business" to appreciate them. I'm not in the business because i think they look like crap. Sterile, monumental, square, oppressive, inhuman. I never thought that the DHHS building was an icon. I guess i was wrong. Call me old fashioned.
Also, i disagree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... i don't think we should design that way. We should study how people interact with each other in different kinds of spaces and design to make the experience human and pleasing. Certain aesthetics simply do not attract people. Take a look at how many people hang out at the Christ Scientist church or at Boston city hall common or even go to the Regenstein library .... people eschew brutalism. It is cold, unfeeling, oppressive. You can appreciate it theoretically, but empirically it doesn't work for urban design very demonstrably. Tell me of a charming brutalist space? The point is that there is a body of knowledge regarding urban design that is centuries old based on how people interact in spaces and that we in the states don't use anymore and instead we design according to utility or we fight it out over aesthetics. Read "Geography of Nowhere" by Kunstler.
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