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May 11, 2005

The Anti-Calatravas & Mandeville Place

Choice quotes from MVRDV, who were profiled in Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel after winning the Marcus Prize, from Milwaukee's Marcus Corporation Foundation. You may wonder, how does Milwaukee Wisconsin, with a beautiful museum of art by Santiago Calatrava, and other forward thinking sites and buildings, get such plum international projects? Their former Mayor (1988-2004), John Norquist is now President and CEO of the Congress for New Urbanism, has a hellva lot to do with it. But on with MDRDV's great interview moments...

"We see architecture as a device, an instrument that shows the direction a city should go to. Architecture needs to be very clear, on the edge of populistic, to make itself visible and understandable to others, not just to architecture critics. It claims an urban agenda, and it must consider ecological impacts."

"Maas said the firm stands at the opposite end of the design spectrum from Santiago Calatrava, "We are the anti-Calatravas," he said, laughing. "I admire his aesthetics, but he can almost be considered one of the 'hairdressers' of architecture, like (Frank) Gehry - they are doing coiffures."

Bold BOLD BOLD!! Those Dutch...

So, Richard Meier is continuing his domination of hi res hi profile uppity upscale downtown living, with, an admittedly attractive and Tall - 45 story - mixed use hi-rise, slated for downtown Philadelphia. Mandeville Place. Although it hasn't passed the zoning variances, I do hope it gets built. Its tough to admit I like any descendent of Le Corbusier, or one of the originating New York Five. But hey, we gotta embrace Hard Modernism sometimes. Discussion brewing on a Philly board, one poster makes an interesting note: "It really isn't about Philadelphia but rather the Wilmington-Philadelphia-Princeton-North Jersey-New York City market. On the Mandeville Place website, it was mentioned that the building is 100 miles from New York City, as if that were a major selling point and it is...as New York gets more expensive and overcrowded, you will have people who want to live the city lifestyle but do it at a cheaper price and/or at a slower pace. Add to that the fact that Philadelphia is only an hour's train ride away, thus making the travel less time consuming that going to many parts of Long Island and Connecticut, and the fact that you've got a 10-year tax abatement, and it makes Philadelphia very attractive to New Yorkers...Alan Heavens of the Inquirer did a story on 10 Rittenhouse and had surveys and statistics showing 1/3 of the high end condo buyers in Philadelphia come from NY/Wash, 1/3 coming from the suburbs, 1/3 from the city."

rendering below...

Posted by jmarston at May 11, 2005 04:56 PM

Comments

Posted by: will at May 12, 2005 01:44 AM

Posted by: Scoop at May 13, 2005 09:03 AM