"Public" Square
Cleveland's Public Square has time-over been re-landscaped, re-aligned and re-designed. Within the last few months, a new proposed design to address the under-utilized city center (which incidentally is listed among the Project for Public Spaces "16 Squares Most Dramatically in Need of Improvement") has been quietly revealed in university studies and on local message boards. On Sunday, June 11, this design proposal made its first big appearance accompanying an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Still waiting for public outcry and some sort of reaction from the design community...
Here's one response to Sunday's article by Tom Breckenridge "Civic leaders envision revitalized Public Square" below. It illustrates only one of many problems with "influential voices" advertising a severely mediocre re-design of Cleveland's Public Square:
Here's one response to Sunday's article by Tom Breckenridge "Civic leaders envision revitalized Public Square" below. It illustrates only one of many problems with "influential voices" advertising a severely mediocre re-design of Cleveland's Public Square:
A revived Public Square would best contribute to the rebirth of Downtown Cleveland. However, a process by which the public is expected to pay millions of dollars, yet be excluded from any planning or design decisions would be folly and betray the intent of a truly "Public" Square. To best achieve a successful Public Square, we must involve the citizens of Cuyahoga County as much as possible.
Under the leadership of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, in cooperation with representatives of local design advocacy organizations, a series of public forums should arrive at a program of goals and uses for a new Public Square. These forums would culminate into an open competition for the design of the Square. A competition would promote a comprehensive vision to join parts of the program, encourage the best in design, and give the appropriate amount thought and public involvement to make Public Square successful for the next 200 years.
Architect Paul Volpe's sketch and the ideas of "influential voices" is enough to advance the cause for a redesigned Public Square, but alone lacks the public participation for the creation of a Cleveland "Public" Square that residents today and subsequent generations will be proud of.
In case you were wondering, there's no word so far from the local architecture critic.
Under the leadership of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, in cooperation with representatives of local design advocacy organizations, a series of public forums should arrive at a program of goals and uses for a new Public Square. These forums would culminate into an open competition for the design of the Square. A competition would promote a comprehensive vision to join parts of the program, encourage the best in design, and give the appropriate amount thought and public involvement to make Public Square successful for the next 200 years.
Architect Paul Volpe's sketch and the ideas of "influential voices" is enough to advance the cause for a redesigned Public Square, but alone lacks the public participation for the creation of a Cleveland "Public" Square that residents today and subsequent generations will be proud of.
In case you were wondering, there's no word so far from the local architecture critic.
posted by Bradley at 1:25 AM
1 Comments:
Good points...
I agree that Public Square "has never been quite right." Intersecting roadways made for interesting solutions for each of the quadrants, Soldiers and Sailors, Free Speech Steps, ponds, fountains and bridges, but Public Square has never adjusted the scale of its public space accordingly to the size of its City (instead we see the scale of its roadways change).
Also, until convinced otherwise, I still believe that the only good solution is some combination of tunneling and perimeter roadway... let a competition reinforce this or show me otherwise.
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