More so, Cecil Baker was the expert consulting on the article's primary point: "How Philly Can Avoid a Skyline of Bland Boxy High-Rises." Yet Cecil Baker's most recent, notable contributions to Center City's skyline aren't exactly avant garde works of art. Comparable cities like Chicago and Miami have erected Zaha Hadid's skysrcapers, Milwaukee has a Santiago Calatrava, and Seattle's main library was designed by Rem Koolhaas. Sure, we've got Lord Norman Foster's CITC rising, a couple Cesar Pellis, and Frank Gehry futzing around the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But when it comes to in-house architects and local firms, Cecil Baker's reputation as a near-starchitect has more to do with his proliferation than it does any sort of signature style.
To his credit, Baker does give our daring architects their own due, noting Interface Studio, Erdy-McHenry, DIGSAU, Tim McDonald, MGA Partners, and Qb3, any of which might be better equipped to comment on the threat of potentially boring, mid-rise infill. Cecil Baker's latest standouts are fine buildings, and it might be unfair to call them "bland" or "boxy." One Riverside, despite the unfinished appearance of its roofline (I don't know why he didn't finish the top floor with glass), complements its surroundings much better than neighborhood groups had warned. Likewise, 500 Walnut, nearing completion, doesn't distract from its historic surroundings. In fact, the east wall angles away from Walnut Street deliberately to keep its presence in photos of Independence Hall to a minimum.
Both towers try to blend seamlessly into their backgrounds and surroundings. But that is exactly what keeps Cecil Baker from being a starchitect. 500 Walnut's neighboring buildings are far from unobtrusive. Next-door, a Brutalist tower flanks an Egyptian Revival facade. At the west end of the block, a classical office building flexes its marble muscle. None of these buildings, nor Independence Hall itself, are exercises in understatement. They're products of their eras designed to send a specific message, each a piece of the architectural anthropology of our city and nation.
What does Cecil Baker have to say?
Such diluted lack of panache is more excusable at One Riverside, along the Schuylkill Banks where neighbors demanded the built environment not encroach into recreational park space. But across from Independence Hall, long the site of commerce and construction, 500 Walnut's lack of prowess is distracting where it's designed to disappear into the sky. 500 Walnut makes its block look incomplete, unfinished, like the roofline of One Riverside.
This deliberate lack of presence is far from exclusive to Cecil Baker. In fact, it's become incredibly common. BLT's East Market is designed to pay homage to the famed PSFS Building across the street. While BLT breaks up the monotony of East Market's super-block by varying the designs of both towers and the renovated Family Court building, the southwest tower is set back atop a curved podium that reflects the PSFS Building itself. This respects and retains the views of the PSFS Building, and the curved wall's homage is commendable, but when concessions trend into how a design will be indefinitely perceived, we lose the sense of confidence that once dominated the field of architecture.
A stone's throw from Baker's 500 Walnut are I. M. Pei's Society Hill Towers. Now a star amongst meager planets, Pei boldly redefined Society Hill by starkly breaking from the neighborhood's recreated Colonial norm. To this day, Society Hill Towers are both adored and abhorred, but they generate conversation, even from passersby who don't care to know anything about architecture. That's why I. M. Pei is featured prominently in architectural textbooks. It's hard to imagine anything designed by Cecil Baker finding its way into the classroom, but it's not hard to imagine how unsatisfying Society Hill Towers would be had an architect like Baker been commissioned for I. M. Pei's project.
When Philadelphia Magazine set out to uncover how to avoid becoming a city of "Bland, Boxy High-Rises," Smith went to a firm building just that. That's not to say Baker has designed anything bad. He didn't design Symphony House. But at least at Symphony House, BLT made a statement with a classical design, unfortunately undermined with cheap materials and construction. At Symphony House, Carl Dranoff wasn't just building a tower to sell units, he and BLT were attempting to build a legacy. And that's the exact problem with market rate architects like Cecil Baker, at least where design is concerned. Like most projects today, their buildings are designed solely with profit in mind, and that means skirting the negative press of rogue artistry. They design buildings cram packed with amenities without risking too much visibility.
The most sellable design lands firmly in the status quo. If we want to avoid a skyline of "Bland, Boxy High-Rises," our most prolific architects need to dare to define something new, not just build what moves the most units. More importantly, we need developers willing to hire firms that do just that - firms like Erdy-McHenry and Qb3 - and not just firms that seem safe. The "Bland, Boxy" skyline will become the urban answer to cul de sacs full of McMansions if developers, and their consumers, aren't willing to embrace the truly avant garde, even the wacky.
Artistic innovation happens and new styles are being developed - in Manhattan, Dubai, Beijing, and London - but as Philadelphia becomes more of a bedroom community for out-priced New Yorkers and Washingtonians, our residents are looking at our skyline with less of a sense of pride and more pragmatism. That's boring. We gave architecture history Louis Kahn and Edmund Bacon. Are we winding down to a point of complacency, or are we waiting for the next homegrown starchitect to force us to demand more.
