The Starchitect Sell-out

With Foster + Partner's Comcast Technology Center taking shape and Frank Gehry futzing around the Museum of Art, it's time to take a look at the way some of the world's most revered architects interact with Philadelphia when invited. For all our progress and growth over the last two decades, Philadelphia's reputation still sulks in the shadows of New York City's size and Washington, D.C.'s power, and it's evident in the quality of design world class architects bring to the drafting table when they're employed here. 

Frank Gehry's largest ambition for the Philadelphia Museum of Art - carving out the center of its Great Steps - has been nothing short of contentious. The stuffiest in the museum's art community have long wanted to rid the Great Steps of the droves of tourists who commemorate Rocky Balboa's many fictional runs, while fans of the many movies cite the tourism it drives and respect for the cinematic work of art that brings them there. But as architecture, surprisingly few mention the historic nature of the Great Steps themselves and what a precedent it sets to allow a modern architect to upset and reconfigure the work of the renowned and local architect, Horace Trumbauer. 

This speaks twofold. With Philadelphia's preservation crisis in full bloom and its task force already proven ineffectual not one year in the making, one of the nation's most historic cities doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on what's historic and how to protect it. Meanwhile, City Hall and those in charge of managing storied institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art are resigned to the notion that any movement is progress. To the powers that be, the fact that Frank Gehry is willing to work in Philadelphia, even with his astronomical tab, is a gift that we clearly don't think we deserve. 

Nearby cities aren't to solely blame for our reputation, unless you consider how we Philadelphians react to them. It's primarily on us, and the ingrained inferiority complex we can't seem to shake. Gehry has worked around the world in cities of varying size and prowess. Most of us have seen a few major American cities in our lifetimes, and I'd wager anyone who's traveled west would be willing to point out that there's nothing inherently better about downtown Los Angeles or Seattle. Quite the contrary. These are sprawling cities buried in cars with terrible public transportation. Yet in both, Frank Gehry delivered urban panache without damaging any historic institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

This inferiority is even more striking in Foster + Partner's Comcast Technology Center. Comcast isn't a company known for innovation (perhaps that's why the word was removed from the skyscraper's name), but it's one of the largest hometown companies and currently dominates the city's skyline. Yet its newest addition is dull at best, especially considering what the company that owns 30 Rockefeller Center should be capable of producing. 

To be fair, I suppose, the Comcast Technology Center isn't bad. It wouldn't look out of place in more architecturally savvy cities like London or Frankfurt. But compared to what's being built by companies of Comcast's stature around the world, it's far from unique, even among those designed by Norman Foster's firm. 

Its greatest offense is its relationship with the skyline. Technically the tallest, it doesn't relate at all with its surroundings. Its spire or "smokestack" pulls away from Center City instead of rising within it. It spans nearly the width of its block, uncharacteristic of Philadelphia's other skyscrapers occupying no more than a quarter of their block's footprint. These are likely logistical decisions given the building's entrance, but ones that demonstrate Foster + Partner's lack of consideration for their environment. 

Foster + Partner's job was to design a work of art that dynamically belongs in a gallery of its peers. Instead, he essentially hired Lady Gaga to sing in the Natural History Museum. It doesn't work...for anyone. 

And that says nothing of the materials. I guess we have the automotive industry to blame for our now-inability to distinguish between plastic and chrome. 

It's fine as a stand-alone skyscraper (even if it looks like a cubist vacuum cleaner), but it reads more geographically like a canned response to Comcast's business solicitation. A big company wanted a big name, little more. If anyone knows the masses will ignore the status quo when its forced upon them, it's Big Cable. And that's what its second tower is. 

Given its similarity to Foster's other skyscrapers and comparatively dated appearance, it wouldn't be surprising if it was a design study or an unused project Foster + Partners had lying around to divvy out to whatever nameless city "wanted a Foster." And that's a shame, because Philadelphia has numerous firms of our own doing even wilder things, if not on the same scale. Hometown companies and institutions like Comcast and the Philadelphia Museum of Art shouldn't be reaching around the globe for architects with no personal interest in our own city, but giving more motivated, and sometimes more astounding, firms a boost towards their potential. 

Imagine what Erdy-McHenry or Qb3 could have with the Comcast Technology Center. Instead of building something that looks like it could blend in Manhattan, Comcast could have given a local partner the opportunity to offer other cities like New York and San Francisco something they themselves don't yet have. That's the exact mentality that drove Philadelphia's 19th Century banks to offer the world the designs of America's first Starchitects: Frank Furness, Willis G. Hale, and Wilson Eyre. 

Since the last building boom, developers - even massive investors - have been trebidatious about dabbling in more than the status quo. We're no longer getting proposals for towers designed by Winka Dubbeldam and Richard Meier, even wacky mid-rises brought to us by the defunct CREI. Couple our nefarious inferiority complex with transplants from the cities that generate such a complex, those who view Center City as little more than a bedroom community, and we seem to continue to demand less and less of our city builders every day. 

Just south of Cesar Pelli's Cira Centre, which will undoubtedly be immortalized in future architecture history books, FMC's Cira Centre South was erected as the tallest building in West Philadelphia with very little fanfare, despite being categorically better than anything currently taking shape across the river. Pelli, a Starchitect in his own right, continues to evolve, as any artist should.

But today, the world's most famous architects, Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have built upon a reputation for doing really great work, and then capitalized on companies and cities that are willing to pay for little more than their name. They're sellouts, blueprint mills. Both have done amazing things in the past, and done their parts to redefine modern architecture. But there's no reason every new building they touch - even in Philadelphia - shouldn't be even more amazing than the last. 

Boredom and the Two Towers

When Sandy Smith at PhillyMag.com dubbed Cecil Baker a "starchitect," I was taken a bit back. Not necessarily because it was printed, Philadelphia Magazine loves touting our own. Rather because Sandy Smith is so well versed in Philadelphia's history, particularly our architectural heritage, that it seemed odd to pair Baker next to our revered starchitects of yesteryear: Frank Furness, Willis G. Hale, William Decker, Wilson Eyre, Samuel Sloan...you get the idea. 

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.

Frank Gehry: Under the Radar?

If you visit Making a Classic Modern, the Frank Gehry exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you'll discover that it's no more an art exhibit than a Hyundai kiosk at the Philadelphia Auto Show. 

Complete with an eager sales representative, a few pixelated photographs of Frank Gehry's work are paired with an enthusiastic guide who might as well be saying, "I want to put you in a Daytona time share unit today!"

Each photograph is accommodated by quotes from critics - notable academics who don't need to endure Frank Gehry's architecture on a daily basis - raving about the man's genius.

A streaming video shows a man who's been practicing his craft for far to long, and a man immune to criticism. Speaking about himself, he says, "What I like about it is you're going to pass by and you're not going to know Frank Gehry was there. I love that, I love being under the radar like that."

Aside from the smugness of a third person narrative, the absurdity of Gehry "being under the radar" is solidified in a gift shop dedicated solely to the man himself.

Gehry has managed to transform architecture into a marketing machine, a big box department store full of twelve dollar Kandinski prints that would look great hanging over your living room sofa. He's IKEA. 

He uses the same modern technology that creates Hollywood sets to allegedly create feats of modern artistry, but just like the Colonial Street backlot at Universal Studios, his buildings are hallow illusions. 

Whatever you think of Frank Gehry's most notable designs, he may do the most damage flying "under the radar." Instead of erecting one of his signature balls of foil along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Gehry will be toying with one of Philadelphia's most iconic landmarks, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and its Great Steps.

As you weave your way through Making a Classic Modern, no marketing gimmick can prove the man's genius. Displayed on the walls are various incarnations of his plans for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, juvenile experiments that cut the steps in half or simply ask, "how many skylights should I embed in the plaza?"

While his larger projects may be controversial in their own right, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the EMP Museum in Seattle are at least interesting to look at. But the plans displayed within Making a Classic Modern show a lack of skill when it comes to integrating interior and exterior spaces, especially when a space already exists. 

It's not surprising. His otherworldly exteriors are often met with unnecessarily claustrophobic interiors retrofitted to accommodate an aerodynamic skin. So we should expect the opposite to be true when he designs an interior that will find its way beyond the confines of a building's existing walls.

Unfortunately for Philadelphia, we aren't getting a Jetsonian building masking an anxiety inducing warehouse like his Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. His thoughtlessness will be exposed on the Great Steps of the Museum.

But Gehry's arrogance may be even more astounding than his inexplicable success as a starchitect. Even Lex Luthor knows who he is and his place in Metropolis. Frank Gehry, who had admittedly never been to Philadelphia until he was asked to remodel the museum, knows as little about our city as he does his own reputation. A fact made clear by a man who thinks that demolishing part of the Great Steps is "under the radar."

The Great Steps

I appreciate a good underdog story, particularly one that uses our city to demonstrate what a true underdog can become. And whether or not you like boxing movies, Sylvester Stallone, or worn nostalgia, Philadelphia has been that underdog for a very long time and we've just recently started to win.

There's a very real reason Rocky was set in Philadelphia. The city was chosen for Twelve Monkeys, Philadelphia, and Cold Case for the same reason. For so long Philadelphia was the bleak and downtrodden embodiment of something that was once great. More than that, Philadelphia continued to fight through its darkest days because it knew it could succeed.

So why now, that we're finally beginning to see the success enjoyed by New York and Chicago, are we so willing to allow one man to eradicate a pinnacle of absolute perfection, a light of stone that kept a struggling city alive throughout the Dark Ages of modern Americana?

Would you paint the White House blue?

Despite our place in Revolutionary history, Philadelphia was a smog ridden haven for crime, poverty, and corruption during our nation's Bicentennial. When Rocky Balboa ran up the Great Steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he wasn't just using a civic structure as gym equipment. He conquered seventy two daunting steps that led him to the one edifice that made Philadelphia a great city even in our worst hours. 

He turned back to the city below the Great Steps, a city faced with struggle and doubt from a point of unmolested innocence, overlooking a tarnished skyline desperate for what he had just proved he could achieve. The Philadelphia Museum of Art isn't just a museum that holds paintings. It's a Temple, in all its parts, to greatness and purity. You only need to climb its Steps to know that.

It was a symbolic feat shared by anyone who has ever visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art, even those long before Rocky was a household name, one that continues to be shared by today's visitors who know nothing of the movie.

But Frank Gehry's plans to carve out one sixth of the Great Steps for a picture window isn't about history. If it were, Horace Trumbauer's greatest work of art would be granted the same reverence as a historically designated row house in Society Hill.

This is pure pomp. The Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is coupling the hype of Gehry's mere presence with an aging and irrelevant connection to a forty year old movie to encourage people to embrace anything new, regardless of what it looks like.

Cinematic history aside, the Great Steps are as relevant to the building as the collection within. The banners flanking the columns of the museum call out the title of Frank Gehry's current exhibit: Making a Classic Modern. The title doesn't just insult the posterity of the building by implying historic architecture should be altered, it insults art itself, suggesting that the Mona Lisa might be better if part of it were painted over to include an iPhone.

Making a Classic Modern

Would we allow Starchitect Michael Graves to install his postmodern columns on City Hall simply because he's known throughout the world? 

The city pitched a fit when Conrad Brenner halfheartedly proposed a mural on the windowless wall behind the PSFS Building. A grassroots organization staved off the demolition of the Boyd Theater's auditorium for more than a few years and has expanded its efforts to save the historic NFL Film Exchange on North 13th Street, a simple building in a forgotten corner of Center City. 

In a city that is so vested in preserving every last crumb of our history, where is the fight to save the gateway to our most internationally recognized cultural institution? 

While Philadelphia holds an abundance of architectural history, preservationists tend to fight fights they think they can win. We fight to save historic row houses and theaters because we know that those financially vested in the demolition don't have the city's historic interest in mind. They have no respect for the bricks and mortar, just their potential profit. 

But they're also fightable. 

Frank Gehry

When it comes to institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we assume those in charge know better. Cultural institutions are not powerhouses of profit, they're repositories of posterity. But those managing the Philadelphia Museum of Art have been mesmerized by a Lord Voldemort, a Starchitect with the power and prominence to blind us from the fact that he doesn't understand our city.

Faced with a marketing campaign masquerading as an art exhibit, Philadelphians are not asked, "Could our city's artistic legacy be better served in a truly modern museum elsewhere on the Parkway?" Instead we're being told to tolerate what Frank Gehry wants to do to the history we already have.

I'm going to keep asking until the jackhammer hits the first Great Step.

Save the PMA