Sterility-on-the-Clyde

Glasgow, Scotland experienced rapid growth in the 19th century due to its emergence as an industrial center. A major industry there was (and to a lesser extent today is) shipbuilding along the River Clyde. The Clyde also served as a shipping point for other goods produced in Glasgow. But that too has declined, sections of the river's banks becoming stretches of underused warehouses and other structures related to commerce. The result of this decline is the extensive urban renewal I witnessed in August.

As is usual elsewhere, this renewal has been in the form of stripping an area nearly bare of previous structures and replacing them with dull open spaces dotted with Modernist structures that are visually and scale-relatedly unwelcoming to human beings. They are either simple Modernist boxes or "dramatic" shapes that are presumably intended to be large-scale sculptures.

Here are some early morning photos I took while tracking down the location of the car rental firm I needed to get to the next day. From end-to-end, the distance from the first to the last structures shown is probably around half a mile (less than 1 kilometer).

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BBC Scotland building

Science Centre and IMAX building, plus a tower

How the BBC and Science Centre relate

Opposite direction: bridges and Scottish TV building

The Clyde Auditorium: locals call it "Armadillo"

The new stadium under construction near the Auditorium

I suppose all this is an improvement over decaying warehouses or whatever used to sit next to the Clyde, but I find it depressing. The real Glasgow lies a short distance north of the river and to me it's an enjoyable place to visit. If you ever travel to Scotland, give it a try.

Brickwork Moderne Odeon Cinema

In the 1930s the style was sometimes called Moderne, though now the term Art Deco is more likely to be used for the architecture of cinemas built in those days by the Odeon chain in Britain. I think Moderne is actually the better term because the style was comprised more of curved corners and streamline stripes or flutings than the geometry-inspired ornamentation typical of 1920s Deco.

The movie industry was one that skated through the Great Depression in good shape, even prospering. That was probably because people were willing to spend a small amount of money for an evening's entertainment even (especially?) in hard times in lieu of other spending. So theaters were built, and the Odeon organization decided to build theirs in the trendy architectural idiom of the day.

Below are examples of Odeon's 1930s cinemas.

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Harrogate

Waltham Forest

Birmingham

Colwyn Bay

Peckham

Chester

York
Odeon's cinemas in Chester and York differ a bit from the other cinemas shown because they were located in historic cities, places so old that they were Roman Legion bases. The most noticeable architectural concession is the use of brickwork rather than some other material as cladding.

York - August, 2012
Here is the York (former) Odeon as I saw it in August. For more information about the building's recent history including a three-year closing, see here and here

Evolving Airport Terminals

I'm pretty sure it has been happening at a large airport near you. That's because airports for larger metropolitan areas seem to be continually under reconstruction. For this post, I'm referring to the evolution of the airport terminal.

Not all that many years ago terminals had waiting areas and a few news stands and a limited, "captive" (contracted out to a single supplier) set of restaurants and snack bars. Those restaurants and snack bars seemingly invariably had overpriced goods.

Then cracks in the system appeared. The one that impressed me was the appearance of a McDonald's hamburger stand in the Minneapolis terminal maybe 20 or more years ago. Now, in America, I don't notice any more of those single-contractor operations for food services (news stands still seem to be another story). Better yet, in many airports, the price of a McDonald's burger or a cup of Starbucks coffee is the same as it is off-site.

Behold the contrast with 60 years ago. My example is Seattle-Tacoma International Airport showing old photos found on the Web and a few I took recently.

These are views of waiting areas in the years before major changes occurred. The top photo shows a waiting area near the departure gates and the lower photo shows the main lounge. There was a restaurant with a view of the airplanes that was situated on the second floor beyond the far end of the main lounge.

A few years ago, the central part of the terminal including the main lounge (already re-done a time or two since the photo above was taken), was extensively rebuilt. The photos below indicate the result.

That sign in the background is both fairly recent and seriously tacky. I'm not sure that "captive" passengers within the security zone need to be prompted to spend, because they're likely to do so anyway.

Where the main lounge was is now a food court.

There's also a huge window where aircraft can be observed. Some airport amenities don't change.

Architectural Theme, Victoria

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia province in Canada, is celebrating its 150th year. One might think that the much larger mainland city of Vancouver would be the capital, but it was late to the game, being incorporated in 1886.

Few decent-sized North American cities manage to maintain a consistent architectural theme, though downtown Santa Barbara's Spanish Colonial architecture comes to mind. Victoria doesn't have a consistent theme, but in recent years some large, new structures have picked up the chateau style of the city's famous Empress hotel. As the link indicates, the Empress was built by the Canadian Pacific transportation company, being opened in 1908 and expanded since then.

Two recent structures echoing the Empress' chateau theme are the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort and Spa and the Hotel Grand Pacific located nearby facing the Inner Harbour.

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This is the Empress. The original section is to the center-right.

Not a very good picture, as I was taking it from the ferry boat when leaving town. The Grand Pacific is the tall building on the right. The dome to the left is part of the Legislative (formerly Parliament) Building.

This is the Delta resort. A de Havilland Beaver aircraft and harbor taxi are in the foreground.

Farther west, in the Outer Harbour area is this condominium building whose name I can't seem to locate. It's architecture isn't chateau style, but I'm including it here because, while it's not traditional, I find it interesting to look at. A modernist purist critic would find it cluttered, but to me the clutter and variation in fenestration give the structure an oddly appealing sort of "organic-industrial" appearance.

World's Fair Symbol Structures

The fact that Seattle's Space Needle had reached its half-century mark prompted me to write this post. It also got me to thinking about world's fairs and structures that came to symbolize them, intentionally or not.

If you are interested in delving into those expositions, Wikipedia kindly provides two useful listings. Here is a list of fairs that includes important structures and other relevant items associated with them. And here is a list of BIE sanctioned expositions, the BIE being an international fair-sanctioning organization founded in the 1920s. Not all major fairs since them have had BIE approval, the most important instance being the New York World's Fair of 1964-65.

The idea of a structure intended to symbolize a fair is a fairly recent development, as these things go. First, consider first great fair in London in 1851. Joseph Paxton designed an iron and glass structure called the Crystal Palace that served as the fair's symbol by default: it was the fair's only structure.

For a while other fairs followed suit, but eventually became collections of pavilions, each focusing on a different country, industry or other theme. Architecturally, there might be a focus building such as the 1893 Chicago fair's Administration Building with its large dome situated at one end of a rectangular reflecting pool. Although that building was prominent, I'm not sure how symbolic it was given that the fair's overall appearance was a kind of mega-symbol.

Explicit symbol structures didn't come into play at top-level fairs until the end of the 1930s. Since then, other fairs have used them (or not) to varying degree of success. Let's take a look at the famous ones, plus a wannabe:

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Eiffel Tower (1889) in 1937
The Eiffel tower was erected for a 1889 exposition to mixed reviews. But it proved so popular that it now is the symbol for Paris itself. The photo above was taken at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne of 1937, best known to art junkies as the place Picasso's Guernica was first displayed. The Eiffel Tower probably wasn't the symbol of this fair: it just happened to be on the Champ-de-Mars, the largest chunk of unobstructed Paris land available for such events. Otherwise, the two dominant structures besides the tower are seen framing it in the photo. At the left is National Socialist Germany's pavilion and to the right is the pavilion of the Soviet Union, ideological antagonists until the countries signed a pact two years later that signaled the start of World War 2.

Palace of the Fine Arts - San Francisco, 1915
I'm not up to speed on the Panama Pacific International Exposition, so I'm not sure if the Palace of the Fine Arts was considered the fair's symbol at the time. But it soon came to be so loved by the public that it avoided destruction once the fair ended. It still stands today, having gone through at least one major restoration.

Trylon and Perisphere - New York, 1939
Now we come to structures intended to be symbolic from the outset. The Trylon, a three-side pyramid, stood 610 feet (190 meters) tall and had no function other than being somehow symbolic of the future. Its mate, the Perisphere, contained an exhibit.

Tower of the Sun - San Francisco Bay, 1939
The Golden Gate International Exposition was held on an island dredged from the bottom of San Francisco Bay that was intended to be used as an airport after the fair closed. The 400-foot tower was the fair's symbol. It seems that all such symbol-structures attract both fans and detractors. This book offers the following observation (p. 82): "As for the Tower of the Sun, the 400-foot campanile sticking up from the low horizon, hardly anyone could tolerate it." The anyones quoted included columnist Herb Caen and sculptors Beniamino Buffano and Ralph Stackpole. Contrarian me? I think it was just swell.

Unisphere - New York, 1964
Sitting where the Trylon and Perisphere once stood, the Unisphere arrived to symbolize New York's fair of the mid-1960s. I've always thought that the Unisphere was a triumph of cliché and imagination-failure. Regrettably, it still stands.

Atomium - Brussels, 1958
The Exposition Universelle et venti Internationale de Bruxelles had the Atomium as its symbolic centerpiece. It is supposed to represent a scaled-up atom, and people can actually climb through the thing. It, too, is still with us for some inexplicable reason. (Unlike the Unisphere's failing, I find the Atomium simply silly.)

Space Needle - Seattle, 1962
I end this rogue's gallery with the beloved Space Needle from Seattle's Century 21 fair. It can seem a little awkward if you view it from the wrong angle, but it's distinctive in a graceful way. Or, to put it another way, it coulda been a lot, lot worse.

Roadside Encounters: California, Winter 2012

I like to travel by car. I've driven in every state of the USA except Alaska. And I've driven in a number of countries in western Europe. (Though not in central or eastern Europe: I worry about encountering a "Danger, Bridge Out" sign written in languages I don't know such as Hungarian or the Slavic ones.) I even drove a jeep once in Korea many years ago when children played in the streets and much of the traffic was by oxcarts. But I let Sergeant Kim do all the driving after that because I was afraid I'd kill someone.

Car travel allows one to see a good deal of local detail while covering reasonably long distances in a day if need be. And it's usually easy to pull over to get a good look at something interesting.

Below are a few things I came across while traveling in California last winter.

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Senator Theatre, Chico, California
The Senator was built in 1928 when Art Deco or Moderne was the rage. Actually, the most Deco feature is the tower -- the roof is typical California tile and those arches at street level also hark more to Spanish Colonial than Deco.

1930s Packard - Chico, California
Not far away I noticed this late-1930s Packard with a nicely restored custom body. It is used by a nearby hotel.

City Hall - Nevada City, California
Nevada City is in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The city hall's Art Deco style is somewhat out of synch with the rest of the streetscape, yet charming to look at. The link suggests that it was a 1930s New Deal funded structure.

On side of shop, Malibu, California
Malibu is an affluent coastal strip city that's home to surfers and entertainment industry personalities. The sign shown above is probably meant to be humorous; well, that's the way I took it.

Century 21 Exposition: Civic Symbolism From 50 Years Ago

Fifty years ago this month Seattle's Century 21 Exposition opened for its six-month run. It attracted a lot of attention because it was the first world's fair hosted in the United States since 1940. The Wikipedia entry about the fair is here.

The theme of the fair had to do with science and the progress that might be expected by the turn of the century 38 years in the future. Because it was a small-scale fair, it lacked special pavilions funded by other countries. Most of the international and private corporate displays were in nondescript temporary structures, some of which were torn down once the fair ended.

There were three important specially built structures including the Space Needle. I'll elaborate on the Needle following the Gallery section below.

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Contemporary aerial view of fair
The Washington State Coliseum is the large building to the right. The Space Needle, whose top was painted orange in 1962, is near the center and the Science Pavilion is the cluster of white structures to the right of it and just above the Coliseum. Note that Seattle's 1962 skyline isn't very tall, the Space Needle being the highest structure in town.

Washington State Coliseum
A 1962 view of the Coliseum and a plaza where flags of the sates were displayed. It was later converted to a sports arena for basketball and ice hockey.

United States Science Pavilion
This is now the Pacific Science Center, an educational facility.

Space Needle as shown in a promotional rendering

San Antonio Tower of the Americas - 1968
A tower built for the HemisFair exposition.

Toronto CN Tower - 1976
Once the tallest self-supported structure in the world, it remains the highest in North America.

Space Needle and Seattle Skyline - recent
Seattle's Skyline has grown considerably over the last 50 years and the Space Needle is no longer the highest structure. However, it is located far enough from the central business district that it remains distinctive and not buried amongst office buildings and condominiums.

The Space Needle was inspired by a television tower in Stuttgart, Germany. Since 1962 a number of towers resembling that in Stuttgart have appeared, such as those in San Antonio and Toronto. Many of those towers were probably intended as symbols of their location.

I might be wrong, but my impression is that most or even all of those tall towers have come up short (pardon the expression) where being symbolic is concerned. And I think the problem is that those towers were designed by architects and engineers in nice, clean, functional ways that resulted in them seeming pretty similar to one another.

Towers that succeeded in symbolizing their city can be counted on the finger of one hand. Actually, two fingers are all that is needed, because in my opinion only Paris' Eiffel Tower and Seattle's Space Needle unmistakably define their cities in the eyes of the rest of the world.

But why? The answer, I believe, is because their structural shapes are as much decorative as functional, unlike the others that seem to be variations on the theme of a large post with an observation deck placed at or near the top. In the case of the Space Needle, what makes it distinctive is that it is supported by three legs, and that makes it awkward-appearing from many viewing angles. But without that awkwardness, it would be just another modernist tower.

Santa Barbara Biltmore: Inside Story

I sometimes wonder how many modernist hotels can be called lovable. Some are enjoyable because they function well or perhaps are in a really nice setting. But even though I might have fondness for them, I can't say I love them.

Certain older hotels are a different story, and it has to do with their architecture and interior decoration. One thing that was largely lost once modernism became the religion of architecture was a connection to deep levels of human psychology; pure geometric forms of glass and metal do not suggest comforting shelter to the extent traditional architecture does.

To illustrate the non-modernist side of this coin, consider the Santa Barbara Biltmore. Well, that's not its actual name: it is actually the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara. And it's not actually in Santa Barbara, but in Montecito, a ritzy town just east of there.

The hotel website is here and the Wikipedia entry here. As Wikipedia indicates, the hotel was renovated a few years ago with an eye to restoring the Spanish Colonial style building as reasonably as possible to its appearance at its 1927 opening.

Almost every time we drive into the Santa Barbara area, my wife insists that we stop by the Biltmore (most locals don't use the Four Seasons name), and I put up no resistance to the request.

Below are some photos I took of some of the the public areas during our latest visit.

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The guy you see is Yr Faithful Blogger, camera in firing position.

Here is a direct shot of the hallway shown in the mirror above. In the far distance is the check-in desk with a map mural behind it.

Through the lounge window is the main dining area. Originally it was a garden, but it was roofed over many years ago. The recent restoration resulted in changes to the dining area, but not reversion to garden status.

The same lounge from a different angle; the window to the dining area is at the right.

The two photos above show some of the objets d'art found in the lounge.

Objects at the end of the hall shown in the first photos. In the mirror can be glimpsed the concierge desk and a mural of early Santa Barbara.

Studebaker Avanti: Desert Dream

The image above is a publicity photo of the Studebaker Avanti that was publicly unveiled 26 April 1962 -- nearly 50 years ago. It was a styling sensation that has withstood time better than any other car of its era that I can think of offhand; aside from narrow tires and a comparatively vertical windshield, it does not seem out of place when compared to 2012 cars.

The Avanti was a crash project initiated by Sherwood Egbert, the latest of a series of presidents attempting to save the dying Studebaker firm. Egbert asked famed industrial designer Raymond Loewy (1893-1986), who formerly was responsible for Studebaker styling, to take on the project. In turn, Loewy brought in Tom Kellogg, Bob Andrews and John Ebstein to do the design work under his general direction. Andrews was a veteran who used to work at Hudson and Kellogg's experience was as a student at the Art Center School. Ebstein was a long-time Loewy employee who handled day-to-day administration.

Rather than setting up shop in a Loewy office, the team was sent to Loewy's retreat in Palm Desert, California so that they could focus on the task and come up with a design within the span of a few weeks.

I have seen photos of Loewy's house which was designed by the expatriate Swiss modernist Albert Frey (1903-88). Frey was responsible for many of the early modernist structures built in the Palm Springs area in the years immediately following World War 2. Those photos were mostly taken when the house was new and plenty of desert land could be seen in the background. Nowadays Palm Springs is pretty well built up and growth is taking place farther down the valley. So up until the day before I drafted this post, I wondered where the Loewy house was. Then I bought a book about Frey that contained a sketch map indicated the locations and street numbers for some of his projects. And voila! -- on it was the information I needed. So I groped around northwest Palm Springs until I found it, stopping only to take a snapshot of it from the side window of my car.

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The Loewy House as seen from the pool

The Loewy House, showing his wife, daughter and Raymond Loewy; note the desert backdrop

The photo I took
Loewy's lot was pretty large, but the neighborhood looks to have been in place for a long time and contains plenty of vegetation. So I wonder if the property had been subdivided and whether much of the original views have been retained aside from those of the nearby mountains.