Two of the fascinating architectural trends we have featured on PSFK this year have been Aerotropolis – a city designed around an airport – and Monumentism – the rise of bold, striking buildings in our city landscape. The New York Times Magazine has picked up these ideas and published them in their Ideas for 2006 special edition.
On Aerotropolis, Stepehn Mihm for the Times fails to see the bigger picture and just sees airports as they currently are:
In September, Bangkok witnessed the opening of the Suvarnabhumi Airport, which when finally completed will include virtually all the components of a major metropolis: shopping malls, office buildings, hotels, hospitals, an international business center, conference and exhibition spaces, warehouses and even a residential community. Traditionally, of course, airports have served cities, but in the past few years airports have started to become cities unto themselves, giving rise to a new urban form: the aerotropolis.
In terms of Monumentism, the NY Times writes about ‘Big Urbanism’:
Cities are once again planning with grandiosity. This year witnessed the return of what you might call big urbanism, with large-scale redevelopment projects sprouting nationwide. In the summer, the New York City Planning Commission approved the controversial $4.2 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project, which only a few years prior was widely dismissed as impossibly overscaled… These projects represent a new confidence among designers, as well as developers and public officials, in reshaping the American city.
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FYI:
The “New York City Planning Commission” never “approved the controversial $4.2 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project,” as was reported in the New York Times Magazine. The project was taken over by the State of NY with the Empire State Development Corporation as the lead agency. No city agency or legislative body will have any say on the multitude of zoning overrides required to build this project.
This erroneous info may have been perpetrated by the Times itself when it reported in September, 2006 that the developer responded to City Planning recommendations to scale the project back. However, a memo subsequently acquired and released by local blogger Norman Oder shows that this “scaleback” was presented by the developer to City Planning as one of a few options way back in January, 2006.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:11 pm