Defending the Apparel Mart
Recently, Creative Loafing declared the Apparel Mart as one of the City’s worst eyesores. I completely disagree.
Yes, it’s huge. Yes, the public cannot see in and it’s not a friendly retail environment, but in this case, That’s The Point!
The Apparel Mart and the other marts are expressly NOT retail, they are wholesale. Form follows function. They are not for the public! They are for the buyers of stores. Access is highly limited! However, the Marts themselves do have pedestrian friendly access from Peachtree Street, MARTA, and the downtown hotels. Further, if you’ve actually ever been past security and inside the crescent atrium, you know it’s very beautiful indeed. Like a bottle of wine, the good stuff is on the inside, not the outside. John Portman has added design elements that are elegant and keep the block from being a cube. The stair cases, bridges, and other elements all contribute to making the building more visually interesting.
Another complaint is that there are blocks of loading docks. This is seen as unfriendly to pedestrians. However, there are not a lot of Williams street pedestrians. For large shows, hundreds of vehicles are all trying to simultaneously unload. Having large sections of loading docks makes it possible to unload scores of trucks simultaneously, rather than shutting down Williams street.
The Marts are a vital part of downtown. They draw hundreds of thousands of conventioneers each year, and because there is a lot of installation work, they also keep local workers busy. The location is right, the building is cool, and it uses its visual language to indicate its purpose. Sorry CL, you missed this one.
August 1st, 2004 at 9:25 pm
What’s an “eye soar?” Perhaps you meant “eyesore?”
(I know your heart’s in the right place, but it’s hard to believe your commentary is as informed as you wish it to be when it’s marred by this kind of spelling error.)
Anyway, by whose standards of urbanism are you attempting to defend Portman’s “radiant city” disaster? Duany? Jacobs? Massengale? Mumford?
(From the line of your commentary it seems there IS a right answer to this. I’d be curious if you know it.)
I completely disagree with your line of criticism, of course. Loading docks are fine and unfortunately necessary; but having them face Centennial Park is an unmitigated disaster. Portman should have been thinking further ahead. (And that’s just one side of the building.)
By the way, there are plenty of wholesale venues in NYC (midtown, mostly west side) that nonetheless have many interesting street-level features. If you want to build a featureless cube, there are plenty of lots in the suburbs with good highway access. Builders in the urban core must meet a higher standard.
August 2nd, 2004 at 10:41 am
[Reid, meet my friend Robert.
Robert, meet my friend Reid.]
Well, the pedestrian traffic argument may be chicken-and-egg — there aren’t many pedestrians because the area’s so pedestrian-unfriendly. If you read the end of The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, there’s a section about how Portman deliberately designed several of the downtown buildings to discourage pedestrian traffic.
August 2nd, 2004 at 12:35 pm
Robert: I hate to part company, but you can build a mart that still integrates well into an urban environment. Take this one as a case in point. The problem has nothing to do with the challenges Portman faced; the issue is that he copped out by not attempting to face them at all.
August 3rd, 2004 at 9:35 am
Greg — great example! I love that building. If Atlanta keeps sprawling and degenerating, I just might find myself in Chicago, awful winters and all. (Well, Oak Park probably, as the Loop isn’t the best spot for my 19-month-old. But Oak Park’s on the El and Metra lines.)
Jessica — do we know each other? (I do know a Jessica; wondering if that’s you.)
Btw, I went and read that CL piece — not much to disagree with there. If someone ever takes a well-deserved late night sledgehammer to that cement-block-column “art” next to Freedom Parkway I’m sure the cops will want to ask me a few questions!
August 3rd, 2004 at 9:41 am
By the way, the standards of urbanism you appeared to be using sounded a lot like Le Corbusier.
We have his ideas to “thank” for all the glass towers in parking lots* in clusters around I-285. Thank God the city fathers never let him deface Hausmann’s Paris. Unfortunately, we’re not so lucky.
*Le Corb’s grand vision consisted of towers set amidst parkland, surrounded by high speed motorways. (The closest you get to that ideal here is the “King and Queen” towers at 285 and 400, and they still suck urbanistically.) But, reality being what it is, you usually get a tower in a parking lot. Acres of asphalt, mmm hmm!
August 23rd, 2004 at 12:12 pm
Oh god…dont get me started on the Corb!
August 24th, 2004 at 3:17 am
This sort of hallucinatory urban babble is the reason bloggers are the literary Wal-Marts to the world. The Mart “cool”??? How do you follow that? Try blathering on next about how W is, deep down, really clever and sexy. aaaaagggghhhhhh…
October 1st, 2004 at 2:31 pm
Regarding the Apparel Mart and Portman’s apparent lack of vision in his placement of the structure’s loading docks: When the Apparel Mart was constructed in the early 1980’s, the loading dock area was the back of the building facing a rather depressing industrial district now occupied by Centennial Olympic Park. Techwood Drive was simply a conduit for vehicle traffic. No park, no sculptures, no fountains - nothing. Even the thought of Atlanta hosting an Olympics, which prompted the park’s construction, would have been considered a wild pipe dream when the Apparel Mart was built.
While the placement of the loading docks may not exactly harmonize with the adjacent park, let’s remember which one was there first. I should also point out that I find loading docks and people working in them far less repellent than the bums who insist on using nearby Woodruff Park as their campground.