Buckhead’s Quandry: Good Buildings or Just Bigger Ones?
You would think that Real Estate developers would be a positive force in improving Atlanta architecture, but it just isn’t so.
Now, Ben Carter Properties wants to tear down the Buckhead Library and put up another condo tower. The problem is that the Buckhead library is internationally recognized as a great piece of post modern architecture. In fact, students and architecture fans have build fan sites about it. It’s a tourism generator! It’s Atlanta architecture that people want to visit and about which they want to write good things!
The library not only garners visitors, but it’s a pretty effective library. Staffers are able to administer it, find it’s recourses, and give people information. For a long time, it also have a great view of the city, making it an excellent contemplative space. That view has been substantially altered by a condo tower.
Now the developer, of course, promises that they will replace the library in their tower, but you know it would be as large or as effective. Moreover, it will simply be part of a larger complex. It will look a lot like another Carter Property, the Mall of Georgia.
Whether the library survives will say a lot about Atlanta. We have a history of destroying good architecture. Atlanta has long been the city to busy to preserve. In recent years, there has been a claim that we’ve become much more cosmopolitan.
Choosing to preserve the library will prove it. Choosing to tear it down, just means the power blonds still think that they can become cosmopolitan by drinking them.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
What bugs me most about the development in Buckhead is that there is no “community”. Each building is it’s own entity, existing in it’s own space. There are sidewalks, trees, beds of grass/flowers, but it’s not a cohesive unit. The buildings are closer than your typical urban sprawl, but still encourage the automobile over walking. It’s a good idea (live-work communities) that are very poorly implemented. The Sembler developments are the worst. The perimeter complex is atrocious, the design of the brookhaven project is just as bad, and I imagine that the Druid Hills plans will be poor as well.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Adam nails it. There is no cohesiveness to any area in Atlanta except for a few small examples (Little Five Points, downtown Decatur, parts of Virginia Highland). Sembler builds big box strip malls. The District at Howell Mill has a Wal-Mart in the parking deck and a bunch of big box store on top. I am not encouraged to spend any more time than it takes to find what I’m looking for at Wal-Mart and get the hell out of there.
Are there any zoning codes that can be changed? Atlantic Station is a great idea, terribly executed, as is Lindbergh City Center, as will be Brookhaven. How can the city mandate smarter design???
February 19th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
What Adam said…I still think the perimeter development should have been a ballpark and park combo…think “miniature piedmont park w/ baseball,” as served by bus and train stations.
As far as mandating smarter design goes…how does a government go about prohibiting gerrymanders?