Plaza at Mies van der Rohe's American Life Building
Plaza at Mies van der Rohe’s American Life Building. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
“It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.“—William H. Whyte
Ever wonder why the plaza in front of the American Life building is always desolate while the plaza at the National City Tower (Fifth and Market) often teems with life? William H. Whyte knows. Whyte was a journalist, sociologist, and people-watcher whose study of the way we interact in urban spaces left an important mark on how we view the city. (I mentioned him earlier when he appeared on a list of noted urban thinkers.)
Crowds at the Nulu Festival (Photo courtesy tipster)
I really just wanted to share this photo that landed in the Broken Sidewalk inbox over the weekend. It has a certain energy that’s pretty nice. Here are also some links to coverage of the Nulu East Market Festival with photos from local bloggers. Nulu is quickly becoming one of Louisville’s premier neighborhoods.
Backseat Sandbar captured some great photos of the musical lineup before the rain set in including The Instruction and Ben Sollee.
And here’s a YouTube video of Ben Sollee playing Change Is Gonna Come at the Nulu Festival.
My Loueyville has all the info on the days events and spectacles from the perspective of a t-shirt stand volunteer.
Metromix captured the faces of the crowd who seemed to be enjoying themselves.
If you know of any other coverage, post it in the comments.
As always, please feel free to submit what you see or hear around town and I’ll try to get it posted on Broken Sidewalk. Send tips, rumors, photos, you name it, to tips@brokensidewalk.com.
There’s no stumping you all. Well done Jeff Noble and John for another correctly identified sidewalk photo. Tuesday’s photo was taken on Douglass Boulevard at Eleanor Avenue, which incidentally has no sidewalks, in the Highlands-Douglass neighborhood. Here’s a new sidewalk photo ready for your enjoyment.
Frazier Museum looks to fill gap on West Main Street
Tucked in at the end of a C-J article about the Frazier International History Museum‘s recent Fontaine Ferry exhibit were hints about the museum’s future expansion. I recently spoke with Krista McHone at the museum to discern what might be coming to a 19-foot-wide missing tooth on West Main Street.
Frazier Museum to fill gap on West Main Street. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
Plans for the museum expansion are in their earliest conceptual phases and a feasibility study has yet to be completed, but the Frazier International History Museum is optimistic that the project will move ahead as the institution becomes more established as a center for history.
The property that will house the addition is a vacant parcel directly east of the museum that McHone described as a sort of service alley for parking cars. Because the row building that once filled the space was demolished years ago, the museum expects more leeway with regard to the expansion’s design and layout that will allow it to more fully fulfill the museum’s mission. Renderings of the expansion will emerge when plans have further evolved.
Programmatic elements include educational spaces and classrooms, a library and seminar rooms, and a shop to repair historic artifacts. Once complete, the addition will help create a seamless urban edge along West Main Street currently marred by the missing row building.
Based upon evidence on the site, the now demolished row warehouse likely had a similar appearance to a stretch of near-identical structures directly to the east. A limestone facade can be seen chipped away that might have extended all the way to the Frazier Museum. The last remnant of the former building can be found in an arch topped by three windowless apertures at mid-block visible when standing at a distance.
Although the project won’t be moving forward immediately, the Frazier Museum’s plans mark an exciting point in the evolution of West Main Street as the street’s last missing teeth are filled in. It’s especially heartening that such a difficult, narrow space can find an infill project that will benefit one of Louisville’s great institutions on Museum Row.
Hicks House on Dixie Highway (Photo courtesy a pretty pickle)
Earlier this year, interest was piqued on the blogosphere after a mystery house just off Dixie Highway was discovered by a pretty pickle who noted the quiet serenity of its extensive grounds. The detective instincts of bloggers everywhere led by The Valley Report kicked in and in no time we learned all about the Hicks House.
Recently, The Valley Report broke news that the newly re-discovered house is set to burn during a training exercise for the Pleasure Ridge Park Fire Department. Â I checked in with the fire department to look for a few more details, but few are available. There is no date for the controlled burn and no word on the future use of the property.
Here’s what we do know about 8601 Dixie Highway, the former home of Dr. Hicks who practiced medicine at 28th and Madison Street many years ago. The original property was once much larger, with more than 150 acres and several houses. Strip mall and fast food development along Dixie Highway has slowly whittled away at the property. Above the Hicks House is a more modern brick house build by Dr. Hicks’ son who also happened to build the “Jesus Saves” sign on Dixie Highway. The house is believed to date to the 1920s when it was a stopping point for travelers heading south on a two lane gravel road we now call the Wide, Wide, Dixie Highway.
The Valley Report has uncovered many more details about the house (and some more photos) and you can check them out here and here and here and here.
As we continue to grapple with the changing notions of the city and what it means to be urban, it’s also important to take a look back at the iconic figures who have shaped these views throughout the 20th century and beyond. Earlier this month, Planetizen released its list of the top 100 urban thinkers based on an informal poll of its readership. Most of the big names are there and most had a substantial impact on the built environment, our views about it, and even how Louisville evolved over time.
Here’s a rundown of a few of the urban visionaries who, either directly or indirectly and for better or worse, have some sort of connection to Louisville’s built environment. One massive oversight we spotted was the omission of Louisville’s native urban pioneer and recent Athena Medal recipient Grady Clay. Clay has done a great deal to advance urban issues in Louisville and abroad and even coined the term “new urbanism” decades before the Charter of the New Urbanism.
[ 1 ] Jane Jacobs – We’ve mentioned Jane before for including Louisville in her epic bookDeath and Life of Great American Cities (thanks to the help of Grady Clay). She was also an early pioneer in grassroots opposition to urban renewal and highway building campaigns.
[ 2 ] Andres Duany – Duany is a prominent New Urbanist and one of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism. He designed prominent towns such as Seaside, Florida and Kentlands, Maryland in addition to Norton Commons here in Louisville.
[ 4 ] Frederick Law Olmsted – Olmsted’s impact on Louisville is undeniable and goes without stating. The Father of Landscape Architecture designed many parks and parkways here along with Central Park in New York City and his masterpiece Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
[ 6 ] Daniel Burnham – Planner of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, a fair credited with bringing neo-classicism to prominence. Burnham also designed the Starks Building on Fourth Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard.
[ 24 ] Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk – Founding partner in Duany-Plater-Zyberk with her husband Andres Duany and influential New Urbanist whose firm designed Norton Commons.
[ 31 ] Bruce Katz – Proponent of regionalism and an urban thinker at the Brookings Institution who frequently studies Louisville and offers advice on policy for the city.
[ 36 ] Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. – Olmsted’s son who took over the family landscape architecture practice and continued to design many parks and landscapes throughout Louisville.
[ 48 ] Thomas Jefferson – The third president also had a keen interest in architecture and planning. He designed a city plan for Jeffersonville, but the plan incorporating diamond-shape blocks with parks at each intersection was never adopted.
[ 54 ] Frank Lloyd Wright – prominent American architect whose urban ideal was Broadacre City, a low-density pattern that closely resembles contemporary suburbs. Wright’s protege and son-in-law William Wesley Peters designed the Kaden Tower near Dutchman’s Lane based on plans by Wright.
[ 63 ] Wendell Berry – Little introduction needed for the famous Kentucky writer who espoused the virtues of local economies, sense of community, and connection to place among other things.
[ 65 ] Rem Koolhaas – Dutch architect and founder of Office for Metropolitan Architecture. OMA was the firm commissioned to design Museum Plaza before the New York office split and came under the direction of Joshua Prince-Ramus.
[ 66 ] John Gilderbloom – Professor at U of L’s graduate program in Urban & Public Affairs and director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods. Author of Promise and Betrayal on how U of L has helped to revitalize the Russell neighborhood in Louisville.
[ 67 ] Walter Kulash – Transportation engineer who is a pioneer in livable traffic design for walkable communities and forefront engineer for traffic calming street design. Kulash was responsible for the feasibility study for the 8664.org campaign that showed how an urban boulevard could handle traffic in Louisville.
[ 68 ] Donovan Rypkema – A principal at a real-estate and economic development consulting firm in Washington DC, Rypkema is a strong proponent of the economic value of historic preservation as a means to improve local economy and sustainability. He frequently lectures in Louisville on such topics.
[ 98 ] John Norquist – Former mayor of Milwaukee who successfully removed a portion of elevated highway from that city. Currently, Norquist is the president of the Congress of the New Urbanism and has spoken at several events organized by the 8664.org campaign in Louisville.
If you’re interested in reading up on some other great urbanists, here are a few of my recommendations from the Planetizen list that are worth checking out:
Christopher Alexander – A Pattern Language and A Timeless Way of Building
Kevin A. Lynch – The Image of the City
Lewis Mumford – The City in History
Leon Krier – prominent, though largely theoretical, New Urbanist. Anything you can find is worth looking at.
William H. Whyte – Social Life of Small Urban Places and City: Rediscovering the Center
Camillo Sitte – City Planning According to Artistic Principles
Janette Sadik-Khan – New York Transportation Commissioner responsible for creating innovative bike and pedestrian infrastructure in the city. Read more from Forbes.
Interactive 'Sniff' display while in New York (Courtesy The Green Building)
If you’re wandering along East Market Street this fall, don’t be surprised if you are approached by an especially watchful dog. Now through October 30, a public art display by Brooklyn-based artist Karolina Sobecka called Sniff will interact with your every move at 804 East Market Street (that’s on the old Wayside block). The installation is visible beginning after dark.
Sniff is a computer generated 3D-image of a dog that dynamically changes his behavior as viewers move in front of his window. The installation uses a video tracking system combined with a game engine to discern the position of the viewer and is capable of simple gesture recognition. Sniff interprets small movements, like extending your hand slowly in its direction, as a friendly move and big gestures, perhaps jumping up and down, as aggressive or threatening. Amazingly, the dog keeps track of the viewers’ attitudes to form a relationship based on their interaction history.
“It’s always interesting how every community engages in their own way with interactive public works”, said Sobecka. “Louisville is so open to new ways of engaging with art, as well as being famously hospitable and friendly, that I’m really looking forward to Sniff finding its place in it. I hope he will make some friends, provoke some interesting conversations, and perhaps inspire some reflections on the nature of engagement and on the process of intuiting someone else’s desires and intentions from their behavior.”
The project debuted at the Nulu Festival last weekend when Karolina Sobecka was in town for the IdeaFestival and the Nulu Festival. The installation had previously been on display in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn as part of a festival celebrating interactive street art. There’s a video after the click that you’ll surely not want to miss, or better yet, head down to East Market Street this evening.
It’s been a whole week since our last sidewalk photo, which was, of course, correctly identified by keen readers Ken Wilson and John as Sherrin Avenue near Shelbyville Road across from Trinity High School in St. Matthews. Here’s a new photo ready for guesses in the comments, and I promise to try to keep the gaps in between much less than a week in the future. And look how the news piles up…
A preservation group in New Albany recently announced their intentions to keep one of America’s best collections of historic fire fighting equipment in New Albany. The Friends of the New Albany Fire Museum have launched a $2 million fundraising campaign to purchase the fire fighting collection and display it in downtown New Albany.
The group is considering three locations for the museum including the Shrader Stables on Main Street, a former Frisch’s Restaurant on Spring Street, and the old Baptist Tabernacle building on Fourth Street. While any of these locations could benefit the museum and New Albany, I believe one choice stands out as a prime contender: the Baptist Tabernacle.
First among my reasons why the Baptist Tabernacle building would make an excellent home to a Fire Museum is its location directly across the street from a major downtown fire station. What could be better than a fire fighting museum with a fire station next door? The building is also historic and in need of repair after Hurricane Ike ripped off the structure’s roof in Windstorm 2008.
Built between 1878 and 1880, the simple brick neoclassical structure once housed the merged congregations of the First Baptist Church and the Bank Street Baptist Church. The City of New Albany purchased the building in March of 2008 and proposals linger to convert the structure into a City Hall. The purchase could very well have saved the structure as the loss of a roof might have otherwise been cause to demolish the Tabernacle, but New Albany plans to preserve the structure. The City had hoped to restore the roof with disaster funds from the storm.
Judging from an interior view, an historic photograph, and details on the exterior, the second floor of the Baptist Tabernacle was likely added later as large vertical windows have been removed and bricked up to leave only small square apertures. Brickwork on the interior also reveals where a balcony could have potentially been located at one time. Before the Windstorm, the interior was in need of work but an ornate ceiling was still visible. I’m not sure what the interior looks like now that the building has been without a roof for a year. (Anyone know the history?)
Imagine, though, if a set of grand, wooden double doors were restored to the central entrance, evoking the doors to an old fire house while still referencing the original architecture. Inside, a massive vaulted space would house historic fire trucks dating to 1756 and artifacts lining the perimeter and potentially an open mezzanine. In a bittersweet stroke of nature, the loss of the roof could assist in converting the building into a museum as it could allow more flexibility with the renovations.
What do you think about the New Albany Fire Museum and its potential location? Your opinions in the comments.
Old Baptist Tabernacle Building in New Albany
Old Baptist Tabernacle Building in New Albany
Old Baptist Tabernacle Building in New Albany
Old Baptist Tabernacle Building in New Albany
Old Baptist Tabernacle Building in New Albany
Old Baptist Tabernacle Building in New Albany
Baptist Tabernacle before Windstorm 2008 (via flickr / Tabitha (^_^))
Inside the Baptist Tabernacle before Windstorm 2008 (via flickr / Tabitha (^_^))
