Fort Worth Bad Design vs. Good Design Elsewhere

That's Fort Worth's Omni Convention Center Hotel on the left. I blogged about that building recently and how, in my opinion, it is one bad looking building, mostly due to all those huge, scaffold-looking balconies, cantilevered from the sides. Those balconies look dangerous. And ridiculous.

So, I was reading the Seattle P-I this morning. There was an article, the likes of which I have never seen in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that being a detailed architectural critique of some new buildings. I think it may be the absence of this type of critical analyses and watchful eyes that leads to such ridiculous looking buildings as the new Omni Hotel. And others that sort of blight what little there is of Fort Worth's skyline.

Just the opening paragraphs of the P-I article are telling in their contrast to what could appear in the Star-Telegram. For instance, the reference to "Nietzsche." The vast majority of the Star-Telegram's readers would not have the slightest clue as to who or what "Nietzsche" might be. And hence the dumbing down of that newspaper.

I'll copy the first two paragraphs of the P-I article, and follow that with another 2 paragraphs that talk about 2 new high-rises in Bellevue and their well done balconies that don't stick out like "diving boards." And following that 2 more paragraphs, including one referencing Dallas.

"Watching the dizzying phalanx of new high-rises sprouting in downtown Seattle and Bellevue, you'd assume they're all about economics -- betting on maximum return from minimum footprint on ground -- and you'd be mostly right. Nietzsche explained the rest: Architecture is the expression of human pride, our triumph over gravity, and the "oratory of power."

For too many of the towers prickling the Puget Sound sky, that oratory amounts to crude, stentorian bellowing. But developers and architects are learning from these city-killing disasters, and the early 21st century is shaping up as a happier time for skylines. The current crop of towers sports more interesting sculptural shapes, more color, better detailing, and sometimes a friendlier relationship to the person on the street. Favorable developments all."

I see at least 3 words in the above 2 paragraphs that could not be used in the Star-Telegram, due to that dumbing down problem.

And now 2 more paragraphs, with the second one referencing the building's balconies.

"The near-twin Bellevue Towers are the best pieces in the suburb's entire skyline, and the most sculpturally ambitious high-rise shapes in either city. The asymmetrical five-sided forms, skewed 22 degrees on axis from each other, guarantee they'll never look the same from any two viewpoints on the ground, and there is a wealth of intriguing pleats and tucks in their skins.

Those tucks don't just relieve visual monotony. They form partially enclosed residential balconies, a deft solution to one of the persistent problems in high-rise residential living. A balcony cantilevered off the side of a skyscraper can feel very much like a 400-foot-high diving board, which is why so many of them are deserted. These Bellevue balconies feel embraced and protected by the building."

And then in a paragraph about growth-drunk city councils we get a reference to Dallas.

"And there we arrive at the question of whether the expression of power has any relationship to quality of life. Developers don't bother themselves with such questions, and rarely do growth-drunk city councils. The Manhattanization of Seattle and the Dallasizing of Bellevue are good for the civic ego, and for the few who can buy these pieces of the sky to live in, but what else?"

With the article ending with a self-deprecating remark about Seattle, the type of self-aware type remark you'd never see in the Star-Telegram. In Fort Worth, instead, we tell ourselves, ours, is a uniquely wonderful city, that is the envy of other cities, nationwide. This is what is known as "Civic Delusion."

"That might have nipped this boom in the bud. Then again, it might have transformed Seattle into the uniquely wonderful city we keep telling ourselves it is."

Go here to read the entire article, "On Architecture: Four new high-rises stroke civic egos, with style," to read critiques of several new buildings in the Puget Sound zone. And if any of you reading this are Star-Telegram readers, have you ever read an article, in that paper, remotely approaching the quality of this one? And can you not see how having such critical eyes looking at what is built in a city can help a city avoid making mistakes, like what Fort Worth has had happen with that hideous Omni Hotel? No amount of Star-Telegram lipstick on a pig type propaganda is going to change the fact that the Omni Hotel is one very bad design.