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CITYSCAPE: An over-the-top alternative for the Ben Franklin Parkway
Renderings from the Department of Wishful Thinking.
CITYSCAPE: An over-the-top alternative for the Ben Franklin Parkway
Among the optimistic and outsize ideas floating around for the (soon-to-be-feeding-free) Ben Franklin Parkway and its environs, there's been a particular push recently for a rehabbed aboveground Reading Viaduct Park and a sprawling, underground trailway that would link Boathouse Row to Broad Street. Here's another proposal that hasn't, as yet, gained much traction: the Artway, a concept for an "elevated linear museum stretching from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the Convention Center."
Efforts to move the homeless off the Parkway aside, Herman DeJong, a local architect, sees the opening of the Barnes as the perfect time to focus on another vision for Philly's museum corridor. The plan: a $300 million, 40-foot-wide, gallery-lined walkway 15 feet above Pennsylvania Avenue, tucked in among the tree canopy. "There could be art shows, art galleries, museum, exhibits, craft shows, flower shows and would connect the art museum in the base at the Joan of Arc statue with a pedestrian walkway across five or six lanes of traffic, and then tie into the second floor of the Perelman building." In theory, he says, it could connect the Barnes, the Rodin, the PMA, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Free Library and Parkway hotels and condos. An underground parking lot for a few thousand cars would pay for the infrastructure and upkeep, and allow the Artway to work in tandem with the underground portion of the Reading Viaduct. It would be the second-longest building in the world and visible from space, with skylights and a green roof with open-air walkways.
DeJong, who worked with Philly archi-bigwigs Vincent Kling and Louis Kahn in the past, says he had a number of potential investors lined up to fully fund the project at one point. But, he also had one big strike against him. "[Center City District CEO] Paul Levy is not in favor of it. If Paul Levy wants to do sidewalk cafes along the Parkway that's his deal. My deal is to provide something that's totally new and needed and brings this city into the 22nd Century in no time. Gerry Lenfest likes the idea very much and was thinking about getting involved. But he said, 'You know, Herman, I'm 80 years old I'll never see this happening in my lifetime.' It's far, it's visionary."
Love this. It would be 10X the NY Highline!— Earl J
Comment removed.- Spend more money rehabbing the Divine Lorraine, the Beury Building, etc. and less time adding edifices to the Parkway.
Who will keep this elevated thing clean? How will its underside not become a 'hotel for the homeless?'
Geez, I just saw the new Barnes today; it's about as ugly as the old Youth Study Center.
Someone please rein in those rogue architects and planners.
--— markie205 - Finally, an idea worse than the subterranean park in the City Branch.— tsarstruck
- I don't see what the problem is with doing this. Cities are where different and unique things happen. If you want to keep your environment bland and shoot down anything that's "weird" or "crazy" then get out of Philadelphia and move to Iowa.— thegreengrass
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