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PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: Triangle Redevelopment Plan
Before the Philadelphia River City and the Century 21 Complex, there was the Triangle Redevelopment Plan by none other than the most ass-kissed starchitect that ever lived, Philly native Louis Kahn!
PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: Triangle Redevelopment Plan
A weekly series of foul-mouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other design phenomena in Philadelphia. Find more stories like this at Philaphilia.blogspot.com.
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Hey, it was the 40's. Image by the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project. |
Bounded by the Ben Franklin Parkway, Pennsylvania Boulevard (JFK Blvd) and the Schuylkill River -- Before the Philadelphia River City and the Century 21 Complex, there was the Triangle Redevelopment Plan by none other than the most ass-kissed starchitect that ever lived, Philly native Louis Kahn! This is yet another Dead-Ass Proposal for the area north of Market near the Schuylkill -- that place must be cursed or something.
Among all the proposals for this neighborhood, this one had the highest possibility of happening. Post-WWII Center City Philadelphia was a big lump of clay that could have been molded into any possible configuration. Most of the city's residential population was on the move toward the Airlite-style rowhouses being built in the "Great" Northeast; Center City's Victorian-era buildings and infrastructure were dirty, outdated and falling apart. There was no such thing as NIMBYs and no one cared about historic preservation.
The possibilities for what could be done with the city's decaying downtown were endless -- the thought of modernizing Philadelphia made architects' balls sweat all over the world. Louis Kahn was extremely jazzed about the idea and made all kinds of goofy plans for every section of Center City. Back then, the westernmost Center City section of Market Street was even more barren than it is today. The Pennsylvania Railroad Viaduct, a.k.a. "Chinese Wall," arguably the biggest piece of blight to ever exist, was set for demolition. The Logan Square neighborhood to the north consisted of abandoned industrial buildings and scattered beat-up rowhouses.
In 1945, Kahn teamed up with his buddy Oscar Storonov to come up with a massive plan for what they called "the Triangle," the area south of the Parkway and north of Market Street. It's a well-known fact that Kahn loved triangles and became excited any time he had the chance to plan within a triangular space. His goal was to create large monumental spaces within the city, and this would be one of them.
To Kahn, this meant different sets of identical mid-rise buildings set far apart with parks and concrete plazas in between. Automobile access was a big issue at the time, so the roads between the structures would have to be wide as fuck. The pair of architects would work on this plan on and off over a three-year period. The idea seemed to constantly change, so no single rendering really says it all.
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One of the configurations. |
The plan included a large residential section toward the west side of the Triangle that Kahn called the "Intown Living Center" and an office park on the east side near City Hall that he called "Philadelphia's New Business Address." The office section of it was a primordial version of what would become Bacon and Kling's Penn Center. Between the two primary sections, in the area below Logan Square, was an "Amusement Center" and a "Civic Center." Kahn assumed that cultural institutions throughout the city would be happy to relocate there ... imagine the Academy of Music in a concrete box.
When the 1947 Better Philadelphia Exhibition came along, Kahn and Storonov's Triangle Redevelopment Plan was included on the gigantic model of 1982 Philadelphia that was the show's centerpiece. At the same time, Ed Bacon was working on his NORTH Triangle Redevelopment Plan in the area between Vine Street and the Parkway that would become the unfortunate Park Towne Place development in the late '50s.
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Ed Bacon with the model. "More concrete right there!!" |
This proposal ending up dying due to several different factors. First, even though Ed Bacon worked with Kahn and Storonov on the Better Philadelphia Exhibition, he wasn't much into Kahn's wack-ass ideas ... not just this one but his Market East, Midtown and traffic plans as well. Since Bacon became the big dog in charge of Philly's planning, Kahn's shit wasn't happening. Second, all that crazy big-time planning in the '40s and '50s was based on the assumption that the city's then-population of two million was growing. A sudden population drop from the '60s onward put a wrench in a lot of those big plans. Third, there was a shitload of different plans for Center City floating around at the time, and most of them were considered possible. There's even one that has a three-level elevated highway/parking garage superstructure running the entire length of Sansom Street. The Triangle Redevelopment Plan was just one in a big mix.
All these years later, what used to be called the Triangle is now the Logan Square neighborhood. Kahn's idea that the area should be filled with residences more or less came to fruition, but in a much different (and better) form. It's probably a good thing that Kahn's vision of this gigantic project was never built. By the time it finally got done, it would probably be made of concrete and look like absolute shit today. The mid-20th-Century urban ideal hasn't really stood up to the test of time. Ask Brasilia.
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Here, have another rendering. Image from the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project. |
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