An Architectural Aside

Cheers and Jeers on the Pittsburgh architectural and urban design front this week:

First, a big Cheer for the folks at PennDOT for their work on the Boulevard of the Allies bridge project. One of the things that I liked about the old bridge (other than the thrill that it may collapse at any moment) were the four concrete eagle medallions that graced the corners of the bridge. It was a nice little neo-classical public art detail from back in the early part of the last century. The eagles, however, had suffered from the ravages of time, and it appeared that a little bit of decoration to the bridge would be lost.

The folks at PennDOT, thankfully, have installed new eagles on the bridge piers of an even greater scale, still echoing the grandness of the original. If you drive up from Forbes Avenue from the Parkway, you can see these colossal additions to the project. It's a great touch that brings a good shot of public art to an otherwise dreary public works project.

A big Jeer, however, to the folks at Walnut Capital for their "Walnut Place" project at the corner of Browns Hill Road and Old Browns Hill Road. The new development is frankly the same kind of strip mall abortion that we've seen everywhere in this country: devoid of any real attempt at good planning and subservient to the automobile. Now, usually this kind of development would be ignored, but considering that it will be located on the Homestead Grays Briged side entrance to Summerset at Frick Park (a development that the City has gotten great kudos on for its attempts in creating a new Urbanist Community), you would have thought that the folks at the Planning Commission would have advised them to build something a bit... uh... less like somebody vomited shit onto a set of blueprints.

(Now, I'm not saying that there's any connection that City Planning Commissioner Todd Reidbord also happens to be the part owner of Walnut Capital, but...)

So well done for advancing the cause of mediocrity, Todd, but a big jeer from us.