Thursday, March 13, 2003
GETTING IT RIGHT AT PENN PLAZA
A Magnificent Addition to the Philadelphia Skyline
I've sometimes joked that if you want something done right, do it yourself, but if you want something done wrong, take it to Philadelphia. That's an overstatement, of course, but there are days when I wonder. And there are advantages to living in a city that sometimes seems to take pride in its undeserved reputation for mediocrity, a city with a perpetual inferiority complex. The main advantage is that when something is done right, people notice.
And people will notice One Pennsylvania Plaza.
Not yet. It isn't finished. But as Harris M. Steinberg's early review of the plans, published in the latest edition of Philadelphia City Paper, "High Hopes," make perfectly clear, "Pennsylvania Plaza promises to be the finest addition to our city and skyline since the PSFS Building." [The PSFS Building was discussed at TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse last November, in "Philadelphia: Love It or Hate It."]
Steinberg writes:
Planned for the edge of Penn Center, Philadelphia's tepid imitation of Rockefeller Center, the smart people of Liberty Property Trusts through the clever and talented hands of architect Robert A. M. Stern and landscape architect Laurie Olin have crafted a building so finely conceived and so seamlessly integrated into the urban fabric that at first glance you wonder what all the fuss is about. Behind the tailored, Saville Row-quality of its Kasota stone exterior skin (the same golden-hued limestone used at the Philadelphia Museum of Art), this dapper piece of urbanism strikes all the right chords....
Liberty Property Trust is once again daring Philadelphia to be great. The company that in the 1980s defied the unwritten height limit of Billy Penn's hat -- unleashing a flurry of buildings that artfully scrape the sky, reinvigorating our urban identity -- now offers us a building of excellence that will quietly brush the clouds as it urges us onward. For this is a building that believes in Philadelphia's future as much as it is proud of our past.
With a nod to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in both its color and its abstracted classicism, One Pennsylvania Plaza grasps the significance of our rightful place in the history of American civic design while maintaining a keen eye toward the future. This is a building to be proud of.
What are you waiting for? Go ahead. Take a look. And then take another. And then have another.
[Note: This post was published earlier today, in a slightly different form, at TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse.]
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JAMES MARTIN CAPOZZOLA
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James Martin (Jim) Capozzola launched The Rittenhouse Review in April 2002, TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse, HorowitzWatch, and Smarter Andrew Sullivan in July 2002, and Bulldogs for Kerry-Edwards in October 2004. He is also a contributing member of President Boxer.
He received the 2002 Koufax Award for Best Post> for "Al Gore and the Alpha Girls" (published November 25, 2002). Capozzola's record in the Koufax Awards includes two additional nominations for 2002 (Best Blog and Best Writing), three nominations for 2003 (Best Blog, Best Series, and Best Writing), and two finalist nominations in 2004 (Best Blog and Best Writing).
Capozzola’s experience beyond the blogosphere includes a lengthy career in financial journalism, securities analysis, and investment research, and in freelance writing, editing, ghost-writing, and writing instruction.
He earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University at Albany and a master's in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.
Capozzola lives in Philadelphia with his bulldog, Mildred.
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