Who and what was Dilworth and why is he less remembered than Rizzo? Less revered than Rizzo? How and why did Etting, a second or third-rate artist, feel the need to memorialize him? What does all this say about Philadelphia and being a Philadelphian? Isn’t Philadelphia a second or third-rate city by international standards? And yet, isn’t it home to development of one of the greatest ideas? An idea that is part of the current political and military landscape today: revolts in Egypt? Libya? You’ve made me think that being a Philadelphian is far greater than the sum of its parts…yes, architecture and history and art have passed away, but Philadelphia is still here. But in your latest entry, you throw out a personal observation that, I think, is at the heart of your Phoenix Rising argument, if not at the heart of your sensibilities: “ was created by a Philadelphian for a Philadelphian.” There is the crux of the value and vision the fact that the commission is making decisions and plans, whether or not public art is really art, whether or not public art is anything more than decoration, all those questions may be fodder for an art-class paper, but at the heart of your story is “created by a Philadelphian for a Philadelphia.” What the hell does that mean? What does it mean to be a Philadelphian rather than a Parisian or Londoner or New Yorker? Not just in the current sense of the idiots who threw things at Santa at an Eagles game, or the Phillies fan who threw up on other fans last year, what does it mean to be a Philadelphian? Your blog makes a number of quick assertions about the planning commission, about the plaza, about the sculpture, etc, that I find myself wondering about the last sentence while reading the next…I think it is the “diary” nature of the blog.
The few blogs I’ve read seem to share the same flaw/habit: they are so personal and presumptive as to be confusing. Your blog gets at many issues, perhaps too many, and that is part of why I didn’t respond earlier. Cira Centre, as Pelli stated, is tied to the history of the city, to the people, to the culture, and to the climate.Īpologies for the long delay in response to your original email, following our chance meeting. Similar to Serra's Tilted Arc, if Cira Centre was ever removed, it would lose all meaning.
It is not an International design that can be removed from Philadelphia and dropped in another city and remain effective. Cira Centre does not scream, "I, I, I" but rather, "We, We, We." It is a building for a city and not an architect's nod to architecture. Cira Centre, unlike the horrific Liberty Towers and the other downtown skyscrapers, sits quietly on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, just outside William Penn's and Thomas Holme's original plan for the city. The fact that Cira Centre is so far removed from the downtown area and stands only 435 feet tall (over 100 feet shorter than City Hall) makes viewing the building difficult unless you walk toward it. That it made the building more interesting or more prominent. That my obsession with filming it had somehow left a mark. I was told that part of that had to do with my years of attempting to cinematize the structure. For the newer, more modern, both said Pelli's Cira Centre.
My wife chose Horace Trumbauer's Philadelphia Museum of Art as her old structure while my friend chose William Strickland's Merchant's Exchange for his. The other night I asked my wife and my closest friend what their two favorite buildings are in the city.
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