{"id":1019,"date":"2012-01-28T16:33:22","date_gmt":"2012-01-28T23:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2012-01-29T12:56:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T19:56:49","slug":"when-efforts-at-urban-branding-come-to-less-rather-than-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1019","title":{"rendered":"When Urban “Branding” Amounts to Less Rather than More"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten days ago\u00a0The Denver Post<\/em> contained a story<\/a> by Ray Mark Rinaldi reporting on the modified plan for a new hotel and transit hub at Denver International \u00a0Airport \u00a0that has taken shape in the wake of the airport\u2019s breakup<\/a>\u00a0with Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.\u00a0 Earlier negotiations<\/a> with Calatrava determined that DIA could keep his basic plan but not the \u201ctouches that define his work.\u201d\u00a0 Thus, the \u00a0modified design, as described by Mr. Rinaldi, \u00a0is “more of a box than the bird Calatrava envisioned”, and “dominated by clear glass rather than white steel.” Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown\u2014a critic of the selection of Caltrava as lead architect\u2014was quoted<\/a> as saying he likes the modified design even better than Calatrava\u2019s original design, which ended up costing the city about $13 million. When asked about whether this money was wasted, DIA Manager Kim Day answered<\/a>:<\/p>\n

No, we absolutely did not waste money. [Calatrava] started this off, developed a great concept for us\u2026 When we lost him, the architects removed the signature architectural elements\u2014strong, white elements on top of the hotel that held up the canopy over the train. If you look through an architectural book on Calatrava work, almost everything has these strong white elements\u2014those are gone. As a result, our project is light and airy and simpler…”\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Modified design, left and Calatrava original, right. Existing "tepee-ed" Jeppesen Terminal is behind (The Denver Post)<\/p><\/div>\n

One wonders why DIA would engage Calatrava in the first place if his signature elements were viewed as redundant and his previous work predictive of an overall design that would be too complex and insufficiently \u201clight and airy.\u201d\u00a0 Plus, it seems to me that if any aspect of Calatrava\u2019s work would have been capable of knitting the hotel and transit hub into the existing Jeppesen Terminal<\/a> it\u2019s precisely these signature \u201cbony\u201d white elements. Instead, we now have webs of steel and what Rinaldi describes as \u201cmuscular\u201d 14-story walls of glass (which doesn’t exactly square with the “light and airy” characterization offered by Day).\u00a0 So the question of wasted money remains, along with the question of whether both Brown and Day are engaging in a little face-saving.\u00a0 Today\u2019s Denver Post<\/em> contains a very nice letter<\/a> from Dean Toda that cuts to the heart of the matter for many Denverites:<\/p>\n

I had to laugh at Ray Mark Rinaldi\u2019s assertion that the proposed redesign for a hotel at the Denver International Airport terminal \u201cfits in with design of DIA.\u201d Really, the only thing that could fit in with the current Jeppesen Terminal would be something that effectively imitates it, or something that lies low and doesn\u2019t interfere with the terminal\u2019s magnificent silhouette. Instead, the redesign, like the Santiago Calatrava original, blocks our view of the terminal and destroys the visual effect, as seen from afar, of the tepee village on the prairie.\u00a0<\/em>DIA\u2019s decision on this hotel has consequences for all of us. The Curt Fentress-designed Jeppesen Terminal is not merely \u201cone of the city\u2019s most popular buildings,\u201d as Rinaldi describes it. It is the most iconic edifice in Colorado and one of the signature buildings of the American West. To hide it behind the walls of a hotel would broadcast to the world that Denver doesn\u2019t have enough sense to recognize bold, exciting architecture in its own backyard.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten days ago\u00a0The Denver Post contained a story by Ray Mark Rinaldi reporting on the modified plan for a new hotel and transit hub at Denver International \u00a0Airport \u00a0that has taken shape in the wake of the airport\u2019s breakup\u00a0with Spanish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-denver-urbanism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-gr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}