Don't fear modernity
Jim Chappell
Sunday, September 2, 2007
There is a buzz in the air about the competition to build the new Transbay Terminal and accompanying landmark tower. This positive excitement is great news for a city that can often be ambivalent about any change in the physical environment. It shows that San Francisco has a new population who love cities, who are not afraid of cities, who not only are not afraid of modernity but who are ready to take up the challenges of 21st century urban life.
Two thousand years ago, an architectural writer named Vitruvius told us there were three characteristics of all good architecture - commodity, firmness and delight. As the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, a collaboration representing eight Northern California governmental entities, debates the merits of the three competing development schemes for the Transbay Terminal site, I would submit that these three criteria are as valid today as they were two millennia ago.
Commodity, better understood as practical utility, refers to function. How do the proposed solutions work - for the pedestrian, for taxis, for arriving and departing buses, for the underground rail links to Caltrain and future high-speed rail, for the patrons of the tower? Functionality is, of course, the sine qua non of any solution to this complicated inter-modal facility. All modes must be served equally well. The proposal has to work. And in addition to this focused definition, we should ask, how do these projects work for their neighborhood and the city at large? Are they the right mix of uses to create a 24-hour urban district? Are they flexible enough to adapt to an ever-changing world?
Firmness, or what we call constructive strength today, is the second characteristic. How have the architects and structural engineers solved the design of a grand transit hall, great public spaces and a very tall tower? While few of us laypeople can evaluate the structural engineering, we do know the best solutions will be structurally and financially economic, and will express the underlying physics in the design. The best architecture is of the times, and honest to its structure.
And when it is all put together, does it create delight or positive aesthetic effect? Will it be a true landmark on the skyline? Will it create comfortable, attractive, safe and enjoyable pedestrian spaces? Will you and I go there, and feel good about it? While function and structure might be technical subjects, aesthetics of course is the area where everyone will have an opinion. Here is where fear of modernity is most apt to come forward.
My advice to the transit authority: Be bold. This complex will be around for the next 100 years. It will be the center of the region, a beacon for those first visiting the Bay Area as well as daily commuters and local residents.
San Francisco was once a national leader in architectural design, harkening back to architect Bernard Maybeck a century ago and William Wurster and Joe Esherick a half century ago. Today, there are many excellent architects in San Francisco who often do their best work elsewhere. San Francisco's planning director, Dean Macris, is trying to change this, to emphasize design excellence. Let's face it, public consensus in design can often result in mediocrity.
Now is the time for San Francisco to be bold in design. This is in the tradition of San Francisco - to be cutting edge, to be daring, to be modern. This is no time for failure of will - to be polite, to be afraid, to be receding. The Transbay Joint Powers Authority has a great opportunity to create a magnificent symbol for the next century. It should take it.
Jim Chappell is the executive director of the San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association (SPUR).
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../EDA4RRMRG.DTL