http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/archive/2004/08/31/carollloyd.DTL
". . .Of course, as Schwarzer acknowledges, San Francisco's institutionalized fear of new development sprang from an era when there was plenty to be afraid of: During the 1960s, there were plans to raze whole neighborhoods to make way for massive generic developments and crisscross the city with multiple new freeways that would have traversed residential neighborhoods and Golden Gate Park. In other words, we were in danger of becoming just like any ugly U.S. city with megadevelopments on superblocks threaded with highways. The fight against such "urban renewal" galvanized a generation of activists in the wake of the free-speech and antiwar movements, giving rise to such institutions as the San Francisco Bay Guardian. . .
But, for Schwarzer, this healthy opposition to big development has since calcified into an unhealthy habit of opposing everything different. "No one wants buildings that will overwhelm the rest of the City," he says, acknowledging that it's important to be sensitive to the context. "But it's gone overboard." Schwarzer hopes the future of San Francisco planning can move beyond the idea of the past pitted against the future. "The past was seen by modernists as an impediment to the future, while postmodernists turned the tables to recast the future as an impediment to the past," he writes. "Ultimately, aren't these visions opposite sides of a coin?. . ."
"
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
". . .Of course, as Schwarzer acknowledges, San Francisco's institutionalized fear of new development sprang from an era when there was plenty to be afraid of: During the 1960s, there were plans to raze whole neighborhoods to make way for massive generic developments and crisscross the city with multiple new freeways that would have traversed residential neighborhoods and Golden Gate Park. In other words, we were in danger of becoming just like any ugly U.S. city with megadevelopments on superblocks threaded with highways. The fight against such "urban renewal" galvanized a generation of activists in the wake of the free-speech and antiwar movements, giving rise to such institutions as the San Francisco Bay Guardian. . .
But, for Schwarzer, this healthy opposition to big development has since calcified into an unhealthy habit of opposing everything different. "No one wants buildings that will overwhelm the rest of the City," he says, acknowledging that it's important to be sensitive to the context. "But it's gone overboard." Schwarzer hopes the future of San Francisco planning can move beyond the idea of the past pitted against the future. "The past was seen by modernists as an impediment to the future, while postmodernists turned the tables to recast the future as an impediment to the past," he writes. "Ultimately, aren't these visions opposite sides of a coin?. . ."
"
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
