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Archive for February, 2009
Indy’s Flatiron Buildings:the Vance Block
New York City has its Fuller Building (1902, D. H. Burnham & Co., architects), better known as the “Flatiron Building” because of it is shaped like an old-fashioned iron. Indianapolis once had a number of “flatiron”-shaped buildings of its own, thanks to Alexander Ralston’s plan of the city, with its four radiating avenues. These triangular sites present unique design opportunities not available on traditional rectangular lots. I will try to feature a few of these buildings in weeks to come.
Preservation Vision
What do you see when you look at an old building? I have noticed that preservationists sometimes see the world differently than other people. This is particularly true in the case of neglected or unsympathetically remodeled buildings. We tend to see the potential for what the building could be, when other people just see rust, rotted wood and peeling paint. Sometimes a building requires a second look to really see it.
After a renovation is complete, many people often comment that they never noticed the building before. I think that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow summed it up well in his poem “Haunted Houses” (1858):
“The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.”
Designing the capitol city
Alexander Ralston's 1821 plat of Indianapolis (IHS)
The original town of Indianapolis (what we now call the “Mile Square”) was laid out by Alexander Ralston in 1821. Ralston had been an assistant to Pierre/Peter Charles L’Enfant at the time he created the plan for Washington, D.C., and Ralston’s plan for Indianapolis was influenced by L’Enfant’s axial plan for Washington. › Continue reading
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