revised 1+3

The Hill’s elevation and centrality should be utilized to create a cultural focal point and a view point outward to stitch together the collage that is the city of Pittsburgh.

Historically as well as currently, the Hill has been a predominantly black neighborhood, and racial discrimination has contributed to its isolation and invisibility. A communal site on the Hill would encourage integration while maintaining African American dignity; not taking the Hill away but empowering the community by highlighting the treasure that is the Hill. Rather than creating a center only for black culture (which already exists as the August Wilson Center), it is necessary to incorporate the African American population as an integral component of the Pittsburgh cultural collage, and thus diffuse and connect that appreciation to the rest of Pittsburgh.

response: "Defining Urban Sites"

The article about defining an urban site was very helpful to me. In choosing the Hill District, i was unsure about the extent of the site, where I would center myself, and where to draw the line for my intervention. I realize the key is to simply draw many lines, bounding each variable of the site on its own terms and context.

In New York, it is easy to trace waves of migration, and in turn gentrification, from one neighborhood to another, as prices rise and artists and young professionals move on to find a new greenwich village, a new williamsburg, another Long Island City, or the next DUMBO. In that sense I can see how urban sites "are crisis objects that destabilize our certainty of the real," but several of Pittsburgh's neighborhoods are experiencing a stable renaissance, yet are able to maintain their character and economic 'sustainability' for the original population because the waves of demand aren't as consuming as in New York City. The examples I'm referring to in Pittsburgh are Friendship/Garfield, Lawrenceville, and the Strip. One question is why hasn't this happened in the Hill....yet? The Civic Arena is a major urban barrier that has in a sense stabilized the Hill, but only to turn it into a disconnected and isolated neighborhood above the city. The only natural segue it had into the city was cut off by a field of parking lots that makes the circulation to downtown barren and passive. On the other hand and the other side of the hill(s), I want to look at the "Pittsburgh Acropolis," a project that was somewhat abandoned, but was a strategy for the UPitt campus to start riding up the Hill and become a symbol of the city.

Pittsburgh functions as distinct neighborhoods with their own spheres of influence and activity. Permeability relies on flow within neighborhoods and their ability to connect to the city's main arteries, which is why the Southside's Carson St. and Penn Ave. in the Strip are such succesful social and commercial corridors. It also makes it more important to define the site of the Hill/Pittsburgh in neighborhood and city scale separately. One of my interests is to redefine Bedford, Webster, Wylie, and Centre avenues as intra-city main streets and understand how the boundaries can once again be softened and the physical center of Pittsburgh become an urban center as well.

Cut off your nose and spite your face

Looking back on what I wrote last week, I realized that was not at all what I was trying to say. I chose the Hill for its location and position in the city rather than its distressed situation. An outsider’s observation of the Hill, with its height and views to the whole city, abundant greenery, and with an absolutely central location within Pittsburgh, would logically set the Hill as the heart of the city.

The Hill can come to embody Pittsburgh in its current Renaissance as a sustainable source of energy for the city, from no-man’s land to everyone’s land. At first I thought of the wind turbines I see popping up on random hills throughout Western Pennsylvania every time I drive towards New York, but as a more specific focus, a cultural source of energy ideally set on the Hill, I’m interested in proposing a museum to celebrate Pittsburgh’s diverse communities and commemorate its fading industrial past. Like bell towers of Italian cities or skyscrapers of New York or Chicago, Pittsburgh’s Hill provides the grand view to orient visitors in this unique city and point out its highlights in all directions.

I agreed with much of what Jorge Silvetti wrote in “The Muses Are Not Amused.” Metaphors enrich a description by fabricating an image for it; they are tools utilized to humanize and articulate a ‘phantom’ for a project, but the final result must perform for its inhabitants and not just appear to act out the author’s intent in building form.

The whole paragraph about Baroque architecture made me think of a Venetian baroque architect, and an absurdly baroque church façade in Venice, where in stead of the engaged columns, figures of struggling men hold up the story above. The style humanizes the architecture, refers metaphorically to the program relating to the strength of man, and yet is not imposing a story about the internal spatial proportion, especially because the church was constructed before the baroque façade was added. The architect pushed creative liberties and experimented, but evolved from established references. The current forms of buildings that Jorge Silvetti criticized, on the other hand, seem to be the result of insecurity about the articulation of inherent spaces. They don't explore space as a generator, but form, and so work from the outside in. If working boldly spatially from the inside out, form develops naturally, independently of the metaphor. I agree with Jorge Silvetti that a big abstract idea is not necessarily the recipe for success in a project. The constraints guide the evolution and development of a project, and so a grounded, yet rigorous, approach could extract more innovative a proposal than an intangible idea.

Baldassare Longhena's Ospedale degli Incurabili:

1 + 3 + 9

"The Hill's not either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

+

The story of the Hill portrays a continual and harsh dichotomy that has existed between residents and authority throughout the century, between a real vitality and an idealized order. Both had merit and both were flawed; the organic robustness of the district also fostered poverty and prostitution, while the social failure of the urban renewal projects is now finally encouraging revival of the neighborhood through bottom-up empowerment rather than top-down imposed design.

+

What I've noticed from walking around Homewood for studio, is that there may not be many people in the neighborhood, and though there may be high crime rates and poverty, the residents developed a strong sense of community. As a 'distressed' neighborhood, residents of the Hill develop a strong sense of community. People draw positive bonds out of hardship. The Hill especially, is starting to realize its prime location in the city. In terms of urban revival, I've noticed Southside Works slowly become more blended in the Pittsburgh environment. With the Cheesecake factory as its mecca, the Works had at first felt very artificial. But soon enough Pittsburgh character was integrated because people live and work there to make it their own. Mellon Arena, which is a civic monument, is meaningful to many, but because of its isolation in the landscape, personally belongs to no one. I'm not sure yet if i want to attempt my own vision hinging on a real project for the site of the current arena or extract a more hypothetical project, seeking effectivity in the 'bad' decisions that had been imposed on the Hill, but I know it must begin with understanding the physical, economic, social, and visionary evolution of the Hill.