Who authorized you to have an opinion on Richmond?
Inflammatory! Outrageous!
Who asked all these people what they thought should happen in Richmond? And why are they telling us what to do?
That’s the sentiment expressed (with my, ahem, rewording) about the master plan by planning commission members. The TD reports that several members were upset by Richmond residents’ request that the West Hospital at VCU be preserved:
“They’re kind of able to do what they want,” said commission member William M. Hutchins. “Why alienate them? They do a tremendous amount for the city.”
Commission Chairman Robert Mills said he found “inflammatory” some of the references to VCU, including the focus on preserving the old, art deco-style West Hospital.
Never mind that the concept of a master plan is to focus on design elements that make a city livable. Never mind that the point was to ask residents what they love about this city- what needs to stay and what needs to change. If residents’ ideas ruffle the feathers of the power-brokers, we should ignore them.
John Sarvay at Buttermilk & Molasses recently posted about the difference between traditional zoning and the design-focused (form-based) zoning pushed by the master plan:
Traditional zoning worries about what people do inside of the buildings they own, and seeks to keep like clustered with like. Form-based code worries about architecture and design, about a building’s relationship to its neighbors, about creating functional and useful urban space.
So a major point of a master plan is to influence the architectural style used around the city. In that light, comments about which buildings contribute to making Richmond a livable, interesting city are completely appropriate.
It seems to me that any downtown landholder could be incensed by a master plan telling them how to build or what to preserve. Why would we be especially worried about VCU’s feelings?
Pictures of the building VCU wants to demolish, and the master plan wants to preserve:
West Hospital, photo by taberandrew
January 17, 2008 at 2:26 pm
When I was at the hearing, at least 1/2 of the first hour of comments contained criticism mixed with support of the plan. I’m not sure what happened after I left, but there had to be more.
With regards to West Hospital, I’d like to see it stay. Its leaps and bounds better than the rest of the monstrosity we know as VCU/MCV. Talk about an urban nightmare. I think it would be a mercy killing to take the White House and the Museum of the Confederacy out of there. I’d be embarassed to take visitors in there.
January 17, 2008 at 5:23 pm
My impression from the second session was that there was more criticism than in the first, but that the scale still weighed in favor, and most of the criticisms were not of the effort as a whole.
I haven’t followed the fight over the West Hospital (having just moved to Richmond fairly recently), but it’s hard for me to believe that the only viable option for VCU is to demolish it. It may be the easiest one for them, but surely not the only possible one.
If the commission continues to thumb its nose at this whole process, I think we need to have a public demonstration, a letter writing campaign, something to show that they cannot just dismiss this plan and everything that led up to it.
January 17, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I run the risk of sounding like a crank here; but, I guess I am a crank.
Um, the Museum of the Confederacy is leaving; that is, its library and exhibition building will be broken up and sent to at least three other sites throughout Central Virginia — leastwise, that was the latest. This separation is to be funded, in part, by the sale of the 1980s building.
The “White House of the Confederacy” was built for the residency of banker Dr. John Brockenbrough in 1818. Jefferson Davis resided there during the 1861-1865 discussion. The Confederate government purchased the house but Davis chose to pay rent while he stayed there. The place stood there long before the Civil War, and is a representative–with the Wickham-Valentine House and the John Marshall House, and other residences along East Clay and East Marshall–of the Federal and immediate antebellum era flowering of Court End.
What will happen to the Brockenbrough House is anybody’s guess; my guess, like in some European museum, it’ll be placed in the courtyard atrium of whatever VCU building goes there.
Fact is, people from around the country –and I know this, having hosted a few–want to see the place you may consider embarrassing. And I’ll just leave the subject there, as I am not any institution’s apologist.
As for the fate of West Hospital, that the demolition of this astounding landmark is again even under consideration is a cultural atrocity and an affront to the people and the people’s government of Richmond. I am tired, oh so very tired, of buildings going up that are nothing less than monuments to the lowest bidders; or representations of ego. Architects make a living by pleasing clients, some of whom don’t know anything about aesthetics, and could give a flying fig about art or architecture.
As exhibit, I give you the present Richmond skyline which aspires to the generic qualities of suburban-styled cities of North Carolina and Northern Virginia; the past 35 years have yielded nothing beautiful, breathtaking or bold.
The best buildings in central Richmond went up prior to 1950, though even many of those are in the wrong place. Thomas Jefferson’s Temple of Democracy is now almost hidden behind glass and concrete towers housing lawyers, insurance agents and government paperwork. If that’s not a metaphor, I don’t know what is.
Meanwhile, Echo Harbour developers may get their way and a splendid parkland space will be ruined when it should be knitted into the James River Parks system, along with the former Blue Singles property at the north end of the Powhite Bridge.
It is to weep.
January 17, 2008 at 8:16 pm
“Fact is, people from around the country –and I know this, having hosted a few–want to see the place you may consider embarrassing. And I’ll just leave the subject there, as I am not any institution’s apologist.”
I don’t consider either building embarrasing. I’m embarrased what has happened to them. I lived in Richmond for 7 years before I actually located them. What nobody want to visit is the VCU Hospital complex. It’s too late to save either building except by moving them, IMHO.
See UR previous discussion about “A Park, A Marina, why not both?” for a better use of this part of the river.