Tonight’s meeting of the Public Art Committee of the Arts Commission discussed a draft of guidelines for Jaume Plensa, should he opt to rework his City Square concept. From the meeting’s opening dialogue, it appears that Plensa is willing to consider new guidelines, but wants them, as well as the process by which the project will be approved, clearly stated.
During the meeting Dan Douglas, of the Urban Design Center, read the current encarnation of the City’s parameters. They included clear desires for a place for people to congregate that is pedestrian friendly, safe, well lit, flexible, easy to maintain, and follows the proposed budget.
On the other hand there are very tight restrictions that are being placed on the artist. There are two North/South pedestrian axes (each side of Fayetteville St.) and the East/West axis (created by the allies that will appear on the north ends of the Marriott and Site 1) which must be respected, if not celebrated. Too, the street must extend down its current axis.
Finally "There should be no visual obstruction of the (curb to curb) 40-foot axial view from the Capitol to the Performing Arts Center." The interpretation of this statement is still open. Does an LED light grid that extends over the street constitute an "obstruction" if it is placed so high that it doesn’t cross the view of a building, or is the City prohibiting anything at all above and within the 40′, regardless of altitude?
Regardless, the recommendation from the City will essentially be for a split plaza. No matter how pedestrian-friendly a plaza is, if it has free-flowing automotive traffic, the cars rule and everything else that happens is secondary. There is no possible way, in that location, to create a single "City Square".
Other elements such as grass, water features, and the vertical light beam will have to be completely reconceptualized. Perhaps the light beam could be placed below the surface of the street, but the wall of water representing the septum of the soul is impossible to carry out given these restrictions.
The proposed schedule shows that the full Arts Commission will meet on 8/21 to redraft the document for the City Council. From then until 9/5 the adjacent property owners will get their input on the City’s parameters (a big problem with Plensa’s current plan is the barrier it places on accessibility to the new Marriott at Site 2.). The City Council will adjust and approve the parameters on 9/5. The contract will be amended by 9/19 when Mr. Plensa works on his new proposal which will ultimately be compliance-reviewed by the Arts Commission and then immediately reviewed (perhaps approved) by the City Council. After that the engineering will be restarted and installation will happen in 2007. The City only has one hard deadline; their agreement to provide vehicular access to the Marriott by June of 2008.
There was no discussion of an alternate site for this plaza, nor were any specific design ideas presented by the Public Art Committee. We love to hear your comments here, but ultimately the court of public opinion seems to be driven by letters (or email) to City Council members and, most importantly, letters to the News & Observer. It’s time for our readers to drown out the vacuous moaning from surrounding towns that the paper likes to feature. We all don’t agree about what should happen with this project, but at least we all have logical arguments and generally have a good feel that Raleigh needs to do something bold and great. Let’s be heard Raleighers!
