| interesting pro-nurbanist article. forgets to mention
| the substantial failures of nurbanism apart from some political type
| critique.
After Hurricane Katrina, when many Americans had harsh words for the
Bush administration, FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers, the
Modernists trained their ire on the New Urbanists and their rebuilding
proposals. The utopian planning geeks were described as a cult bent on
imposing "cartoon cities" and "smiley-face architecture" on a gullible
public. The New Urbanists shot back that the Modernists would have
people invest their life savings in "experiments."
Now, the New Urbanists, about 1,500 of them, have arrived in
Philadelphia for the annual Congress for the New Urbanism. It is one
thing for them to meet in this gritty redoubt of the Old Urbanism. But
the New Urbanists also have stormed the great citadel of Modernism: the
PSFS Building, the first American example of International Style
architecture, now a Loews Hotel.
"You should see people's reactions," Steve Filmanowicz, the group's
communications director, said with a chuckle. "There are things about it
that people definitely did not expect."
Once the shock wears off, he said, the conferees have positive things to
say about the Market Street tower, completed in 1932 by architects
George Howe and William Lescaze.
cont'd....
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/7569377.html