New Urbanism crashes the Pritzker

The Pritzker Prize, “the Nobel of architecture,” is generally a glorification of modern architectural achievements. This year, at a White House presentation of the prize, the nation’s architectural elite was treated to an overview of what went wrong with modern architecture and a prediction that the New Urbanism would return sanity and humanity to community design. The speech by Vincent Scully, Yale professor emeritus, introduced Italian architect Renzo Piano, the recipient. Scully’s theme did not go over well with many of the top architects and critics, although it was well received by the President and Mrs. Clinton, and other top government officials. “What can we say about that side of the American mythology that despises the city, as Frank Lloyd Wright in his later years at least pretended to do?” Scully asked. He described “a generation of Americans … who had apparently forgotten what a town was or how a city was built, and who were obsessed by enthusiasm for the free passage of the automobile at the expense for all other values. We were told that this was the way it had to be done by hero architects like Le Corbusier, and hero administrators like Robert Moses put it heroically, savagely, into practice, and I-95 and its connectors came to New Haven and smashed through between the railroad station and the old town, destroying everything in its path.” The turning point Scully recalled the turning point, when New York’s great Penn Station was destroyed, which gave impetus to the National Register of Historic Places, and the historic preservation movement. The next step was to bring back traditional town planning, which began in 1976 with Robert Stern’s proposed neighborhood in the Bronx (never built), and then in 1980 with Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk’s Seaside, which was built by developer Robert Davis. This spawned many more new neighborhoods and towns, Scully explained. “At this level of town making we are almost there, close to creating that peaceful image of the human community again … to dealing with the awesome problems of the center city; perhaps by the magical year 2000 we will be able to do so.” Balancing order and freedom Architects and critics reacted to the speech with “outrage,” according the Scully. No doubt in Scully’s indictment of Modernism, they also feel indicted. Also, designers remain suspicious of the town planning codes of the New Urbanism, which impose discipline on buildings. Scully maintains that a balance can be achieved between good community design and architectural freedom. Public buildings — e.g. libraries, museums, concert halls — in new urbanist towns usually are not coded. “The code makes possible the ordered town and the special monument,” he concludes.