Quote:
Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright
Daley Plaza, for example, is almost featureless except for a piece of public art, a fountain, and an eternal flame with flagpoles, yet it is one of the most successful public spaces in the country, if not the world.
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Daley Plaza is
successful? In what sense? Because on weekdays people cut across it rather than walk around it?
The ability to use it as a vacant lot where you can set up Bastille Day or Chicagoween or Christkindlmarkt is not what most urban designers would consider success in a plaza. Nor is having a few tables that nearby office workers will use out of desperation on a late spring day because nothing else is close enough. You could set up a stage and some folding chairs on a barge in Lake Calumet and the grandparents would still come and watch their granddaughters folk dancing.
A successful plaza is one that people are drawn to by choice, not because it's the shortest path from the subway to city hall. It's a rare urban design textbook that doesn't have Daley Plaza shown as
"don't."
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Meanwhile, 150 North Riverside is the subject of the CAF Lunchtime Lecture on Wednesday, Jan. 8th.