DESIGNING MASS MOCA
While Robert Jabaily’s “Letter
from North Adams, Massachusetts” (Q4 1999) gives
credit to MASS MoCA for the museum’s effect on its
town and region, it does not acknowledge the architectural
transformation of what is, in reality, a new building made
of found elements. The sequence and variety of spaces, heights,
textures, and materials are all the creation of present-day
designers. Not one of the interiors shown in the photos
existed in the original factory. Even the exterior courtyard
illustrated is new — carved and shaped from old materials.
The “magic” the visitor perceives is no accident.
Bruner/Cott’s design of MASS MoCA recently shared the
American Institute of Architects’ Honor Award, the
profession’s highest recognition.
Jonathan Hale
Bruner/Cott & Associates
Cambridge, Massachusetts
MORE SPRAWL
Flipping through the Regional Review (Q1 2000),
I was aghast to see “America’s cities just keep
growing, and growing, and growing and growing,” in
Miriam Wasserman’s article “Urban
Sprawl.” With the exception of some sunbelt areas
where annexation is still possible, this is hardly the case.
It is metropolitan areas in Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
Chicago, and St. Louis (not the cities proper) which keep
pushing out. This is even true of Buffalo, which is losing
population overall. Cities have been demonized for problems
not of their making — social, economic, etc. —
and for which it is impossible for them to be the sole source
and responsible party for solutions.
Within New England, Connecticut is a serious example of
suburban sprawl and urban squalor along with many new developments
consisting of big houses on very big lots. Even when the
homes are individually pleasing to the eye, they hardly
replicate the traditional New England townscape.
Bruce Rosen
via the Internet
Miriam Wasserman’s article makes a good deal of sense.
A problem that cannot be defined cannot be solved.
History suggests it is possible to have spread-out (urban)
development without the car. In Sam Bass Warner’s Streetcar
Suburbs, a classic book tracing Boston’s growth
in the last half of the 19th century, it is the streetcar,
not the automobile, that made possible “urban sprawl.”
Farther away, Buenos Aires also grew up and spread out between
1900 and 1930 along a network of suburban rail. Surely,
the rapid development of suburban rail in such metro areas
as Chicago, Washington/Baltimore, and Boston, along with
vast networks in New York/New Jersey/Connecticut, will not
slow down sprawl. There, and in Philadelphia, San Francisco,
and Los Angeles, you have a massive replacement of the auto
commute, but sprawl advances.
As you wisely observe, the question is growth.
Charles J. Stokes, Director
The Institution for the Study of the American City
University of Bridgeport
Stepney, Connecticut
Editor’s note: It has come to our attention
that some of the data from the 1997 National Resources Inventory
(NRI) used in Miriam Wasserman’s article, “Urban
Sprawl,” is undergoing revision. The NRI is a survey
of the nation’s soil, water, and related resources
conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural
Resources Conservation Service in conjunction with Iowa
State University. According to Warren Lee, director of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Resources Inventory
Division, a programming error resulted in an overestimation
of the total amount of developed land in 1997. Revised figures
were not available as we went to press, but are due to be
posted sometime this fall at
www.nhq.nrcs.usda.gov/CCS/NRIrlse.html.
