@Dwight I’ve looked everywhere I can and don’t see another Jaume Plensa design similar to what he was planning for Raleigh. Where is it located? My first point was that he probably would have adjusted the plan if we asked him nicely. But my bigger point is that it was something new and daring at the time. Now every major city in the world has a Plensa (including us at the NCMA) but at the time we would have been early and unique. We as a city keep making safe decisions and safe decisions equals boring! We must be daring! We must push ourselves to do more and be better. We cannot keep making silly little decisions because things might not work or they might not be popular. As long as we keep dropping the ball on unique and daring proposals then we will continue to be just another new southern city. I do understand city leaders’ reluctance based on the response to the time + light tower and I’m with you on that one but I think it has scared everybody from making any kind of decision on things that might be new or interesting or daring. I think we have to be as bold as we possibly can! By the way, I think the trees are going to block the view down Fayetteville Street in just a few years anyway.
I think that we should make the parking lot in front of Memorial Auditorium an art park along the lines of Millennial Park in Chicago. We have plenty of parking lots to convert to buildings but that could be iconic and interesting and fun and a tourist attraction and a gathering place for the city.
I agree with almost everything you said! I could be wrong about a duplicate installation, this is from my memory of what happened ten years ago.
I’d like to see us innovate with bold ideas too - but I still think the Plensa piece was not right for Fayetteville St. I did like the light that shines up into the sky (now at DPAC?), but I think the roof of LEDs would obscure the grand view up and down the street and work against the idea of opening the street up in the first place. I also think maintenance would be an ongoing issue and a tech-focused art display will look dated within a decade.
And I’m serious about the Tower of Light and Time - I love that thing. Probably for how much it annoys everyone else.
BTW, what’s the Plensa piece at NCMA?
As you enter the new building the 3 metal human sculptures hanging from the walls in the front entrance are his. Also there’s a large sculpture of his in the art park just at the edge of the parking lot. It’s a large see-through metal sculpture of 2 heads. There’s a nice large sculpture in Miami at the Perez Museum. But my favorites are in Chicago… the faces spitting water fountain at Millennium Park is his and there’s a group of large head sculptures of his as well. We missed out. Believe me. It’s an absolute shame.
This works really well with the idea that the area is constantly under construction *and that people are terrible drivers.
Hopscotch is/was a pretty unique slot in the music festival world. It was the most walkable one that I am aware of and really leaned on it’s local and regional acts. Now that the Indy doesn’t own it, it seems to have lost some of its cache. The area something of a fusion of americana/blue grass and indie rock. IBMA and Hopscotch sort of bring these roots to the forefront…perhaps its a hard thing to describe and market, and Nashville already calls it self Music City…sure lots of places have great music scenes, but the Appalachian bleed into things around here gives us a unique overarching characteristic that say Brooklyn or Seattle or Austin don’t exhibit in quite the same way.
IMO, the Time+Light tower was maligned for political gain by the Fetzer campaign for mayor back in the day. If my memory serves me well, he used the spending on it as a political tool.
I too like the tower, but think that it should be moved to another location. The effects of it are not seen in the way that it was intended. Given that, in its best light, (pun intended) it’s viewed from the east in the AM and west in the PM, it’s not in the right location with morning inbound traffic moving southward to it west and outbound traffic moving northward to its east.
haha, I saw that last fall when I was visiting my Mother in Law. There were tons of people there and we had to park several blocks away to go see it.
I would like to see the Time+Light Tower relocated - perhaps to one of the traffic circles on Hillsborough Street.
You cannot compare a State Capitol built in 1840 with the slew of US Capitol replicas built 50-70 years later. History is far more of a significance than tall or duplicate buildings.
I think the LED grid would have been out of place on Fayetteville street. There’s something to be said about preserving the sight lines between the capitol building and the performing arts center. Now if something similar to that were installed in glenwood south, that would have been kick @ss.
Similarly I was thinking that little round brick area where Hillsborough and Denton come together would be perfect. It’d be like a gateway into downtown from that direction. Along with the Shimmer Wall and the PNC cap, maybe we can work up a ‘city of light’ image and roll that up with art and technology both.
Personally, I would love to see the pigeon house branch daylighted and the riparian buffers restored along its entire length from Cameron Village through Glenwood South and up through Devereux Meadow to the Raleigh swamp. It could be like the Little Sugar Creek greenway in Charlotte or Falls Park in Greenville SC. The section from St Marys to Peace street could be our miniature version of the San Antonio Riverwalk. I wish Kane’s Smokey Hollow project would have incorporated the stream restoration. As popular as Glenwood South is now, its desirability would go through the roof.
I agree, that would have been great, but I think SINCE Kane didn’t incorporate the stream (and the city didn’t require it), we won’t see the daylighting if that stream happen.
Opportunity missed for sure.
Right now, while the city is still begging for retail and other services downtown, developers will be calling the shots. Soon that tide will turn, and the city better be prepared to up their game to get more quality and experience out of its downtown developments.
I’m not sure if better-quality development will be something that will just naturally happen over time. If we have specific ideas for the types of communities we want to create downtown (especially more water features, identifiable/Insta-worthy areas), doesn’t it make more sense to create specific proposals and pressure the city/county to adopt them?
I don’t think that I made myself clear. It won’t naturally happen; it will happen when the city realizes that they hold more cards as developers have to compete with each other. A time will come that the city has more than one proposal for a parcel and the city can be more discerning and demanding, if they want to be. Right now, the city is not in that position as it is still looking for foundational development.