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  • Rice - 04 - The Geometry of Interior Urbanism

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    BARBARA LEMA GAC
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    35 views13 pages

    Rice - 04 - The Geometry of Interior Urbanism

    Uploaded by

    BARBARA LEMA GAC

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 13
    nelsco, 1971-88: Plate 20 John Portman and Associates, Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, 1971 Extoor view looking towards Hyatt Regency. Photograph by Charles Fice, 2000. 4 THE GEOMETRY OF INTERIOR URBANISM In a 1965 editorial for the professional magazine interiors, ented ‘The Air- conditioned Hanging Garden’, Olga Gueft made a cisim for design as an environmental practice. She was celebrating the rise of Romaldo Giurgola, art cior of interiors between 1952 and 1957, and by the mid-1960s professor of architecture at the University of Pennsyvania and ‘right hand man of billant, Philadelphia planning commissioner, Edmund Bacon’. In rising through these ranks, Giurgola had also moved through a kind of continuum of environmental sign. As Gueft remarked, ‘He can, as an exceptionally able architect, design environment on any scale and at any evel. The key word Is design. The point is ‘same design principles apply whether the hunk of environment involved is indoors or out. Environmental design was about lowering the diference ‘ween inside and outside, ‘sometimes by placing only transparent glass walls, between them, sometimes by plans that unite indoor and outdoor space’ # Guoft previewed a project featured in that issue of the journal, the La Guardia Terrace Restaurant by Warner Burns Toan Lunde, atop Harrison and Abramowitz’s La Guardia Airport Terminal in New York, by suggesting that it has been handled as, though it were an outdoor space with a building set within it.* Foliage and Planting abounds, the carpet takes on the effect of a lawn, cane chairs suggest {arden furniture brick walls appear Ike exterior fagades, and ‘Unabtrusively, as, Tight falls, the sky inside is Gimmed to match the sky outside.’ Approvingly, she fsked the question in conclusion: ‘What has been practiced here? Interior sign? Architecture? Landscape architecture?"* Through the 1960s and 1970s, designs that crossed scales and practices -ecame a distinct feature of Interiors. In this period, Interiors devoted more page ‘Space to Portman's designs than any other professional magazine in architecture ©F interior design. The scope of Portman’s architectural and business interests, enabled interiors to project interior design's urban role, and Atanta played a Sgnificant part in this. As Gueft claimed, the city ‘offers a unique case study in lnstant environmental planning by teams of developers and architects’.® Gueft Was one of the earlest reviewers of Peachtree Center, reading it in terms of 'ts interior urban interconnection, and its nested scales of enclosure, from a INTERIOR URBANISM large-scale atrium to the intimacy of a booth in a bar or restaurant. For Guet, this ‘extensive interionty ‘metropolitanized’ Atlanta. At the same time, the presence of the Merchandise Mart as part of Peachtree Center, together with the interiors department of Rich's department store, the business furiture firm Ivan Allen Company, and Portman’s own operation Peachtree Purchasing, placed the professional services of contract interiors at the heart of the city’s economic development. As Mayor of Atlanta, Ivan Allen addressed the 38th National Conference of the American Institute of Interior Designers (AID), heldat the Hyatt Regency in 1969. He was addressing an audience whose business he knew well in a location that had literally and massively expanded the profil and role of, interior design. Interiors reported on the conference pragram and profiled major

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