THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504220041
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
FOR THE LAST half-century, people have wondered and worried about how to stop the decline of that beloved but beleaguered institution, the traditional American city.
The affection many people still hold for a dense network of streets filled with passersby, shops and homes has not stopped the same people, plus their jobs and bank accounts, from moving out to the suburbs.
Where do we go with our cities? At the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, curator Deborah McLeod has assembled some 30 pieces that attempt to show what cities are, were and could be. The beauty and specialness of the show are that it focuses on ideas - some practical, some more far-fetched, some whimsical - on how to again make cities the places we go to commune with ourselves, our past and each other.
``I want people to think about the city,'' McLeod said. ``I wanted to get a dialogue going.'' More deeply, she says, she wants to restore the intimacy between people that cities represent.
``My most innermost wish is to get people back in touch with each other,'' said McLeod, who lives with her husband in a downtown Newport News neighborhood. ``That is achieved in cities as we walk by each other and hold the door for each other. I want us to enjoy each other, to celebrate our differences, and not be afraid of each other.''
Many pieces are specific proposals on how to alter and improve cities. They include extending a system of canals in Richmond, how to house the elderly in Boston and a new monument for downtown Norfolk. Intermixed with these more analytical pieces are paintings and photographs of cities present and past.
Many pieces are local in focus, another plus. They look at Richmond, Norfolk, Newport News - the cities in our neighborhood.
Peyton Pond, an architect from Blacksburg, Va., has tried to make up for what he believes is Norfolk's fragmented nature. Pond has proposed to plant a giant monument in the square now vaguely defined by the Harrison Opera House and the Chrysler Museum. Illustrated in a detailed, colored sketch, this 360-foot high structure, reminiscent of a cockeyed Washington monument, would be at the center of a new traffic circle where several roads would meet in Parisian, Beaux-arts fashion.
Such a monument, Pond says, would give townspeople a focal point, the way the Eiffel Tower does for Parisians, or the Space Needle does for Seattlites.
``Having lived in Norfolk, I've always felt life was rather fragmented,'' Pond said. This project ``would help give the city an identity.''
It's interesting to note that Norfolk used to have a more subtle focus downtown in the convergence of streets at the old City Hall, now the MacArthur Memorial. But several decades ago, city fathers altered the path of City Hall Avenue to improve traffic flow. In the process, the town lost a center it once had.
``Losing Our Language,'' by Ed Pease and Lyn Wood of Williamsburg, tries to address why the Newport News downtown has become a sad space of lonely, empty buildings. They blame the shipyard in part. Even though it gave people jobs, it has also ``occupied virtually all the waterfront.'' Its massive parking lots, for what used to be 30,000 employees, have disrupted the urban fabric. Photos from the 1900s, they say, show a more diverse and healthy downtown.
The analysis of Newport News is part of a larger question of what makes some cities a real place. Pease and Wood's exhibit also includes a collection of voices, tape-recorded and broadcast, of people describing their views of cities.
The Paper City exhibition is also notable because McLeod extended a hand to politicians and professional planners, people not normally included in an art exhibit.
Included as one piece is Norfolk's Downtown 2000 Plan. Although now in the process of being updated, it shows the city's long-term vision for its center.
Newport News City Councilman Charles Allen, a practicing architect, put together an exhibit that tries to give his troubled city some options. One section includes photos of places Allen loves in other cities. They include Bryant Park in New York City, a pleasant patch of green and benches near the New York Public Library. Closer to home, Allen showed some of the newly built townhouses in Norfolk that fit neatly into the historic Freemason area.
So where do we go from here? Paper City takes us through a few possibilities and leaves us, probably, coming up with a few more of our own. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON
Michell Wright of Hampton admires ``Making a Community School'' at
the Peninsula Fine Arts Center.
B\W photos
One part of the Newport News exhibit includes a proposal for
extending a system of canals in Richmond.
Michell Wright of Hampton admires "Making a Community School" at
the Peninsula Fine Arts Center.
Graphic
JUST THE FACTS
Exhibit: Paper City
What is it: A collection of some 30 pieces that show, through
architectural plans, drawings and paintings, what a city is and
could be.
Place: Peninsula Fine Arts Center, 101 Museum Drive, Newport
News
How long: through June 4
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 1 p.m.
to 5 p.m.; closed Monday
Admission: Free
Phone - 596-8175
by CNB