Within this week’s readings we learned about landmarks: what
a landmark is, what makes a landmark successful, if some landmarks are worth
saving, and if some landmarks lose their iconicity over time. One topic that was at the center of
discussion was Millennium Park. Millennium
Park has become a major attraction in the city of Chicago and has become one of
the greatest parks of the 21st Century. Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campell
described the park saying:
“Magical artworks, a
delightful cafe, theaters, an outdoor concert venue, a world-class art museum
next door… inventive gardens, an ever-changing pool for wading and running, a
bike rental pavilion- the list of delights seems endless”.
It truly is a beautiful public park that has created new
iconic images for the city. As a Chicago
native, I have visited Millennium Park frequently, almost every time I am in
Chicago. As it is just a few blocks from
the train station, I often take a train into the city and always make a point
to walk through Millennium Park before I do anything else. I have attended many free concerts in the pavilion, ice-skated in
the rink in the winter, had photo shoots in front of the Bean with friends,
cooled off in the fountains in the summer, it truly is an extraordinary place
filled with a variety of activities for the users. Campell also mentioned how the park is a
great place for people-watching because it is filled with people. The park always seems to be filled with life at
all times with the many different people interacting with the various
sculptures and attractions. It is an
amazing 21st Century Park that has caused many to rethink the way
they are building public outdoor spaces today.
Perhaps we will begin to see more interactive parks surface as a result
of the success of Millennium Park.
According to Lange, the definition of a landmark is a
building or other place of outstanding historical, aesthetic, or cultural importance,
often declared as such by civic authority.
Some common landmarks include museums, libraries and churches. However, in today’s world, the idea of a
landmark is becoming a little fuzzier and harder to distinguish. When trying to evaluate what makes something
a landmark, the critic plays a vital role.
Some factors to take into consideration when critiquing a possible
landmark are its history, its present-day context, and the way it effects the
public.
In the reading, it described how Alois Riegl came up with
five values for conserving art and architectural artifacts at the turn of the
nineteenth century. The categories
include historical value, artistic value, age value, use value, and newness
value. Riegl believes that the best use
of a building is not as a museum (historical value) piece but as part of a city
that continues to grow (use value). To
her, the use value was more important than the historical value. In a way I think both are important. We look at many old museums or churches today
and think of them as a landmark purely because of their important place in history. However, a building that becomes a part of
the city around it and enriches it with life, like Millennium Park, can also be
considered a great landmark.
Is the use value of a landmark really more important than
the historical value of a landmark? This
question can be applied to the topic of Olympic Architecture. ‘Instant Monumentality’ is often a term used
to describe Olympic Architecture. Oftentimes,
host cities design large scale, monumental structures that are focused on one
sport or activity. This, in most cases,
results in a wasteland of structures that gives a feeling of emptiness. In the reading, Wergeland describes the Athens
2004 Olympics saying:
“A staggering 21 out
of 22 venues lie abandoned since an event lasting just three weeks has held,
and the magnificent stadiums are now over-run with rubbish and weeds. But the most striking ‘legacy’ has been the
huge sums spent and wasted on venues to hold sports with little following in
Greece. And yet the madness does not end
there: annual ‘maintenance’ of the empty sites has cost 500 million since the
event”.
As we cans see, the aftermath of the Olympics is often detrimental
to the host countries. There is a sense
of lifelessness once the Olympics leaves.
The facilities either become abandoned or they are used infrequently
drawing way smaller crowds. Kayser
Nielson calls it a ‘state of placlessness’ when a place loses its identity at
certain sites. The article also states
how post-Olympic architectural design features are robbed of the context that initiated
them and, as a consequence, appear to us only as vacant objects, emptied of referential
meaning and bereft of their previous iconic value. That brings me back to my question, does use
value trump historical value when distinguishing if something is iconic? To me, using the case of the Athens Olympics
as an example, I think the buildings in a way lose some of their iconicity when
they become abandoned. In a way, it’s
kind of like they had their 15 seconds of fame and then they lost their
celebrity. It doesn’t mean we are any
less nostalgic on the buildings, however, the short-lived fame and dramatic fall
from a monumental work of architecture to an abandoned facility causes one to
question the iconic-value. I don’t think
the fact that it is abandoned makes it less iconic, there are plenty of ruins
and abandoned structures around the world that can be considered iconic. I think the difference is those structures
had a longer life than just a few weeks.
As a result, I think the use value of a landmark does play a key
role.
Olympic architecture should strive to be more like Millennium
Park in Chicago. That is a hard
statement to say seeing as how they are two very different works of
architecture with very different functions and at a very different scale. However, as we look at the way Millennium Park
impacted the city of Chicago, we discover how bold investments in architecture
can benefit a city. Millennium Park had
a positive effect on Chicago in more ways than one, impacting a few things such
as condominium development, office development, and hotel construction near the
park. Millennium Park is like a fine
wine, it just keeps improving with age.
If Olympic architecture would strive to think more about the impact of
the facilities on the city after the Olympics, they would probably become more
successful.
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