Save the Roundhouse

PlanPhilly's series "Building Stories" asks Philadelphia architects to take us to their favorite under-appreciated or misunderstood buildings in Philadelphia, and explain what makes them great. In this thoughtful piece, Architect Fon Wang expresses her admiration for the Roundhouse and argues for its preservation.

Building Stories: The Roundhouse For our spring series Building Stories, we're bringing you design postcards from around the city. We're asking Philadelphia architects to take us to their…

Do not miss the first Public Meeting for the redesign of JFK Plaza/ LOVE Park this Wednesday, December 10th! This meeting is intended to both inform the public of the project progress thus far and to capture public interests surrounding the redesign. This is an opportunity for lovers of the threatened 1960 Fairmount Park Welcome Center to unite and

Love Park Public Meeting JFK Plaza/LOVE Park is being redesigned and we want to hear your ideas! Interested in learning more about the upcoming redesign of JFK Plaza/LOVE Park? Want to share your ideas about the future of this important park? Come join us for an information session and public input process to help inform th…

Roundhouse architect Bob Geddes, founding partner of Geddes, Brecher, Qualls, and Cunningham (GBQC), will be giving a lecture on April 5th at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, sponsored by DOMOCOMO Philadelphia and DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State. Geddes will also guide a tour through the venue for his talk, the Institute of Advanced Study’s Simmons Hall—a GBQC masterwork of 1971.

Make it New - Make it Fit: Lecture by Bob Geddes Make it New, Make it FitLecture by Bob Geddes at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, sponsored by DOMOCOMO Philadelphia and DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State. The architecture of Geddes, Brecher, Qualls, and Cunningham (GBQC) has been largely overlooked in recent years—despite a remarkable and in...

A wonderful piece from Ben Leech on the history and threats to another municipally-owned Modern building in Philadelphia.

"The City wants to see Love Park transformed into a model twenty-first century urban space, but is blind to this major twenty-first century preservation opportunity at its doorstep. The visitors center is one of the best (and last) examples of flamboyant modern architecture in Center City; its preservation could be a model demonstration project. Unfortunately, and all too commonly for idiosyncratic architecture of all shapes and sizes, the path of least resistance is the building’s biggest threat. "

City Shouldn’t Sell Visitor’s Center Short | Hidden City Philadelphia This week, Mayor Michael Nutter and City Council President Darrell Clarke agreed on J.F.K. Plaza redevelopment guidelines that left the fate of the flying saucer-shaped Visitor's Center up in the air. Preservation Alliance Advocacy Director Ben Leech argues that this flamboyant modernist structure i...

Despite the picture painted in this article, the Roundhouse is appreciated for more than being "quirky" and by more people than those in "some architectural circles," as is District Health Center No. 1 at Broad and Lombard streets.

Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety and Mayor Nutter's chief of staff said of the Provident Mutual Life Insurance building, "Great old buildings don't have to be destroyed to have a great adaptive reuse." A statement that rings as true for this building as it does for the District Health Center and the Roundhouse.

Council bills open way to move police headquarters to West Philadelphia PHILADELPHIA With no fanfare, the long-discussed plan to build a new, high-tech police headquarters in one of Philadelphia's stately old buildings took a major step toward reality last week.

This semester at Georgia Tech, a group of twelve undergraduate architecture students have been collaborating on an architectural design studio focusing on the Roundhouse. The studio involves the construction of a physical model as well as the production of a Revit 3D model of the Roundhouse. Both serve as valuable resources when designing an expansion of the building and considering the reuse potential of the Roundhouse interior. The studio will consider two use alternatives for the site, which includes the addition of high density housing with the historic structure converted to an amenity/community center and corporate/general office use, with the Roundhouse housing support functions such as food service, common meeting rooms, product display, etc. The final designs will require attention to the design of the addition, the reuse of the Roundhouse, the development of a connection between the two and consideration of site design features. The course is being taught by Jack Pyburn, FAIA who is the 2013 Harrison Design Associates Visiting Scholar in Historic Preservation in the Georgia Tech School of Architecture. Stay tuned for updates!

"If we can’t save it all, the question is how we know what will be beautiful in the future—and what the people of 2063 will have wanted us to keep for them."

Can buildings be too young to save? - The Boston Globe It’s possible to love a city without loving all its buildings. That’s a lucky thing for Boston, where some of the most notable works of architecture since the 1960s are also the most loathed. There are the looming twin towers of the JFK Federal Building (1966), the forbidding 1972 addition to the Ce...

Although we are saying goodbye to this irreplaceable iconic building, we must acknowledge that the campaign to Save Prentice has brought the significance and plight of Modern buildings to the attention of a wide audience and created potential future allies in the fight for their preservation.

"Every preservationist, whether new to the game or a seasoned saver, walks into a fight knowing there's always a chance for loss... But with loss comes hope. Losses can galvanize us. They remind us what's worth fighting for."

As Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago comes down, we're taking a moment to reflect on this iconic building, and asking the preservation community to take a pledge in support of modernism:

http://blog.preservationnation.org/2013/11/06/video-saying-goodbye-to-prentice-womens-hospital-a-modernist-icon/ #.Unp3FfnNVSg

This thoughtful piece from Janet Kimbleton Grace makes a solid case for saving the Roundhouse.

Making a Case for the Roundhouse | Welcome to AthenianRazak Twenty years ago, Britain’s Prince Charles once called modern architecture “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend.” It seems that modernist architecture is something that evokes strong opinions either for or against it, and the modernist Police Administration Buildin...

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission’s 2035 Plan is now finalized and available for review here: http://www.phila.gov/CityPlanning/plans/District%20Plans%20Library/Central_DP_FINAL.pdf. While it’s disappointing that the site of the Roundhouse remains a “likely candidate for redevelopment,” (see updated rendering of the redeveloped site below) we truly appreciate all of the feedback given in support of the preservation of the Roundhouse. The following comment from the published public feedback was particularly encouraging:

“The Roundhouse has historical roots; we should not eliminate our history, just because it doesn't fit in with an 18th Century fantasy. I saw that what replaced the Roundhouse on your Public Meeting Board was a four story brick condominium (ho hum). The Roundhouse is three stories of potential condo space with a ground floor that could be re-purposed (Sweat Fitness might value the location). The Metropolitan Condos across the street create a great interplay with the Roundhouse; the narrowing of Race Street would allow for a new element to add to that relationship. I could imagine a glass coffee shop taking up residence in the Plaza to the Roundhouse Condos, perhaps in the shape of an almond, with people sitting in chairs on a re-landscaped courtyard. In the summer evening it would be possible to watch the shadow from the new Roundhouse Tower (planted [similar to the Murano] in the old Police Parking lot) cross over Franklin Square. The parking lot avoids the tunnels that make development in this area so difficult, so high rise condos could work well there (with a discreet parking garage shoehorned behind the high rise [with an entrance off of Cherry Street]).

Although, the curve for 7th Street that follows the Roundhouse would not be as clean as a diagonal, I think that the area could be enlivened AND the current park on the SE corner of 8th & Race could connect the Public Plaza over the Ridge Spur tunnel across the intersection from the NW to the SE. Condos or actual pocket row homes (Onion Flats anyone) could complete the east side of 8th from the park to Cherry Street.

Whatever my ideas might be, I'd actually wait for Jack Pyburn's students at Georgia Tech to complete their analysis of the Roundhouse. Penn Praxis and the Preservation Alliance may have a design competition for reuse. Whether the latter ever happens, PCPC could use the best design from the Georgia Tech students as the basis of the future boards you present to people. Any image is the basis for a conversation, and I for one would like the conversation to incorporate a preserved Roundhouse as opposed to another architectural touchstone turning into rubble.”

Just a reminder that public comments are welcome on the Philadelphia City Planning Commission's 2035 Central District Plan until this Wednesday, May 15th. The plan for the "Franklin Square Neighborhood" shows the Roundhouse demolished and replaced by residential construction. If you feel that the Roundhouse is an irreplaceable piece of Philadelphia’s architectural legacy, and that it should remain in place as a component of the neighborhood that develops around Franklin Square, please write PCPC project manager Laura Spina at [email protected]. The full Central District Plan can be found at:http://phila2035.org/DP_Centralbook_3_12.pdf

Here is a higher-quality version of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission's "In Progress" Philadelphia 2035 plan for the Franklin Square Neighborhood. The Roundhouse is labeled as "Likely for Redevelopment" and the site where the building now stands is labeled simply "Police HQ lot." The use of a drab black and white image of the Roundhouse and the current Race street corridor in comparison to their bright and colorful rendering of a narrower Race Street with new construction is an obvious ploy.

Since this plan is still “In Progress” and they are accepting suggestions from the citizens of Philadelphia. We encourage you to reach out to the Central District contact person, Laura M. Spina at [email protected] and let the City know that you feel the Roundhouse is an irreplaceable piece of Philadelphia’s architectural legacy!

This photo from 1962 shows the Roundhouse under construction and also offers a glimpse of the neighborhood that once surrounded the building. This area was often referred to as "Skid Row" and although it was a dynamic neighborhood, it had a multitude of abandoned and under-utilized buildings. Jane Jacobs provides a telling description of the neighborhood in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities: “The second of Penn’s little parks is Franklin Square, the city’s Skid Row park where the homeless, the unemployed and the people of indigent leisure gather amid the adjacent flophouses, cheap hotels, missions, second hand clothing stores, reading and writing lobbies, pawnshops, employment agencies, tattoo parlors, burlesque houses and eateries. This park and its users are both seedy, but it not a dangerous or crime park. Nevertheless, it has hardly worked as an anchor to real estate values or to social stability.”