Mayoral Urban Planning
June 11, 2008 • 9:36 am • POSTED BY Adam Flanagan
Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine was the Architecture Issue and it featured some great stories on some really progressive architecture firms. Places like, LOT-EK, who designed those wonderful shipping container mobile stores for Uniqlo that we’re all so fond of. As well as, the firm, Front Inc., who are responsible for some of the most amazing facades and surfaces adorning contemporary architecture. They did the facade for Herzog & de Meuron’s expansion to the Walker Art Center, which us Minneapolis people love so much.
What article really intrigued me though was one of their weekly pieces, Questions For…, where they interviewed the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Peñalosa. Some of you may have seen him on the daily show before (sorry couldn’t find a YouTube video). It really shows the importance of a mayor in shaping our planet’s major metropolises. Having worked with Thomas M. Menino of Boston, we’ve realized how a visionary Mayor can really influence the architecture and urban planning of a city. Just look at the achievements of other mayors as well. Like Mayor Daley of Chicago and Chicago’s Millennium Park. Mayor Bloomberg and his PLANYC, a goal for a greener New York.
While attending the AIGA Next Design Conference in Denver, I was lucky enough to hear Mayor Hickenlooper speak about his urban planning ambitions for Denver, which includes two amazing new art museums, one for the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art designed by David Adjaye, who also designed the Idea Stores in London. As well as the Denver Art Museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind.
I think one of the most progressive urban planning achievements a Mayor has achieved lately has to go to Mayor Gilberto Kassab for banning all public advertising from São Paulo. Something like that could obviously never happen in the United States, and probably not in most European cities either.
Just think the next time your walking around your favorite metropolis and the role that a mayor and the people in his office played in shaping the urban environment around you.
