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1996.04.06
scale and architecture
The next group elevation features the John Wanamaker Store and the PSFS Office Building. Both buildings are in Center City Philadelphia, and both are fair representations of their respective building types. The most obvious difference between the scale of each building is the fact that one is horizontal with a very large footprint and the other is vertical with a very small footprint. Both buildings, however, employ a special scale where they meet the street and the pedestrian vantage point.
The Wanamaker building is massive, and somehow attests to the power and magnitude of capitalism and consumerism. The rise of buildings like Wanamaker's, I assume, is due to the Chicago Frame, and the experiments of Eiffel (Tower). Perhaps I should investigate the effect that the Chicago Frame had on American urban scale. I will compare Wanamaker's to the Altes Museum (because of the stoa at ground level), the Parliament Building of West Pakistan, and perhaps even St. Pierre at Firminy-Vert...
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1996.04.06
scale and architecture
...the irony of how a car garage [of Capital Park West] can take on such a massive scale, and in many ways is comparable to the repetition of the John Wanamaker Store and perhaps even the Altes Museum.
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