Advisory panel says highway-capping ‘Stitch’ project could cost $452M

Curbed Atlanta ^ | March 1, 2019 | Sean Keenan

[Rockingham]

The 1920s and 30s saw the last of a long era of monumental public buildings meant to convey solidity and noble purpose as attributes of American government. In the 50s and 60s, public buildings became more utilitarian as spending was directed to other needs, especially military and social spending.

Nowadays, even when, as with courthouses and city halls, America's architects are given the budget to do better, they usually design public buildings that look like overgrown insurance company headquarters, with empty space, superfluous support columns, and vast applications of marble and granite veneer. The proportions, elements, and ornamentation of classical building architecture seem forgotten.

[DUMBGRUNT]

“they usually design public buildings that look like overgrown insurance company headquarters”

And well they should. OK, many of them.
Why?
Because most of them are throwaway structures, and a few others are public works to benefit a select few.

Name a nice one.
HAROLD WASHINGTON LIBRARY.
The ornamentation is too much for me, love the owls($$$) but you cannot see them from the street.
If Harold Washington had not died near the end of planning, it may have had a simpler look.
This building will last a long time.
For what little it is worth, I like it, but it needs lots of green around it to show it off, not jammed into the space. Set in a nice park like the 0bama mistake on the lake; a majestic jewel.

More than a few schools near me have come and gone in the forty years that I have lived here.
Mostly demographics, but usage, and design standards have changed. Eight-foot ceilings, long gone, operable windows, gone. Constant air change must have, power receptacles for desktop computers at each desk(now laptops). Doors must be ADA compliant...
A school without air condition? FORGET IT.

Fire station, the fire trucks, ambulances, not the size they used to be, crew space, used to be just guys, then M/F...now I think it is cost effective to put up at the local hotel?

And public works boondoggles?
I was slightly involved in one.
A fifteen million dollar public works building.
A juried competition, more like jury-rigged, or mostly just rigged.
The young architect graduated and his design selected at the same time. Maya Lin maybe?

Ugly but others must have liked it?

Apparently, he chose to do all the work in house, more like his parent’s basement.
Most of the services were design by catalog and where to put everything must have been unlucky guesswork.

Four-inch pipe in four-inch walls and the pipe is insulated too, with conduit crossing at 90 degrees.
Ductwork, plumbing, electrical all crossing in the same place. Did not even look right on the drawings.
The few DWGs provided.
As the questions mounted his appearance on site became intermittent. Answers rarely.
As production slowed, it was decided the construction manager ‘work things out’.
The jamoke was showing up at very few meetings.

And a full 10% commission, imagine that.
Paid in full.

I never said a word about to anyone I did not know well, you could end up with a horse’s head in your bed.

This was SOMEBODY’s nephew.
Somewhere I have his card, so I could run if I heard the name.

My guess, he is swinging a hammer for a living.
And probably not doing well with it.