Eric,

While I appreciate your sentiment, I suspect that much of the apparent public support for ‘classicism’ is actually a reaction to cheaply constructed modernist buildings.  

Granted, the stucco panels and cheap aluminium windows are nearly ubiquitous on new construction; it just seems like the materials are easier to mask with familiar form.

From the renderings (and the price tag) it is probably safe to say this building is going to impress most of us.

Is ‘historicism’ the correct term?  I’m a layman, obviously.  

I could be wrong, of course, but I think most non-architects are more likely to have a negative, visceral reaction to a cheaply constructed building than one that is moderately challenging and extremely well made.

I agree. It would stand out like a sore thumb. 

The patch of lawn in front of the movie screen seems odd and off-balance. But in practical terms, how will the museum keep it from being used as a shortcut and turned into a stubbly mess? All-American perfect turf looks nice in a rendering, but it’s almost impossible to maintain.

It ignores the context completely.  The architecture will stand out like a sore thumb, and the building does not respond to the Addison Arts district a block west of it.  Looking up Addison from the arts district, you will not even be able to see this building, because its Addison Street facade is set back behind a lawn. 

I’m on Charles’ side with this one.

This museum design is just plain ugly, and it’s going to start looking dated relatively soon.

You know, it’s not really my cup of tea. I wish that the building could have a less “modern” look, and maybe have a bit more color/design/art on the outside of the building. 

I have an opinion piece about this in the Planet, and I am particularly interested in what Berkeleyside readers think of this point (about urbanism, not about architecture):

Currently, very few people walk on this block of Addison. The west
half of the block has a few underused or vacant storefronts. The east
half of the block has the delivery area of a faceless office building on
one side and a small parking structure on the other side, which do not
attract pedestrians to walk up the street.

The Pacific Film
archive will replace this parking structure, and it could have been
designed to encourage people to walk up Addison Street. Instead, the
only entrance to both the museum and the Film Archive will be on Center
Street. No one will walk up Addison Street to the Film Archive: If they
did, they would have to double back on Center Street to get to the
entrance.

The Film Archive’s facade on Addison Street will be set
back behind a lawn, will have no windows or doors, and will have a
large video screen. The architect’s drawing shows a crowd of people
standing here and watching videos. In reality, very few people will
walk on this street, and the video screen will not even be visible to
people looking up the street from Shattuck.

It is easy to predict
what will happen to this space. In downtown Berkeley, if you design a
dead space where no one walks, add a lawn where people can spread out,
have no windows so there are no eyes on the street, and even add a video
screen to provide entertainment for people with nothing to do, you have
designed a perfect invitation to create a homeless encampment.

. . . we should insist that the Film Archive have a separate entrance on
Addison Street and a facade on that street that is closer to the
sidewalk, so it is more visible. That minor redesign would attract
large numbers of people to walk on this block of Addison Street, making
it more vital and more successful, rather than giving this block a dead
space and lawn that will only attract the homeless.

see the complete opinion piece at http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-09-18/article/38406?headline=Architecture-Review-Flashy-Architecture-and-Bad-Urbanism-at-the-Berkeley-Art-Museum

I could tell a similar story about the Federal Building in San Francisco.  It was designed by Pritzker-prize-winning avant-gardist architect Thom Mayne and acclaimed by all the critics.  I wrote a little blog post saying that, when you look beyond the sculptural design, you will see that it creates a bleak public space that no one would want to use.  A couple of years later, the Chronicle reported that its public space had been taken over by the homeless: “What you see there all day, 24/7, is people drinking, you see people urinating on the walls, you see everything,” (Nowadays everyone is an architecture critic.) 

see my blog post with an update about the Chronicle story at http://preservenet.blogspot.com/2008/08/thom-maynes-federal-building-in-san.html

I liked reading your piece.  I do have some criticisms of it.

I am skeptical that, during most times of the day, PFA will “attract large numbers of people to walk on this block of Addison Street, making it more vital and more successful.”    Here is an alternative hypothesis:    At most times of the day, few would come or go from such an entrance.  As shows start and end, there would be modest crowds.   While downtown is often quite sedate, when shows in the theater district are scheduled to start or end there converges an unusually large number of aggressive panhandlers and their performance artist, class warfare doppelgangers.   Why wouldn’t the same happen here?  

You suggest that the park would not be overlooked by windows which is false … there are windows directly across the street.   An entrance to BAM/PFA there would either (a) stay locked and unmanned during much of the day, or, (b) be manned but not really well positioned to police the park against abuses (“Hello, 911?  There’s some poor people sitting on the lawn!”).

You imply that the lawn would be a “bleak public space”.   Are you sure?   It sits across from and is visible from the great circle entrance to Cal.   At least in fair weather that lawn attracts a lot of use from students and others.   Why would this new lawn not function as a kind of annex to that one?  And would it not also be used as a space to which to carry take-out from Center St. or Shattuck at lunch?

Also, I think there something somewhat offensive about your suggestion that it is the role of architecture to exclude the most vulnerable among us from public space on the grounds that they might urinate or (gasp) drink outside of the drinking spots they can’t afford to be within.    You don’t address the obvious structural problems of a lack of decent public restrooms, social services, and economic opportunity — you just want those people to not be there.   As an alternative way to begin to approach such problems, have you seen the Amsterdam street-pissoir solution?   Or considered that a large part of $100M in private grants might be more usefully allocated for the preservation and enrichment of culture by more directly addressing poverty?

As a matter of aesthetics I agree with you to the extent that you are saying the proposed structure is a dog — but I don’t find the [new] urbanist puffery persuasive.   I’m not sure I could join you in wanting such slight modifications as you propose but if you took a stronger position against the design as a whole, I might find it easier.

On the “raised cafe” I think the intent is easy and obvious to see:  They want a special event space inaccessible from the street without going through a checkpoint, but that lets patrons gawk at the urban jungle from a safe vantage.   Only about half the South windows on the cafe look down on the street, the rest gives a similar deer-blind view down into part of the museum itself — so the visual theme here is one of socio-economic polarization overseen by an unseen elite.  To me it reads like it is supposed to be a “safe” space for high society fund raising events, subsidized during business hours by cafe revenues.

Thomas, you are a contrarian and an anti-urbanist as always.  We all expect you to argue at great length against anything and everything, including the small, common-sense improvement that I suggest to this design.

I will just answer one point:

“Also, I think there something somewhat offensive about your suggestion
that it is the role of architecture to exclude the most vulnerable among
us from public space”

I am not suggesting excluding anyone.  I am suggesting attracting enough people that the homeless don’t dominate the space completely.  I am perfectly comfortable with Shattuck Ave downtown, which has lots of homeless people but also has lots more non-homeless people.  The problem comes when you have a space that is not used by anyone except the homeless, such as the space at the Federal Building (and the space being designed here on Addison).

PS: in answer to your question about Amsterdam, notice that my first picture in http://preservenet.blogspot.com/2011/07/fietsen-van-amsterdam-bikes-of.html not only shows the the bike parking in front of Centraal Station but also shows the urinoir there, which I appreciated because it usually saved me 50 eurocents when I went to the station.

(a) “Homophobic”?   I gather we haven’t met.   Are you saying that because I described the party as “gay” or because I make a few d–k jokes?  If you ask me: Don’t answer here, it’s off topic, please.   See (c).

(b) “in support of”?   Not exactly, no.    “Meandering?”  Yes, thank you.  It’s adopted from a letter to my young relative, the budding economist with anti-corporatist leanings.

(c) your slam against me and or the Planet is what it is but to me it seems tangential to the Berkeleyside article about the museum and Charle’s solicitation for feedback on his on-topic article.   On unrelated matters you can send letters or opinions of praise, complaint, insight, or ignorance to the editor of Berkeley Daily Planet by writing to  opinion -at- berkeleydailyplanet.com although generally speaking, strictly anonymous contributions won’t be published there.

Take it (and distort it) as you will.  I am not going to waste time quibbling with you about definitions that everyone else understands.

Indeed!

For anyone who’s interested, the City of Berkeley has bicycling and walking guides/maps available for download on their website:

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=6568

Charles, I think these are some very good ideas. One of my concerns is the congestion on Center st, while Addison is relatively deserted between Shattuck and Oxford. Where Thomas is out championing social justice, the point of the building and the discussions about it, aren’t about where people are going to piss, but rather how the building’s design affects the downtown area and makes good or bad use of the space and the streets. 

Heather W., You begin by asking:

Jeebus, Thomas — has it ever occurred to you that some of the grandest of spaces in San Francisco are at the edge of the tenderloin with glass
windows overlooking the drug addicted and homeless?

Other than it uses some of the same words, how does this relate to anything I said?  And why are you turning this into a thread of personal attacks against me?

Are you or have you ever been someone who actually squirts your bleeding heart values in the right direction?

Umm….   seriously?

Heather, you write “Yes, seriously.”

Ok, then.  Yes.  Of course.  It should go without saying.   Like any normal person I have frequently “squirted my bleeding heart values in the right direction,” since you asked.   Haven’t you?   Perhaps you should see a doctor?

Heather, I’m perfectly willing to take you up on such questions but here, in this discussion about architectural plans for the new BAM/PFA site, is it really the right place?  Can you bring this back around to on-topic here?

So my actual interest in this story isn’t whether the building displaces a potential homeless encampment, or Thomas’ interest in additional public restrooms. It’s Silver Stream trailer of immense proportions that inlets and outlets onto a highly congested area, and I feel that Charles Siegal’s points were well spoken. The idea of an immense silver Gehry-esque building is in direct opposition to my idealistic notion that Berkeley is more organic, and less modernistic city. But times do change, and I need only close my eyes to be able to hear the campanile and hear the chants of protestors at the Campus… now you can’t hear anything, and even the stars are blacked out by the lights of the city. I realize that I am idealistic, and this is how Urban growth goes, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. 

Charles, your description of the mini-lawn “dead space” is better than my previous comment, above. It’s a bizarre little design gimmick that is bound to fail in many ways. 

It seems to have been added to the plan to try to make the setback from the street on that side of the building look less sterile and oppressive. It also gives the renderer an excuse to draw little people all around the front of the building to make it look like a constant hub of activity. In reality, it’s going to be a very awkward space that probably won’t get used much. It might, but it probably won’t. Maybe once they give up on the whole outdoor screen thing and architectural tastes change and this starts looking really dated they can put a nice tree there to try to hide the ugly building.

Also, how come they didn’t get some students or alumni from the UCB Architecture program to design the building? UCB mints their own Architects every year. Why outsource the design to Japan?

http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/

Heather, that is my main point.  I would like to see an entrance on Addison to get more people walking up Addison, so it is no longer deserted.  That would make a better use of downtown space and streets than the current design, which turns its back on Addison. 

(The homeless encampment would be a side effect of this bad use of downtown space.  It would be attracted to a place where there are no people walking to businesses.)

If it were up to me, I would overhaul the architecture completely and give it a more traditional design, as you say.

If that total redesign does not happen, I would at least like to see the museum create a livelier downtown by having an entrance on Addison as well as on Center.

The view up the street from the Arts District and PIQ is crucial for tying the museum in with restaurant and theater goers. The setback makes no sense. Seems like a wasted opportunity if folks can’t see at least some architecture when they look up Addison. Knowing the museum is right there would add to life at Shattuck and Addison. Don’t know whether you could have a visible entrance, but at least the architects should take on the challenge of drawing the eye down the street.

Try the flea market at the Ashby BART station on Saturday or Sunday.  You will find cheap bikes (not free ones).

I have a junky old 3-speed that I lock at the BART station all day when I commute.  Having a junky bike for short trips in the flatlands is one good way to avoid theft.

For kids, I thought I recalled that there was an organization in West Berkeley somewhere that collected used bike parts…

It is on Bolivar Drive in Aquatic park.
http://www.watersideworkshops.org/wb/pages/bikes.php

The bulk of this solution is an existing utilitarian structure. It is a beautiful and pure form and is the kind of interior where art really shines. Pier 24 and the DIA:Beacon in New York are good examples of similar existing structures re-purposed as museums that are stunning. The architects have cleverly reserved this existing structure for what it does best, displaying visual art. The new form that hugs and overlaps this existing form is dedicated to a theater, store and cafe (as far as I can tell). It strongly contrasts with the existing structure in a marvelous way.

Berkeley has some wonderful architecture but do we really want it to be a museum dedicated to the Arts and Crafts movement (I know there’s more here than that but you get my drift). I for one find it thrilling to come upon a modern structure tucked into a classical urban landscape.

People are almost always in opposition to unfamiliar non traditional architecture. Most of our greatest architectural landmarks were rejected at first and later were treasured. I welcome some bold new architecture in Berkeley. It’s about time!