| Contextual Infrastructure Planning and Design |
| Aesthetic Considerations from the 1960s |
| By Bruce Podwal, Princeton, New Jersey 1-609-734-6972, podwal@pbworld.com
|
| Though aesthetic considerations
in highway design are getting more attention now than previously,
these concerns were not neglected in the past. Some examples from
the 1960s are included in this article for comparison purposes. |
|
In the mid-1960s, then Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York
was embarrassed when Queen Juliana of the Netherlands rode through
slum areas on her way from the New York Thruway to the Governor's
Mansion in Albany, the state capital. To avoid such embarrassment
in the future, he put a plan in motion to develop a world-class complex
of state office buildings, a museum and a convention center between
the State Capitol Building and the Governor's Mansion. This complex,
called the Mall, and its proposed new highway access also would effectuate
slum-clearance in the city. The Governor put the overall coordination
of project elements in the hands of an architectural firm.
PB was designing an Interstate Connector (I-787) into Albany at that
time. We suspended that work to add a spur called the Mall Arterial
from I-787 into the Mall complex. The Mall Arterial, actually a freeway
and not an arterial, passed beneath the Mall complex, with service
roads providing direct access to three levels of parking. The architects
dictated a number of details that they felt improved the overall aesthetics
of our work. I had never seen many of these directives before and
have not seen them since. Some of them are presented below for your
consideration in the future or for your amusement. You decide.
We and the architects must have done something right. The Mall Arterial
received a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) award for the
best example of a "highway in its environment." |
|
| Bruce Podwal joined PB in 1961 as a junior highway
engineer on the I-787 project and became its project manager by the
time construction ended in 1974. A Principal Project Manager of the
firm, he has managed several mega-programs around the world. His current
assignment is program manager for PB's General Engineering Consultant
efforts on the $1 billion Katy Freeway reconstruction in Houston,
Texas. |
|
