Evening star., 1961-04-30
Cite,
and Rqpk
Intimate Cities
Or 'MonumentuI'?
By ROBERT ]. LEWIS
PFIILADEI, ,PHIA.

and this Is fortunate, for
there's a taxi strike.
So you walk miles and
miles, exploring alleys and
streets, day and night, dur
ing every minute free from
the meetings in the Bellevue
Stratford Hotel-Soaking up
the Splendors, the shames,
and the unexpected, sudden
contrasts that have accumu-
lated in the $50 years since
this city was founded.
. -
Here are the unbelievably
tawdry, rundown buildings
crowding against shining
new ones.
Here are the raucous, con-
tinuouS performance "all-
girl revues" elbowing the Sc
date and dignified Poor
Richard Club on Locust
street.
Here are the parking lots
slashing into the city'S fab
ric, the streets swollen with
traffic, the gasoline fumes
and honking horns that spell
the downtown city every
where.
Here is the tumble of old
and new, the hustle of decay
and progress flowing in and
out on q classic scale that
has brought architects to
this city to meet, to hear, to
see, and to think about how
all cities can be shaped and
formed for a new age to
come.
The wind swirls dust In
wildly singing clouds across
Washington Square as you
watch a building being torn
down.
What's going on here?"
you ask an onlooker.
This is where they're 60
ing to build Hopkinson
House,
He assumes you are a Phil
adelphian and know all
about it. But you do not.
TITS a 33-story apartment
building that's going up for
urban renewal" ;" he explains.
We're proud Of what's going
on around here"
You watch the bulldoZer in
the deeply, Scared earth.
Then you turn and look
across the square to Mayor
Richardson Dilworth's hand
some home squeezed between
the Athenaeum and J. B.
Lippincott's publishing firm.
It's a new house, q row.
type, three stories high and
in the small-scale Georgian
style Of old Philadelphia.
1t is the antithesis of the
skyscraper apartment.
Here, you think, is a SYM
bolic contrast.
It is symbolic of the argu-
ment going on back at the
Bellevue Stratford between
architects and planners sep
arated by a chasm Of differ
ing viewpoints.
1t is symbolic Of the confu-
sion that marks the current
efforts to revive American
cities and make them better,
and of the compromises that
history is yielding.
+ y
For around this hallowed,
dust-strewn w aShington
Square-where thousands of
Revolutionary soldiers lie
buried in unmarked graves
and a fountain plays-two
theories on the future of
cities are being tested stimuli
taneously.
Here-on the one hand
advocates of small-scale
planning can take satisfac-
tion in the small-Scale Dill
worth house, and restoration
of others of its type.
And here - on the other
hand - advocates of the
monumental" high rising
city in skyscraper form can
be pleased with the 33-Story
Hopkinson House apartment
project.
These two visions of the
future city are being created
around a single square. You
realize they are typical Of
what is going on in many
cities across the land.
Back at the Bellevue -Strat-
ford, two great men had been
applauded impartially at ses-
SionS of the American Insti-
tute of Architects. One was
LIE Corbusier, the French ar
chitect who has led the fight
for the skyscraper apartment
city.
The other was Lewis Num-
ford, American critic who for
years has eloquently con-
demned such monumental
ity" as "dehumanizing."
Which of these two con-
trasting views will prevail
in the long runp