Quick, someone call Rachel Flynn and remind her that Richmond doesn't do "the vision thing" very well. In a city where the dominant superpower is invisibility, no one wants to be noticed.
The city's most powerful columnist (a hard gig when you're the only one left), Michael Paul Williams, recently surveyed Richmond's skyscape with Flynn, the city's director of community development and architect of the city's visionary Downtown Master Plan. They were looking for something memorable and architecturally compelling in Richmond's skyline. The two came up empty.
"Richmond is blessed by a splendid setting on the James," Williams says in a video accompanying his column, "but there's little captivating about the buildings that rise above it."
(Note to TD: Links to videos gives your push toward interactivity more relevance.)
Williams' column is even more damning of Richmond's less-than-inspiring skyline.
Our handsomest high-rise, the art-deco Central National Bank building, has been vacant for years. Our most historic building, the state Capitol, is invisible from the highway and virtually everyplace else. Only Richmond would hide such a treasure amid its bland blocks of concrete and glass. Other gems are similarly obscured by an urban version of big-box stores.
... The latest proposed addition to downtown -- a 15-story office building at 10th and Canal -- has been aptly described by Community Development Director Rachel Flynn as "another banal building on the Richmond skyline."
"I'm struck by, in general, how unstriking it is, I guess," she said yesterday. "When you think about certain cities, you have an image in your mind of its landmarks, and often it's the skyline that comes to mind."
"Richmond, they're all alike," she said. "And what's interesting is very few have any domed tops or pyramidal tops or spired tops."
She likes the old Central National Bank building. "It's well-proportioned, it's nicely designed, it's slender. . . . That one, I think, is a defining building in Richmond."
So is the Thomas Jefferson-designed Capitol, but you'd never know it, the way development conspired to hide from view a building on one of the highest points downtown. You literally have to walk by or drive by to see it. "It's just symbolic that that's what got crowded out," she said.
Flynn goes on to note the suggestion in the Downtown Master Plan that a signature building be designed and erected at the foot of the 9th Street bridge, a building that would help to define Richmond. She seems surprised that no one jumped with joy at the idea.
But that very lack of definition, the reluctance to stand out, is exactly what the region's Old Guard is all about. Just listen to Style Weekly editor Jason Roop's discussion on that magazine's Power List on WRVA's Jimmy Barrett Show (which concludes with a shout-out to Michael Paul Williams, incidentally):
Barrett: The thing that really sticks out to me, Jason, are the people in particular at the top of the list, because these are people who if you were to mention the name to the average Richmonder they would go, "Who?" But the thing that's interesting that I've always found interesting about Richmond is how many strings are pulled from behind the stage, behind the curtain...
Roop: A lot of these old guys are friends, and they get together and talk about "Hey what can we do to change things?" I think there's a genuine interest in what's happening in the city, I don't think there are any sinister motives there. And I think the real talent of some of them is that they manage to rise above all of this stuff you read about in the paper ... what's happening at City Hall and the muck of the politics and the headaches that people are having, the commoners are having.
And if the political and economic culture is focused on being invisible, what do you think the architecture will be?
In conversations this summer with some newcomers to the region -- people who are sitting at the table with some of Richmond's invisible leadership -- I have been startled by their frustration with the politeness that permeates discussions that in any other city would be direct, passionate and energetic. Not surprised by their experiences, but startled by just how frustrated people passionate about the future become when they are surrounded by a culture that rewards people who deliver a "don't rock the boat" approach to boat rocking.
Our staid skyline is a reflection of our dominant culture.
