Classic Values, New Forms

By Wolf VonEckardt

The year's finest work bows to the past while shaping the future

The recent wave of nostalgia for a presumably friendlier, less menacing world of the past is beginning to have an effect on design. America's sudden love affair with old buildings, almost any old buildings, is prompting the architects of new buildings to work with traditional forms and ornamentation. The renewed appreciation of older cities is giving more emphasis to the importance of livable urban design. Indoors, designers are beginning to domesticate some of the gadgets that are beeping us, buzzing us, little-red-light-flashing us and computer-accessing us into an awesome and intriguing electronic future.

Among the 1983 buildings that reconnect functional modern architecture with classic and familiar gestures, the best is Philip Johnson and John Burgee's AT&T building in New York City. Many critics who earlier chattered indignantly about the building's Chippendale pediment now realize that in fact it tops a slender, handsomely articulated granite tower best described as noble. Nor does it just stand there. It rises impressively out of the confusion of Madison Avenue and gives that teeming thoroughfare a much needed lift.

The new corporate office of General Foods in Westchester County, N.Y., makes its concession to history not by adapting ornamental forms but by shaping white aluminum and glass into a graceful, lyrical palace reminiscent of the work of the great 16th century architect Palladio. Designed by Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo & Associates, it has genuine richness and grandeur.

Another happy union of old and new is celebrated at the Mount Vernon Church condominiums in Boston, designed by Graham Gund Associates. Gund made the ruins of a burned-out neo-Romanesque church the framework for modern brick apartment houses. While old and new each maintains its integrity, the two combine in one unique, exciting yet harmonious structure.

Invigorated by East River breezes, the vista of the Brooklyn Bridge and the aroma of the old Fulton Fish Market, New York City's South Street Seaport is unquestionably the year's most dramatic contribution to urban livability. A maritime museum, renovated warehouses, a new market hall, pushcarts, restaurants, stalls and stores that are not just cute boutiques, all evoke the atmosphere and bustle of the long-gone sailing-ship harbor. The architects are Benjamin Thompson & Associates, Beyer Blinder Belle, and Jan Hird Pokorny.

In Memphis, an unsightly sandbank at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wolf rivers was transformed in mid-1982 into an ingenious recreation park by the architectural firm Roy P. Harrover & Associates. Fifty-acre Mud Island, just off the center of downtown, is now attracting national attention. It offers riverside recreation, marinas, a 4,300-seat auditorium and audiovisual displays. Kids love to hop, skip and splash down a 2,000-ft.-long contour model of the Mississippi River as they study historical and geographical markers.

In the realm of industrial design, one of the year's most handsome achievements is the decor of the Arlington, Va., headquarters of the newspaper USA Today. Working within an ugly rented office building, Environmental Planning & Research, interior designers, emphasized the same "user friendly" efficiency that is built into computers. While reporters' desks, or "stations," are arranged in straight rows, editors and rewrite staff occupy dog-bone-shaped control desks designed for easy consultation.

Though many contemporary hi-fi components are bulky and intimidating, the Magnavox compact disc player, designed by Robert I. Blaich, director of Concern Industrial Design, for N.V. Philips, does away with the aggressively high-tech look. Confident of the machine's technical sophistication, the designer could afford to understate his case and give it an honest simplicity. The same straightforwardness--with a touch of cheerful flair and color--makes A T & T's new, expandable Genesis telephone at home wherever it is plugged in. Designed by Donald M. Genaro and John McGarvey of Henry Dreyfuss Associates, it automatically dials frequently called numbers, features a display screen that gives the time and date and can, with the insertion of an optional cartridge, remind the user of appointments, birthdays and other messages.

Detroit's triumph of 1983 is the Pontiac Fiero, whose all-plastic body displays a grace too long missing from American automobiles. Its streamline hood reflects race-car design, while the angular rear end conveys both youthful elegance and solidity. The midmounted engine ensures good weight distribution and handling.

Few of the year's graphic designs rise above banality and confusion; most suffer from the kind of overdesign that tends to interfere with the message. A delightful exception: the dust jacket for Franc,oise Sagan's novel The Painted Lady (E.P. Dutton), designed by Jane Sterrett under Nancy Ethridge's art direction. Its whimsical illustration and expressive lettering call attention to the book without cheapening its literary appeal.

--By Wolf VonEckardt