Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book Available September 2012!
The Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book is expanding to be available for download/purchase September 2012 thanks to the support and interest of AIA Cleveland. The expanded book will include 30+ architectural works, serving as both playful artifact and city guide as the city of Cleveland hosts the AIA Ohio convention this Fall.
The Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book is a POST Collaboration: Jeremy Smith, Michael Abrahamson, Theodore Ferringer, Austin Kotting and Allison Szalkowski.
Peter Lloyd Residence 1953 (demolished 2003)
Ernst Payer
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
Peter Lloyd House.35850 South Woodland Road.Moreland Hills.Ohio 44022
Julka Hall 2011
A.J. Montero of NBBJ
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
Cleveland State University’s new College of Education and Human Services building toes a fine line of contemporary formalism and unrefinement that allows it to achieve a boldness its counterpart, the new student center by Gwathmy Siegel, can’t fathom. Where the new student center is detailed clumsily with awkward adjacencies and misalignments, Julka Hall is sharp and restrained; making up for what it lacks in formal clarity with quality of space and natural light.
Julka Hall.Cleveland State University.2121 Euclid Avenue.Cleveland, OH.44115
Bibbins Hall 1963
Minoru Yamasaki
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
Minoru Yamasaki designed Bibbins Hall and counterparts Warner Concert, Central Unit and Robertson Hall in the early 1960’s, with a Neo-Gothic hand that would influence his work on the World Trade Center in New York City less than a decade later. The building’s skin is characterized by a repetitious structural, precast concrete panel relief with diamond shaped windows, allowing it to be part Mason Domino and another part sculptural artifact.
Bibbins Hall.Oberlin College Music Conservatory.77 West College Street.Oberlin, OH.44074
Corporate College East 2005
Christopher Diehl of URS Corporation
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
The Corporate College East is one part Rafael Moneo (a) and another Robert Venturi (b). Christopher Diehl’s 70mph architecture (c) of building as artifact and billboard offers multiple readings relative to distance, supporting the Corporate College as a high-tech conference/meeting center and beacon visible from the interstate. The details attempt to blend building forms together, while supporting object-ness under the guise of sustainability in the form of “light cannons.” Here, the balance of gesture and detail facilitates a strong sense of quality that immediately raises the profile of its parent institution.
Corporate College East.Cuyahoga Community College.4400 Richmond Road.Cleveland.OH.44128
(a) Rafael Moneo. 1996 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate.
(b) Venturi, Robert. Learning from Las Vegas. MIT Press. 1972
(c) Tri-C Corporate College East: Learning to grow businesses. Builders Exchange Magazine. Vol. 4, Issue 6. 2005.
The Bertram and Judith Kohl Building 2010
Jonathan Kurtz of Westlake Reed Leskosky
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
The Bertram and Judith Kohl Jazz Studies Building is a dynamic interplay of planes, concealing and exposing use at key moments. The rhythm of the skin sets the building apart from the conservatory’s three neo-Gothic structures by Minoru Yamasaki (a,b,c), while an exterior stair encourages the pedestrian to engage the building, leading them to a unique third-story public space. Here, Koolhaas (d) meets LTL (e) to create a fresh, innovative piece of architecture that is easily one of the best buildings in North East Ohio to be completed in the past several decades.
The Bertram and Judith Kohl Building.Oberlin College Music Conservatory.77 West College Street.Oberlin, OH.44074
(a) Bibbins Hall Oberlin College.Oberlin, Ohio (1964)
Minoru Yamasaki
(b) Warner Concert Hall + Central Unit Oberlin College.Oberlin, Ohio (1963)
Minoru Yamasaki
(c) Robertson Hall Oberlin College.Oberlin, Ohio (1963)
Minoru Yamasaki
(d) Rem Hoolhaas OMA
University Center Don Hisaka 1974-2008
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
Don Hisaka’s University Center at Cleveland State stood as a very bold, human response to Brutalist architecture in the 1970’s. The building’s scale and proportion on Euclid Avenue bring the campus, sitting on a plinth, down to the street level, while mass and material highlight monumentality beautifully in context.
The University Center’s unfortunate demolition in 2008 left a void in the Cleveland architectural scene that was less than adequately replaced by Gwathmey Siegel’s generic accumulation of forms in 2010 (a).
2121 Euclid Avenue . Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(a) New Student Center Cleveland, Ohio (2010)
Gwathmey Siegel Architects
ASM World Headquarters John Terence Kelly + R. Buckminster Fuller 1959
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
In the late 1950’s, Cleveland Modernist architect John Terence Kelly and visionary R. Buckminster Fuller collaborated on the ASM World Headquarters, just 20 miles east of Cleveland, to create an iconic statement of earth and sky. Characterized by some as a “spaceship landed in the countryside,” the composition of building and geodesic dome are more fittingly read as extensions of the landscape. Like Joseph Paxton at the Crystal Palace (a), Fuller attempts to dematerialize structure into atmosphere (b) to create an intimate dialogue with Kelly’s hovering mass on concepts of enclosure, space, and datum. Unlike Paxton’s illustrative statement of modular reproduction, however, the ASM World Headquarters is meant to be closer to Bruno Taut’s Glass Pavilion (c) as a catalyst and call to arms amongst a community of craftsmen. Truly, Kelly and Fuller’s collaboration contains more depth that can be seen at first glance from Kinsman Road. It is a Utopian statement that offers room for interpretation (and re-interpretation) over time, embodying the best qualities of visionary architecture; the ability to capture the imagination and continually offer relevant advice for future constructions.
ASM World Headquarters.9639 Kinsman Road.Novelty,OH.44134
(a) Crystal Palace London, England (1851)
Joesph Paxton
(b) Hyman, Isabelle and Marvin Trachenberg. Architecture: From Prehistory to Postmodernity. Prentice-Hall. 2nd ed. 2002. p. 461-2.
(c) Glass Pavilion Cologne, Germany (1914)
Bruno Taut
Park Synagogue Erich Mendelsohn 1953
Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book
Erich Mendelsohn’s Park Synagogue combines simple geometric forms and Judaic symbolism to create a flexible religious environment where, depending on the size of congregation, three sanctuaries can be dissolved into one great hall. Massive, full height glass walls open to a courtyard, allowing the community to engage exterior space, and the synagogue’s relationship to natural context is framed beautifully to merge building concept and use.
Park Synagogue.3300 Mayfield Road.Cleveland, OH.44118
How do we grow and sustain the emergent design culture in Cleveland? Two effective ways that come to mind are keep doing stuff (events / competitions / built work) and educate youth about architecture in an inspiring way. The Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book aspires to fill an educational void by conveying historically good work with an appropriately playful undertone.
Please print and enjoy the collection of works that will ultimately accumulate and follow for children, unsuspecting interns and colleagues to have fun with. My hope is that an inevitable appreciation for good Cleveland architecture will inspire future and current designers to imagine and realize provocative work.
There is no need to “stay inside the lines,” just grab a box of crayons and go to town!
