Phoenix: the Danger of Success

Phoenix may be succeeding in bringing in-fill development to downtown, but in this architect’s opinion, we may be in danger of too much success at the expense of having a recognizable Phoenix style.

Phoenix is in danger. We are in danger of finally achieving an aesthetic many of us in the design community have longed for, an aesthetic built on the brilliant tenets of modernism. A lack of built history, no surviving historic vernacular, and an overabundance of cheap land and labor give local architects and designers an incredible array of design options, yet our reputation for cutting edge design continues to diminish.

Our Phoenix design aesthetic has become modern without meaning, not McMansion but McModern.

Linnea O'Dowd, LEED AP, Associate AIA

Exposed emotionless grey block, crumbling remnants of gabion walls, identical weathered steel and river rock accents: does anyone else notice the ubiquitousness of the various building materials, the loss of craftsmanship, the absence of inventiveness and imagination? We are missing the intimate detailing which made Modernism so incredibly radical and beautiful. For our desert modernism to go beyond style, we must stop denying why we build, we build for human expression, for ourselves and for our neighbors.

From within the design community, we scoff at the Tuscan or Olde Worlde, for all its frills and ornamentation. Yet if we cannot fulfill our commitments, as designers, to build with a craft approach and to convey a sensory delight in materials, using structural ingenuity and inspired experiential design solutions, then as Modernists and as architects, we have failed. We cannot blame the Tuscan invasion on anyone but ourselves.

I came to Phoenix from Portland, a port city full of exposed structures, tight urban growth boundaries and a commitment from multiple municipal agencies to keep a tight downtown core mixing the historic and new.

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The bungalow in Portland, with its cedar shingle siding and shake roof, have been reinvented many times over, yet remain a desirable housing type. The structural expression, the materiality, the intimacy of scale: all of these features keep the historic bungalow archetype fresh and meaningful. There is a concept behind the bungalow’s design, decisions were made with a purpose; a response to climate, to human program needs, evolutionary nods to other historic housing types. In Phoenix, we have no equivalent to the Portland bungalow; we have no true historic vernacular to draw upon. For the new modern to succeed, we cannot deny the human element: touch, sight, sound, even scale, we must relate our purpose for building with actual buildings.

As I write this, I am in New Orleans, a city built in spite of severe geographic constraints, where urban growth boundaries just aren’t necessary. The city’s geography, climate and long history render its unlikely existence possible. The city has a colorful vernacular, with a historic style whose design narrates through climate, place, and human need. The historic urban backbone of the city was driven by essentials, and many examples remain as effective and inspiring design solutions. New Orleans has buildings built in the 1700’s still in use, dripping with ornate iron work, yet the modern schools we build in the desert need repair after 10 years. The surviving city of New Orleans serves a key lesson in knowing your climate and your history.

Everything is possible in Phoenix but we must take responsibility for providing our own limits. As designers, we can fight the sameness that has started to permeate our community, engulfing us in waves of uniformity. The future of Phoenix may be an emotionless, gleaming glass and steel sameness, glittering in the desert, with all the monotony of a colorless, tasteless, senseless high-speed drive through a blank city, yet we still have time to relate to the nuances and beauty of this place, by designing for both human body and mind, for both the individual and the collective urban well-being.

Linnea O’Dowd is a freelance designer with degrees in both bioscience and architecture. She moved to Phoenix after 10 years in Portland and Eugene, Ore. She can be reached at linneaodowd@yahoo.com.

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