History and Analysis of
The Architectural Review Board, Baltimore 1960-85
(Administered by Charles Center — Inner Harbor Management, Inc.)
When the Charles Center Project was launched by the
City of Baltimore in June of 1959, the non-profit Charles Center
Management Office (CCMO) was retained to manage the development process.
The 22-acre Charles Center Project was the City's pioneering, landmark
project, and the mandate of the City and the business community was
to set the highest possible standard of quality of design and development
from the beginning.
In carrying out that mandate, CCMO conducted a national competition
to select a developer for the first site — now known as One Charles
Center. The competition required developers to submit their qualifications,
to prove that they had the capability to develop a top-quality
300,000-sq. ft. office building, along with their architect's
qualifications
and a conceptual design of their proposed development.
The rules
of the competition provided for the development rights to be awarded
to the qualified developer who submitted the best
design, in the opinion of CCMO's client, the Baltimore Urban
Renewal and
Housing Agency (now the Department of Housing and Community
Development).
Five developers — both from Baltimore and from out-of-town
— made submissions. All were judged to be qualified as to
their capacity,
leaving the choice to be made on the basis of the best conceptual
design.
To advise the Agency in making that choice, an architectural
design jury was assembled by the Planning Council of the
Greater Baltimore
Committee — the authors of the Charles Center Plan. The
members of the jury were the deans of three of the nation's most
prestigious schools of architecture: Pietro Belluschi,
of M.I.T.; Vi Hudnut,
of Harvard, and G. Holmes Perkins, of the University of
Pennsylvania. David A. Wallace, Director of the Planning Council,
acted
as Secretary.
The jury chose the building design of Mies
van der Rohe, then considered the world's leading architect, who
was
retained by Metropolitan
Structures, Inc., of Chicago. After some static over
the choice
of an out-of-town
developer instead of a Baltimore team, the CCMO endorsed
the recommendation of Metropolitan Structures and the
BURHA Commission
made the selection
final.
The building known as One Charles Center was completed
in 1962 and became a commercial model of Mies' famous
Seagram Building
on Park
Avenue in New York. The Baltimore building was later
described by Architectural Record as "one of the important
U.S. buildings
of the
1960's".
(Just last month, a poll of 100 prominent New York
real estate leaders voted the1960 Seagram Building
second
only to the
Chrysler Building
as their favorite skyscraper in New York, of any
period).
As the implementation of the Charles Center project
proceeded, the CCMO lined up developers at a surprisingly
fast pace,
and within three years there were
eight other buildings committed. Under the terms of the Charles
Center Urban Renewal Plan, CCMO required all developers
to follow
the urban design standards
and controls in the Plan, and, within those restrictions,
to submit their architectural plans for approval by
the Commission
of BURHA
at each stage of design.
The Planning Council of
the Greater Baltimore Committee was retained as a subcontractor
to CCMO, to assist
in administering the urban planning and
architectural review
process, and the members of the jury from the One Charles
Center competition
were retained as consultants, acting as an Architectural
Review Board (ARB), to advise the Planning Council,
CCMO
and BURHA as
to the acceptability of
developers' plans.
In 1965, when the City decided to undertake
the 300-acre Inner Harbor redevelopment program, consisting of
seven additional urban renewal
projects, the CCMO
was expanded to become Charles Center — Inner Harbor
Management, Inc. (CC-IH). The City, acting through HCD, entered into
a
contract with
the new corporation
to act as manager of the entire program.
CC-IH ultimately
employed its own planning and architectural staff, but the Architectural
Review Board continued to
serve as its advisory
panel
-- to
review and make recommendations regarding the application
of the urban design standards
and controls in the Urban Renewal Plans, and -- within
the limits established by those controls -- the quality
of the
developers'
architectural designs.
It was the practice of CC-IH
to have the ARB review a conceptual version of the design of each
project
before
making a financial
deal involving
a development
commitment on behalf of the City. In that way, the
City's representatives retained the upper hand in
urban design
and planning negotiations
with would-be developers.
The reasons for continuing the ARB were clear: their
combined seniority and experience enabled them to
judge developers'
design submissions
in the light
of recognized international standards of excellence,
and their prestige within the profession made their
recommendations unassailable
by
even the most famous
of the architects who appeared before them.
During
the tenure of the ARB between 1960 and 1990, the Charles Center
and Inner Harbor projects won
more than
35 national
or international awards for
excellence of design and/or development. More than
50 architects' plans were reviewed, including five
A.I.A.
Gold Medal winners
and two additional
Gold
Medal architectural firms.
During that time, the makeup of the ARB changed
with the availability of the original members,
and the
size was
increased to five
members because of the
occasional difficulty of arranging meetings. Meanwhile,
the City Planning Department formed a second Design
Advisory Panel (DAP)
of Baltimore
design professionals,
to review the plans of architects and developers
of sites outside the Charles
Center and Inner Harbor project areas.
Between 1990
and 1995, CC-IH was superseded by the Baltimore Development
Corporation (BDC), and
in 1997,
BDC and the
Planning Department
agreed to combine the two
review panels into one DAP, to be administered
by the Department of Planning. In October, 2004,
that
panel
was renamed the
Urban Design and Architectural
Review Panel and given a revised scope and procedures
by the Mayor and the Planning Commission — the
arrangement which is
in effect
as
of this
writing
in January, 2006.
Recommendations for the Creation of a Design Review Panel
Composition
The Panel should be limited to no more than five
members, with the proviso that at least three should form a quorum.
There should be some members who have national or
international experience and stature — as either architects or urban
planners.
Process
The Client should codify and publish the legal sources
of authority for design review and approval, with references to the
specific standards and controls that are in effect in the various
Urban Renewal and PUD Plans, historic preservation restrictions,
zoning variations and exceptions, subdivision regulations, etc.
The Panel's procedures for submissions in the concept
stage should be strictly enforced, and prior conceptual approval
by the Panel should be a requirement for consideration of a development
proposal by all City agencies.
Method
Legislation should be prepared to close any loopholes
that enable projects to avoid review.
Some agency should have the role of monitoring the
compliance of all projects that affect the built environment of the
City, and keep track of the status of the Panel's review requirements.
Transparency
Conduct meetings in public, including questions from
the panel and comments from the audience, but reserve the panelists'
comments for executive session, where they can be summarized in one
joint, consistent statement.
Provide the Panel or the Client with a civic design
advisory board representing the public, the profession, the neighborhoods
and the business community, to make recommendations that may be outside
the professional scope of the UDARP Panel.
The Conceptual Plan
The most important, first stage of urban design —
the conceptual stage — determines the ultimate character and proportions
of a project, and must therefore be given a meaningful review by
a Panel. The entire process will break down if the Client agrees
to the urban design character of a project before the Panel has an
opportunity to give it an objective review. The Client needs to resist
the temptation to agree to a business deal without the negotiating
tool represented by the Review Panel.
by Martin Millspaugh
12/31/2007
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