Four day trip to Cleveland, several posts on the way

Crammed a lot of stuff into our trip, including a day at The Cleveland Museum, my first visit to Lakeview Cemetery, The Wade Memorial Chapel, Transformer Station and The Larchmere Porchfest. On the way I discovered a modernist architectural gem, some great food and other surprises.

Stay tuned for a few posts.

Nice Video About Creation Of Crop Bistro In A Classic Cleveland Building

 

I'm not a historic preservation nut-there sometimes are good reasons for radically changing or demolishing historic buildings.

That being said, they just don't make places of dignity and elegance like this Cleveland Landmark every day. Here is a great video I came across about the transformation of the ground floor space into a highly rated restaurant.

United Bank Building

The 9-story, 1.5 million dollar United Bank Building opened in 1925 as the tallest and largest commercial building on Cleveland's west side. It was one of the last of a series of classical bank buildings constructed in Cleveland during the 1910s and 1920s, a golden age for the city's banking industry. The selection of Cleveland in 1914 as one of twelve cities to house a branch of the new Federal Reserve Bank helped fuel this growth, as did the city's emergence as a major industrial center around the turn of the 20th-century. Many of the city's banks, however, did not make it through the stock market crash of October 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. The United Banking & Trust Company, founded on Cleveland's west side in the 1880s, was a victim of the crash, and it merged with Central National Bank just a month afterwards in November 1929

Crop is on Lorain Ave in Ohio City, a few steps away from the landmark, West Side Market.

Follow the link to learn more.

Some Shots of Case Western's Frank Gehry Designed, Peter B Lewis Building

Sort of by the grace of god, Pittsburgh's major college and art museum complex ended up within the city, while Cleveland's ended up right on the city's edge and just across the city line. For the most part, I think the motivation to build a clean, new place away from the dirty industrial core was similar to Pittsburgh's except, in our case, the bulk of really heavy industry was never in the city itself--but outside in the huge complexes along the Mon and Ohio Valleys.

A high percent of visitors to Cleveland spend some time in the area called University Circle, home to or bordering on such major institutions as The Cleveland Clinic, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Botanical Garden, The Children's Museum Of Cleveland, The Cleveland Institute Of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Severance Hall, The Cleveland Institute Of Music and Case Western Reserve University--many of them housed in beautiful and often uniquely designed buildings, some of which are icons of modernist design.

The good aspect of lots of good modernism is it's sensitivity to the landscape--the bad part is often it's total ignorance and insensitivity to human needs and human scale. Architecture must be judged on both the aesthetic value of how it looks, but on the social level of how it works, as a place for people to live and interact.

I can't fully judge, University Circle having spent too little time in and around it in the surrounding neighborhoods. We did walk around Little Italy which is close by.

The area around the museums is windy which obviously works well for cars. However, at least in nice weather, there are wonderfully landscaped wide walkways and lots of maps making it a great place to walk from place to place.

Here are images of the new Peter B Lewis Building, home to Case Western's Weatherhead School of Management. From the exterior, I have a very good impression of this building, although the huge Peter B Lewis name sloping over the front entrance is pretty overwhelming. Would love to have been a fly in some of those design meetings with Gehry.

Architecture Tour Takes In Frank Lloyd Wright And Other Great Buildings Around Cleveland: April 9

Peter B. Lewis Building, Case Western Reserve University: Frank Gehry



Frank Lloyd Wright: Staley House



Frank Lloyd Wright: Penfield House



The Weltzheimer/Johnson House: Frank Lloyd Wright

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House holds public open house hours on the First and Third Sundays of each month

OK--straight up, registration for this tour is over so this post is just to make one more aware of these buildings and this event. Also, many of these buildings, including a Wright house are open for tours.

Wright made an impact in Ohio later in his career than in Illinois, Wisconsin and Western PA, but still left a significant legacy of six houses in Northeast, Ohio.

"On Saturday, April 9, Out and About Wright participants will have the opportunity to visit not one, not even three, but five Wright-designed private residences in Northeast Ohio. Once home to a thriving manufacturing industry, Cleveland is re-emerging along the banks of Lake Erie as a Midwest center for art and architecture. Before the region saw the landmark construction of the new I. M. Pei-designed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it already had a varied and interesting architectural heritage, including six mid-century works by Wright:"

Some Thoughts On The Blog's Future

Some of you may have been disappointed by the blog's slow path away from pure art's coverage, although it's always had a pretty big chaos component.

What I've always had in mind, was a blog not just about the arts here, but the relationships between artists and creative people and some broader idea of community. I also want to form some kind of group conversation about good design and urbanism on every aspect of life.

Several new people will probably be posting once in a while giving their different views on how to make the region more livable. One has some knowledge of Cleveland, but now lives in the D.C. area (without a car), the other lived in D.C. and now lives in Pittsburgh without a car. Both are seriously into biking so that's likely to come up.

Hopefully, more people will also take me up on my offer. I'd still like a lot more arts coverage. Also, more perspective from Northeast Ohio or West Virginia would be great.

A further note. All opinions are the views of their respective posters (although we often may agree) There is no real editor and certainly no intent to create groupthink. A certain level of controversy is encouraged.