Architecture

Sketches below aer are from the 1966 Greater Charlotte Central Area Plan by A.G. Odell Jr. and Associates.  Map is from the 1960 Wilbur Smith Master Highway Transportation Plan.

Just for fun, before watching Monday night’s Charlotte City Council hearing on the newest plan for downtown Charlotte, I hauled out my yellowing copy of the 1966 Odell Plan. (See original drawings from the plan here.) It’s both fun and humbling to see how stunningly wrong that plan was about so much. Then I thumbed […]

Charlotte’s draft 2020 Vision Plan is a disappointing document. Despite the hard work, the glossy graphics are mostly pretty pictures of conventional thinking rather than visions for a different future. A plan promoted as visionary should acknowledge that urgent environmental and economic forces demand challenging changes to the status quo, and then propose far-reaching and […]

The City of Salisbury has had great success as a community in preserving its past. These photos highlight some examples of the many treasures in its commercial center and historic neighborhoods. Read related article on this site. Photographs by Nancy Pierce

“Frank Lloyd Wright described vernacular architecture as ‘folk building growing in response to actual needs, fitted into environment…’  Early settlers to the Piedmont – English, Scots-Irish, and German – arrived with traditional European building styles in mind, but they quickly adapted them to our local conditions.  As such, the old farmhouses in the Uwharries became […]

May is National Preservation Month. The theme this year is “Celebrating America’s Treasures.” If you are new to the Charlotte Region, you may not be aware of the many historic treasures that can be found in this area. One of those treasures is undoubtedly the City of Salisbury, which is about 45 minutes northeast of […]

What should Charlotte look like? When discussing urban design many planners, architects and developers assume that what works in New York, San Francisco and Portland should work here. This assumption ignores the reality that Southerners have a very different perspective on “urbanness” than non-Southerners. No one has asked Charlotteans what they want their city to […]

Despite early February blizzards across the northern U.S. that cancelled flights and upended travel plans, over 1,300 people came to Charlotte last week for the 10th annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference. About 1,000 of them came from outside the Carolinas, including a dozen or so from outside the U.S. They flocked to the […]