Metro of the Future?
1 06 2009Don’t get us wrong, we like the Chenoweth|Houghton design that was installed back in 2005, but they are all the same, wouldn’t it be cool if each neighborhood had its very own distinct design? Architect extraordinaire Travis Price sketched up this vision of what a Metro canopy could look like.
[Sketch: Travis Price]
See, that sketch right there, that’s why we have to stick to the current design.
I LOVE the current design. It’s iconic and really enhances the look and feel of Metro (so say my out-of-town visitors)
Is this something that is really worth DC taxpayer money. Might be good if we spent it on slightly more beneficial things like the school system or infrastructure.
Kinda with tom veil on this one: this is answering a question nobody asked.
If it ain’t broke, and it ain’t, don’t fix it.
This is horrifying. It has no purpose, no humanity and no taste. Its a mix bag of tired modern references.
agreed, just leave it alone it looks perfectly fine the way it is
I agree with those above. Part of the beauty of the identical canopies is the ease of identifying Metro stops - both as a visitor and a resident! I’d hate to stop and debate whether it’s art or actually a Metro stop.
There are certainly some stations where a different design would be more fitting for the neighborhood, but this design isn’t one of them.
The best part of the current canopies is that they echo, in glass, the barrel vaults of the stations down below. This sketch canopy has no relation to either the stations below ground, or anything else for that matter. No go.
eeh reading these comments confrims my opiion that DC is STILL a backwater rat hole w/ no sense of art NOR appreciating artists such as T. Price of creating the extra-ordinary versions of ordinary objects….
..”NOR does it appreciate artists such as….”
I think the question was should there be different designs for metro stations, not do you like this particular one (which is ugly).
@Bliz - As for being able to recognize a station, the huge pylons with the line color and station name outside each station do a great job of that already, so that isn’t an issue.
It would be nice to have some neighborhood views and icons on display inside the station, like they do on the T in Boston. At the station platform level and maybe by the escalators - give a taste of the area. And then you wouldn’t have to read English to know where you are - a plus with all of DC’s international visitors.
I worked for the winning design firm that won the Metro canopy competition - Lourie & Chenoweth/Houghton - and it’s true that the idea was to have the barrel vault echo the Weese-designed underground stations.
Not sure if this is true, but I was also told that when the final decision was being made between the two finalists (the current design and a design similar to Travis’ - one with just a flat, inclined rectangular canopy) an older woman on the selection committee decided she liked the curved design better and that was that.
Fine, I’ll dissent. I think this design is awesome!
[…] few weeks ago we spent some time talking about the pros and cons of having almost all the entrances to metro include the Chenoweth|Houghton […]