Hotels & Motels

The image above is of the Monroe Motor Inn, in Monroe, Georgia. Built around mid-century, it is a sort of hybrid between the old fashioned motor court and the motel. The Inn consists of three buildings arranged in a tight "U" formation around a central parking lot reminiscent of the old motor court's individual buildings scattered about. However, the linear design of the single story buildings belies the coming of the motel. Still visible are the links to residential past of motel buildings: the central office which attempts to appear very home-like with its gabled roof and poor attempt at colonial revival architecture. Well past its prime, the Monroe Motor Inn subsists on weekly rentals to lower income travelling workers, as well as those who find themselves in between suitable domestic situations, but it does offer great amenities such as a microwave and a refrigerator (both located inside the office). Above is the Bulldog Inn of Athens. Located a few blocks from downtown Athens on Highway 441, this inn is an excellent example of late 1960s motel design. The Bulldog Inn has a central office and portico with two wings of motel rooms flanking it and a third bank located behind the main building. The portico features angle changes which project it up, giving a sense of flight to its modern architecture, which is heightened by the simple exterior of the main building and room wings with large plate glass windows and very minimal structure. While the sign is rather ho-hum, its italic lettering is highlighted by neon at night, reflecting the hey day of motel when it served both travellers and athletic teams in town to compete against UGA. Today, the Bulldog Inn survives through weekly rentals.

The final image is of the Country Hearth Inn, also in Monroe. Largely, it seems that lodgings such as this have brought an end to the heyday of the motel. A small, regional chain, the Country Hearty Inn is an economy or budget hotel offering little in the way of amenities but survives by attempting to play on cultural references with its massive, but non-working fireplace in the lobby attempting to give a sense of home and place. Its clientelle is largely that of the motel, but it capitalizes on the middle-classes as well by offering a more controled environment than the motel with its interior rooms and cheap rates. Architecturally, the building is quite bland, utilizing a mixture of architectural features drawn from various styles, most notably the two-story entry and portico. While it draws on the hotel with its interior rooms, places such as the Country Hearth Inn are little more than glorified motels.

Homes: New and Old

I thought of Kirkwood as the perfect place to find examples of mid-century homes and new construction. The first picture is of my friends' house on Hosea that was built in the 1950s. It was completely renovated before they moved in a couple of years ago, but the charm still remains. The tile floor in one of the bathrooms as well as the windows are all original. I love this little house and its adorably homey porch complete with swing. The strange thing is that you have to share a driveway and gate with your neighbor, which I thought was odd if the home was built in a time of cars. However, the lot size and the fact that their house is on such an incline makes a second driveway between the two homes impossible or at least expensive. They do each have their own separate garages, though.


I've also included a picture of the house directly across the street which has not been renovated. This shows the gentrification that is occuring in Kirkwood as older homes are renovated and resold, pushing the property value up and forcing out previous home owners/renters. Some areas are further along this process, while others remain a tad spotty to say the least.

The last picture is of Kirkwood Station, the over-priced development down the street from their house in Hosea. It is a mixed use space with stores on the ground floor and two-story townhomes above. Right now it houses a couple restaurants, a spa and a gift/floral shop. Due to the market, and perhaps also because of the location, the townhomes or lofts or whatever they want to call them have not all been sold. Perhaps if prices drop and more development occurs around Kirkwood Station, the remainder of the homes will sell



The differences between these two homes are clear. The older, single-family dwelling speaks to families or couples who want the privacy of their own, free-standing home with a yard to care for and the perhaps the status that comes with home ownership. I know my friends bought this house after they lost everything in Katrina and I think it really served them as a return to normalcy. The house really does just feel like a normal, comfortable house.

The Kirkwood Station lofts, however, speak to a different type of person who wants a more urban and compact living space. Hungry? Go downstairs and eat at Vinocity. You don't have to waste your weekends on lawn care, which is really appealing to some. The closeness of neighbors does not bother everyone, in fact some prefer it and feel safer. I think these types of new developments with mixed use space speak to some kind of return to our roots, like the English burgher house and the European town square where people worked and lived in the same space. The only problem is that Kirkwood Station does not really offer this kind of lifestyle, since nothing else is in walking distance besides the post office and the library, and not everyone living there works on the ground floor. Perhaps it is just the ambiance of this idea that attracts people, as well as the lovely kitchens (I pretended like I wanted to buy one and took many tours).

From Arcade to Strip Mall?

Built in the 1920s, the Grove Arcade is a free standing arcade on the edge of downtown Asheville, NC, which was originally designed to house a skyscraper above it. However, the Depression put a crimp in that plan and it remains standing today with only three stories.Though the arcade is more the predecessor to the mall than the strip mall, contrasting it with the modern strip mall reveals many of the changes retail establishments made after the proliferation of the automobile.

Though the Grove Arcade was built shortly after cars hit the mainstream, it still maintained a pedestrian scale (it's unclear whether the curbside parking is original to the design). Like in a mall, most of the stores in an arcade are on the interior with few exterior entrances. The entrance seen above invites the pedestrian off the street with a massive 2-story arch. A permanent canopy in the foreground, houses an open air market during the day. The arcade is decorated with intricate Tudor elements and the second and third floors contain windows for offices.

The strip mall has no use for the second and third stories. These buildings are designed for only one use: selling stuff. And if there were upper floors they certainly wouldn't be wasted with all those windows. Instead we'd probably see the space utilized with lots of advertising.

But as seen in the example above, some of the first strip malls didn't do the best job of appealing to the passing car. Though cars in the 1950s probably drove by this establishment at a slower pace than they do today, the small cursive lettering of "Briarcliff Village" indicates early strip construction that didn't fully grasp the benefits of LOUD advertising. In addition, signs for the individual businesses are also in small fonts along either the front exterior, or under the overhang, which probably catered to the pedestrian, since its all but invisible from the street. Another element to note: limited parking.Compared to both the arcade and the earlier strip mall this more recently constructed strip mall has an insane amount of parking for its customers...probably more than would ever be used. Though you can still spot awnings, which hearken back to the arcade, this strip is the simplest of all. While the arcade had all kinds of expressive detail, and the early strip mall still attempted a style with its small turrets on top, this strip mall is bare bones. The most important element has become the sign (as detailed by Venturi & Scott Brown) , which is quite large, visible from the street and can be illuminated at night!

In the underground news too!

http://www.falsemagazine.org/content/issue_one.php

The Built Environment in the News!

Repurposed Walmarts on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95788156

and Clark Howard rips on chain bank architecture: http://clarkhoward.com/liveweb/shownotes/2007/10/19/12794/

The Mall of Georgia

For our mall assignment I decided to go to the Mall of Georgia and see just how quickly mall security responded to reports of someone with a camera...they did not seem concerned at all until I actually left the mall and took a picture of a parking lot, that's when all hell broke loose. I managed to get away and found a new reason to hate malls.

Above is the main entrance to the mall. I have always thought it is odd that the mall's main entrance opens to the food court's sea of tables. The addition of the fountain right by the door, however, completely negates the smoothie from Orange Julius which is probably spilled on the floor. This is also the main entrance...the space is architecturally unique, but it really feels like an airplane hanger. Its massive scale removes the individual from the equation. The massive window as well as the skylights admit a great amount of light which helps provide a distinct atmosphere. The skylights are repeated throughout the mall and provide an atrium-esque quality which is furthered by the openings in the second floor to allow light to reach the first. But again, the massive scale of the buildings makes it feel like an airplane hanger.

Traffic through the rest of the mall is often interrupted. These images show the variety of impediments to even traffic flow. First is a carousel inside the main entrance...as if the screaming children weren't enough to make you leave, they now have a carousel to increase the ridiculous carnival feeling of the mall. You can also see the crisscrossing escalators which move the herds up to the second and third floors of the mall.

Since the mall is supposed to be the mall in the state, it has several displays depicting the history and culture of the state's various regions. Here one guy examines the Piedmont display looking at wood working tools and archaeological artifacts. I'm not sure how a few display boxes in the middle of an atrium can educated the public, but at least there is something unique in this approach. Not to worry though, the fountains and kitschy kiosks which are de rigeur for malls are not overlooked...they exist, but are really unattractive and/or awkward, especially the fountain which is designed to look like a gold panner's sluice box.

"... just a few miles down the highway ..."

In the three motels pictured below, the motel tradition which Liebs traces is clearly visible. The Royal Inn Motel, of post-war era construction, survives a road bypass which makes the pre-war Duffy Motel obsolete. Both display the mom-and-pop history of converting the family house/land into a motor court for travelers. The Royal Inn maintained that purpose while the Duffy Motel shifted into a residential space before becoming an uninhabited space. In contrast, the contemporary Jameson Inn balances both the traditional motel function with hotel expectations, drawing on regional architectural elements and technological amenities to attract travelers from two different markets.

In the photo of the Royal Inn Motel, a post-war motor inn located on Highway 41 in Calhoun (and two blocks away from the intersection with Highway 53), the motel history is clearly visible in the combination of a main house with an L-shaped building housing motel rooms. The domestic imagery pervades this motel, with the siding on the motel buildings and the "office" which is clearly a house converted into the management space for the motel. A carport has been added to accomodate visitors during inclement weather. The buttery yellow color scheme--balanced by the bright red signage clearly visible from the road (see inset picture)--emphasizes this domestic style. This space clearly is designed for the traveler in his/her car and most likely serves working and lower middle class travelers who drive a little further into town looking for the less expensive overnight stay. The functional hotel elements--separate rooms, outside entrances, extras like air conditioning and parking--are present, yet the amenities associated with hotels (discussed later) are not in evidence. This era motel still survives because it is approximately one mile from an interstate exit and still on the main road through town.

In contrast, Duffy's Motel met the fate of many early motor inns, falling into disuse as the major roads bypassed an originally well-traveled site. Also on Highway 41 about two miles from the Royal Inn Motel, Duffy's Motel shows a similar design scheme of the main office building being a brick residence (and there's been no attempt to integrate the design of the house with the design of the motel buildings) and the separate buildings (three total) being long rows of rooms set at a perpendicular angle to the road (see first inset). This angle is one of the differences from the first motel and an element that Liebs addresses. Once, evidently, the land value of this stretch of 41 was high enough to make the road frontage small and the alignment of the motel be vertical. Interestingly, the buttery yellow color is still in evidence. The architecture of the separate buildings is extremely functional, again pointing to a choice Liebs discusses--that these families focused attention on the interior rather than the exterior. There are hints, however, of the pre-war era of this motel. The original signage (see second inset) has the streamlined moderne curves. This hotel would have served the leisure traveler; in its more recent history, it serves workers who need cheap, residential accommodations. It also has signs saying that it can be used for storage, but, as is clear, this motel has been all but abandoned.

The contemporary h/motel, the Jameson Inn, shows the evolution of highway motels. Drawing on regional architectural elements to inspire a pastoral, manor house, this inn advertises the expected, high tech amenities of the business and leisure traveler as well as projecting the family atmosphere (see inset with its Thanksgiving/Halloween display and landscaping) through such details as paned windows, dark shutters, chimneys, and dormer windows. The Jameson Inn draws from both the hotel and motel traditions. While it offers comforts and business support (such as high speed wireless) like a downtown hotel or a Holiday Inn Express specifically designed to accommodate business travelers, it is also a lesser-known chain which can seemingly draw on small-town charm, enhanced by its architectural design.