Peavey Plaza – Minneapolis, MN, USA

Designer – Progettista: M. Paul Friedberg and Partners (mpfp.com)

Place – Luogo: Minneapolis, MN, USA

Year – Anno: 1976

Photo: from tclf.org, mnhs.org

Source: tclf.org

This central public open space for the city of Minneapolis is adjacent to and complements the Nicollet Mall. The ‘park plaza’ served as the model for the American urban public space. Adjacent to the Minneapolis Orchestra Hall, it is the central focus for all major downtown activities. The summer festival is conducted in the plaza and during the winter there is ice skating which has extended the seasons.

From tclf.org:
Following on the tremendous success of Lawrence Halprin’s design and conversion of Nicollet Avenue into the pedestrian-friendly Nicollet Mall in 1967, a new priority arose- a public space for gathering that would not compete with mall activities. In response to this need, M. Paul Friedberg + Partners created Peavey Plaza in 1975. Often referred to by Friedberg as a “park plaza,” this two-acre space is also described by him as “a mixture of the American green space and the European hard space.”

The plaza contains many design elements from Friedberg’s earlier Riis Park Plaza, recognized also in his later design for Pershing Park. These include amphitheater- style seating oriented around the sunken plaza which also served as a pool basin (filled with water during the summer or frozen in winter for skating), cascading and spraying fountains to animate the space, lawn terraces, and many sculptural objects. The plaza affords ample opportunities for large- and small-scale gatherings.

The cascading fountain adjacent to Nicollet Avenue feeds the sunken pool while creating an inviting visual link to the Mall. Just a couple of blocks south of Peavey Plaza, on the opposite side of the mall, lies Loring Greenway, completed by Friedberg the following year.

From Charlene Roise post on tclf winter journal:
To understand the significance of peavey plaza, it is helpful to know what led up to its creation and its evolution since that time. Minneapolis, like many cities in the united states, was showing signs of deterioration by the mid-20th century as buildings and infrastructure aged. Families and businesses abandoned the urban core and moved to the suburbs, threatening the vitality of downthe unfinished saga of peavey plaza. In the mid 1950s, food-industry giant General mills announced plans to relocate its headquarters to a suburban campus. Rumors grew that the pillsbury Company, another major local corporation, was planning to follow suit. Civic and business leaders fought back, convincing pillsbury to remain downtown. the city’s planning department, energized by an influx of young planners with ivy league pedigrees, embarked on a massive urban renewal campaign with strong support from the private sector. One of the hallmarks of the city’s renaissance was the nicollet mall, designed by California-based landscape architect
Lawrence Halprin, which transformed a central commercial street into a pedestrian corridor. The concept was radical for the times. In an article dating from the early 1960s, one critic remarked: “Comparison with other downtown plans is difficult because this is the first transitway proposed any place in the country. We feel it is better than anything else provided to date and that more attention has been given to traffic circulation and overall engineering problems than anywhere else.”
Cars were banished and buses were contained on a sinuous path through a landscape designed to seduce pedestrians. the mall garnered international acclaim and was much copied—but rarely with equal success. Plans were soon underway to extend it and add a gathering space for popular public events. this space was to share a block with the new home for the minnesota orchestra, designed by new york architects hardy Holzman Pfeiffer. When the orchestral association opened the new hall in 1974, the city was finally starting the construction of the outside event space, which had lagged due to a shortfall in funding. the budget was finally met with a donation from the peavey Company, a local grain merchant, which gained naming rights for its generosity.
The city had retained the office of New York landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg to design the space. Friedberg was an advocate of an innovative approach to urban design, the park plaza, and Peavey was an early model. Using hard-edged materials such as concrete and metal, and rectilinear rather than curvilinear forms, the park plaza was a modern counterpoint to the picturesque greenery that had characterized parks in the twin Cities before
that time. Peavey plaza opened to acclaim from landscape architects and the general public in 1975. Its central focus was a 140-foot by 200-foot pool at an elevation 10 feet below the grade of the adjacent streets. The shallow pool could be drained when more space was needed for large events and could be converted into an ice-skating Peavey Plaza’s dramatic central fountain as seen in 2008. At present the water has been turned off and the site suffers from years of neglect.
A series of concrete and planted terraces provided seating shaded by honey locusts. Corners were anchored by two fountains where water flowed down stainless steel cylinders into a series of angular basins.
The plaza served its intended purpose admirably for decades. Located at the front door of orchestra hall, the plaza held sommerfest, several weeks of music, food, and entertainment associated with one of the minnesota orchestra’s concert series. A commemorative history marking the orchestra’s centennial explained:
“For three weeks in July (and later, four) the hall and peavey plaza were simply the place to be. the plaza was renamed the marktplatz, and quickly nicknamed the platz. It swarmed with people buying brats and beer at the vendor stands while others took a break from the sun by ducking under the red-and-white table umbrellas for an ice-cream cone.
Looking back on his creation in the 1980s, Friedberg remarked:
“it is encouraging to see how the
community has taken to the space and made it their own.”

Peavey Plaza, is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places from January 2013.

The plaza, which is currently threatened with demolition by the City of Minneapolis, is widely considered the finest surviving example of Friedberg’s work from the period. Friedberg, a recipient of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Design Medal in 2004, the organization’s highest award, is one of the nation’s leading landscape architects. Peavey joins an elite group of works on the National Register – of the more than 88,000 sites on the Register, less than 2,500 have significance in landscape architecture. Historical consultant Charlene Roise, president of Minneapolis-based Hess, Roise and Company, prepared Peavey Plaza’s National Register nomination.

The American Society of Landscape Architects recognized the plaza as one of the nation’s most significant examples of landscape architecture back in 1999. However, built in 1975, the space is now in a state of disrepair (including the fact that it meets neither Americans With Disabilities Act accessibility requirements nor sustainable water-use standards, and lacks the electrical supplies necessary for outdoor events) and the City of Minneapolis has commissioned a significant redesign. Preservationists arguing for rehabilitation suggest that there are “reasonable alternatives to the demolition”.

There is no doubt that this type of projects of squares can be considered obsolete with the eyes of a citizen of the 21st century, but are part of the history of landscape architecture and should be stored as memory of the evolution of human genius.

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Questo spazio centrale della la città di Minneapolis è adiacente e complementa il Nicollet Mall. Il ‘park plaza’ è servito come modello di spazio pubblico urbano americano per decenni. Per la città di Minneapolis è il fulcro di tutte le principali attività del centro.
Dopo l’enorme successo del progetto di Lawrence Halprin per la conversione di Nicollet Avenue e Nicollet Mall nel 1967, Peavey Plaza ha presentato una nuova priorità, uno spazio pubblico per l’incontro che non sarebbe stato in concorrenza con le attività del centro commerciale. In risposta a questa esigenza, M. Paul Friedberg creò il disegno di Peavey Plaza nel 1975. Spesso chiamata da Friedberg come “park plaza”, questo spazio di due ettari è descritto anche da lui come “una miscela difficile dello spazio verde americano e dello spazio europeo.” Il plaza contiene molti elementi di design usati da Friedberg in precedenza nel Riis Park Plaza. Questi includono le sedute in stile anfiteatro orientato intorno alla plaza incassata che serviva anche come bacino per l’acqua (riempito con acqua durante l’estate o congelato in inverno per il pattinaggio), la cascata e le fontane per animare lo spazio, il prato, le terrazze e molti oggetti scultorei. Solo un paio di isolati a sud di Plaza Peavey, sul lato opposto del centro commerciale, si trova Loring Greenway, completata da Friedberg l’anno seguente.
Per comprendere il significato di Peavey Plaza è utile sapere che cosa ha portato alla sua creazione e la sua evoluzione da momento storico in cui è stata decisa la sua costruzione. Minneapolis, come molte città negli Stati Uniti, stava mostrando segni di deterioramento dalla metà del XX secolo. Famiglie e imprese abbandonarono il nucleo urbano e spostarono i sobborghi, minacciando la vitalità del centro città. Verso la metà degli anni cinquanta, il gigante dell’industria alimentare General Mills annunciò i piani per delocalizzare la sua sede in un campus suburbano. I capi di affari e civici convinsero poi la General Mills ed altre ditte locali a rimanere nel “downtown”. Il dipartimento di pianificazione della città, eccitato da un afflusso di giovani progettisti, intraprese allora una campagna massiccia di rinnovamento urbano con il forte sostegno da parte del settore privato. Una delle caratteristiche del rinascimento della città fu il Nicollet Mall, che trasformò una via commerciale centrale in un corridoio pedonale. Il concetto fu radicale per i tempi. Le automobili furono quasi cancellate dal centro e gli autobus furono contenuti in un sinuoso percorso attraverso un paesaggio progettato per attrarre i pedoni. La municipalità chiese dunque all’ architetto del paesaggio newyorkese Paul M. Friedberg di progettare lo spazio della plaza. Friedberg era un fautore di un approccio innovativo alla progettazione urbana, ed il Peavey park plaza, fu il primo esperimento di questo tipo. Utilizzando materiali come cemento e metallo e forme piuttosto rettilinee, il park plaza era un contrappunto moderno al pittoresco verde che aveva caratterizzato i parchi nelle città vicine prima di quel tempo. Il fuoco centrale della piazza fu la grande piscina di 200 metri di lunghezza posta ad un’altezza 10 metri sotto il livello delle strade adiacenti. Attualmente purtroppo la fontana ed il bacino d’acqua soffrono da anni di abbandono. La plaza ha però servito egregiamente lo scopo previsto per decenni: per tre settimane nel mese di luglio plaza hall e peavey erano semplicemente il luogo di essere. Guardando indietro agli anni ’80 Friedberg ha osservato: “incoraggia vedere come la Comunità abbia fatto proprio lo spazio della piazza.”
Peavey Plaza, è ora elencato nel National Register of Historic Places dal gennaio 2013. La piazza, che attualmente è minacciata dalla demolizione da parte dell’amministrazione locale della città di Minneapolis, è ampiamente considerata uno degli esempi più raffinati e superstiti del lavoro di Friedberg degli anni ’70.
La società americana di architetti del paesaggio ha riconosciuto la piazza come uno degli esempi più significativi della nazione di architettura del paesaggio nel 1999. Tuttavia, costruito nel 1975, lo spazio è ora in stato di abbandono (tra cui il fatto che esso non soddisfa i requisiti di accessibilità dell’Americans With Disabilities Act né norme di utilizzo sostenibile dell’acqua e manca di forniture elettriche necessarie per eventi all’aperto) e la città di Minneapolis ha commissionato una riprogettazione significativa. Il National Register of Historic Places sostiene la riabilitazione suggerendo che ci sono “alternative ragionevoli alla demolizione”.

E’ indubbio che questa tipologia di progetti di piazze possano essere considerati obsoleti con gli occhi di un cittadino del secolo XXI, ma fanno parte della storia dell’architettura del paesaggio mondiale e vanno conservati come memoria dell’evoluzione del genio umano.

Francesco Tonini