I was just reading a fantastic essay by Timothy Love, a principal at Utile, called "Urban Design After Battery Park City." Love traces the history of contemporary urban design graphics, and by extension, the outcome of dozens of middling development projects in the United States. Historically, Battery Park City came at a time when Colin Rowe and his colleagues at Cornell had ignited a new interest in the figure ground of buildings. This view of urbanism, inspired by the Nolli Map, privileged the master plan. Combined with the logic of real estate investment analysis, master planning in the fashion of Battery Park City became ubiquitous. Love even traces the pink buildings that one sees in so many plans to the Ecole Des Beaux Arts.
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