Interior Urbanism: Architecture, John Portman and Downtown America

Project Member(s): Rice, C.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Graham Foundation (Graham Foundation Grant for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts)

Start year: 2015

Summary: Vast urban interiors define an increasingly normal experience of being `inside¿ in a city. This project explores the roots of this condition in the 1960s and 70s, looking in particular at the work of architect and developer John Portman in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco. These urban developments, and the signature hotel atriums at their core, signal a sustained and literal turning inward of the city in the context of the social, spatial and economic fracturing of downtown. These developments, little studied in their own right, give a particular insight into this period in American architecture and urbanism, drawing together debates about the large-scale commercialization of architectural practice, shifts in city governance and planning in response to complex urban contexts, the significance of the street in urban social life, and the effect on urban design of new spatial forms. To aid its arguments, the project uses specially commissioned drawings and the author's own photography to draw out the spatial properties and architectural effects of these developments.

Publications:

Rice, C 2016, Interior Urbanism Architecture, John Portman and Downtown America, 1, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, UK.

Keywords: architecture, urbanism, downtown, America, interiors

FOR Codes: Architecture, Urban Design, Interior Design, Urban Planning, Understanding the Past of the Americas

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.