If Only One Post Were Ever Read On This Blog …
Yesterday I posted a page from a 1965 Life Magazine quoting I.M. Pei. I’ve been told the quote is difficult to read. And that’s not my intent – at all. If Mayor Mick Cornett, if chamber president Roy Williams, if downtown corporate leaders like Larry Nichols, Clay Bennett, Fred Hall, Tom Ward, and others were to just read this site once, and never again, I think it might be this one quote by I.M. Pei – the man who has been villified more than any other person as the one who killed downtown in the 1970s:
“Americans are too impatient. They expect instant beauty. But they forget that cities are not built in one day. We may spend years agonizing over a renewal project and then we expect the city to be rebuilt instantly. Can you imagine what Paris must have looked like when Baron Haussmann finished with it? The social and cultural shock must have been tremendous. It’s like surgery; it takes a long time for the tissue around a wound to heal. The city has to echo life. If our life is rough and tumble, so is the city. I’ve always felt that ugliness with vitality is tolerable. The great danger our cities face today is that their vitality will be sapped by too much concern for instant beauty. New York is not a beautiful city. It may even be ugly, but it is exciting. It draws beauty from its vitality. If you drove all the residents out and made it a gleaming commercial center, it would only be beautiful in a narrow sense. It would be lifeless, and therefore intolerable.”
As Oklahoma City prepares to embark on a makeover every bit as ambitious as the one our grandparents attempted 40 years ago, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to delve into the legacy of I.M. Pei. Those of you who have read OKC Second Time Around already know history got rewritten along the way. Now it’s time to deal with this ugly chapter in our history and hopefully learn something from it.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Kristen echoes my thoughts here. You know you’re in New Orleans when you see those unique streetlights. They help to cerate the atmosphere that is exclusively New Orleans.
No, my favorite part of a vacation does not involve examining the streetscapes of my destination. But it really are those little things that contribute to the flavor of a city.
Wouldn’t it be great to see a TV show, or a photo, and know immediately that it was shot in Downtown OKC, just by noticing the streetscaping?
Who would have guessed I.M. Pei was a follower of Jane Jacobs? (my captcha this time is “contribute revise”)
It’s a shame that this post can’t generate as much discussion as the Tulsa/OKC slapfight posts. There should be 20, 30, 40 or more comments here by now. We’re all asleep at the switch.
It’s a good quote, but I don’t feel that he practiced what he preached when it came to Oklahoma City. He whitewashed away a lot of our character that will take years to get back (if ever).
It’s very true. Thanks for sharing. I’m of course excited about the physical landscape of OKC changing, but I’m more excited for our city to develop it’s own unique flavor.