Searching for beauty, but it's gone

THOMPSON E-mail: Click here

By SANDRA THOMPSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 24, 2001

The silver minarets silhouetted against the blue sky. The silver minarets silhouetted against the blood orange sunset. The silver minarets silhouetted against the black night sky. This is the view of the University of Tampa's historic Plant Hall that the international urban design team Skidmore, Owings and Merrill envisioned from the center of the downtown arts district. We would all be sitting in cafes and restaurants clustered around the water's edge, gazing at something no other city can match.

That view is on its way out. Actually, it's already gone.

Another massive dormitory under construction on UT's campus has become the backdrop for Plant Hall's minarets. Go take a look. I just did. It's awful. Look from Ashley Drive, the grand boulevard of the arts district. Look from lake-to-be Curtis Hixon Park. Look from the beautifully restored Kennedy Boulevard Bridge.

The minarets are now silhouetted against concrete.

Trust me, it is not the same.

Three weeks ago, drawings of the arts district were greeted with much celebration. The most significant aspect of the plan, the one that would most dramatically alter the downtown landscape, is the lake. The Hillsborough River would widen to fill Curtis Hixon Park, opening up the downtown view to the river and, beyond, Plant Hall and its astonishing minarets, the distinctive icon for both the school and the city.

A few hundred people were in the audience inside Plant Hall, many of them architects and urban planners, as well as UT President Ron Vaughn. Not to mention Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and its local partner, Fleishman Garcia Architects. No one said, "Uh, Ron, about that dormitory?"

Instead, he was thanked for providing the hall.

Maybe no one knew?

Sure, you can't see the river from downtown. Or almost can't, which is the whole point the design team has been making for several months.

This is not the first massive new dormitory the university has built; it's the third. The others, though they lack style and any connection to the campus' older architecture, do not encroach on what, frankly, is the most distinctive thing about UT. The view of the minarets against the sky is on the school's own promotional literature for good reason. People who know nothing else about it, nothing about its academic programs or its talented professors, know the minarets.

The push is for that big tuition money, of course, but even from a marketing standpoint, it makes sense to celebrate Plant Hall. How a college looks as you first approach it can be a determining factor. While college shopping in Virginia several years ago, I met a woman whose daughter had already visited UT. "That building -- the setting is so beautiful," she said. That's all she said.

If this were my call, I'd say lop off the top floors of the building under construction. Don't say it can't be done. The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi was rebuilt stone by stone after an earthquake and finished in time for the Holy Year. Build a small dormitory to pick up the slack.

I saw in an old aerial photo of Tampa's downtown an impressive dome, similar to the minarets, far from Plant Hall. It made no sense until I was told the dome belonged to the old courthouse, which had been built by the same architect in the same year, 1891, as Plant Hall. It had been planned that way. The courthouse dome was meant to echo the minarets at Plant Hall. It was a lovely sight. Fifty years ago, the courthouse was torn down. So much for a 110-year-old attempt at city planning, at caring about what a city looks like as a whole.

I happened to drive by the ceremony dedicating the new Joe Chillura Courthouse Square, the little park just across from the present, and ugly, courthouse. There were balloons wafting from a new gazebo crowned with a dome, reminiscent of the one that once graced Tampa's skyline.

Trust me, it was not the same.

- Sandra Thompson is a writer living in Tampa. She can be reached at tampa@sptimes.com. City Life appears on Saturday.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright