Philadelphia City Planning Commission architectural drawings and photographs for two planning studies, 1927-1936.

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Philadelphia City Planning Commission architectural drawings and photographs for two planning studies, 1927-1936.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/122618736

The collection, on permanent loan from the Philadelphia Planning Commission, comprises two architectural drawings and three photoprints for two planning studies prepared between 1927 and 1936. Both studies are related to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and nearby buildings and streets. The earlier project was begun before the foundation of the Commission and was presented to the Commission in the month after its founding. In 1924 Paul Philippe Cret had suggested a plan for demolishing City Hall while retaining its tower as the focus of the new Parkway and the other streets that converge at Centre Square, the central point of William Penn's original layout of the city. At the request of the Philadelphia Commission (a group of private citizens formed by Edward W. Bok devoted to the "beautification" of the city) Cret further developed the scheme with his former student Harry Sternfeld, and together they presented a comprehensive plan to the City Planning Commission in May 1929. The proposal was never built. This project is represented in the collection by one original drawing, a large (48" x 30") presentation elevation in pencil on board. The second project, designed in 1935-1936 by the staff of the City Planning Commission, projected the further development of the Fairmount Parkway in relation to an emerging vision of the Market Street corridor between City Hall and the newly built 30th Street Station. The plan, titled "Fairmount Parkway and Connections," was a significant expansion of the earlier Parkway plans, and was the forerunner of development plans by Louis I. Kahn (Triangle Area Redevelopment Plan and Civic Center Plan) and by Edmund Bacon.

Architectural Drawings 2 items.Photographs 3 photoprints.

University of Pennsylvania, Architectural Archives

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6792375

Related Entities

There are 5 Entities related to this resource.

City Hall (Philadelphia, Pa.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w642556d (corporateBody)

Philadelphia City Planning Commission

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j71bb6 (corporateBody)

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission is a municipal agency established in 1929. During the period of this collection the Commission was composed of twelve mayoral appointees, two members of City Council, and one of the Commissioners of Fairmount Park. The duties of the Commission were to make recommendations to City Council concerning proposed changes in the city plan or any new public facilities. Its reports, correspondence, plans, minutes, and scrapbooks from 1929 to the present are found...

Cret, Paul Philippe, 1876-1945

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64f1rkn (person)

Paul Philippe Cret (1876-1945) was born in Lyon, France. EĢcole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1903. Professor, University of Pennsylvania, and architect in Philadelphia, 1903-1937. Major works include Indianapolis Public Library, 1914-1917; Delaware River Bridge, Philadelphia, 1920-1926; Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, 1928-1932; Federal Reserve Board Building, Washington, 1935-1937. From the description of Pan American Union Building, Washington, D.C. : presentation, development an...

Sternfeld, Harry

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bz78gt (person)

Philadelphia Commission.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64r63jb (corporateBody)