Designing a New Biloxi
The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article on the debate about rebuilding Biloxi. Much of the piece is devoted to the New Urbanism advocates whose well-intentioned ideas of renewing city life seem to have degraded into aesthetic regulations that would outdo even the most reactionary gated community’s codes. Ultimately, though, the problem is that the current location of the city is one that cannot be protected from hurricanes (houses have to be 21 feet above sea level in East Biloxi according to new FEMA regulations for the area 6 feet above the sea).
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
“degraded into aesthetic regulations that would outdo even the most reactionary gated community’s codes”
The NYT article presents an inaccurate and distorted review of new urbanists’ activities on the Gulf Coast, I guess because they think acrimony sells. You can find the actual plans and codes at http://www.MississippiRenewal.com and judge for yourself whether the proposals are reactionary. Meanwhile, here is a lengthy and detailed article by a New Yorker editor that paints a somewhat different portrait: http://oxfordamericanmag.com/content.cfm?ArticleID=56
May 24th, 2006 at 1:03 am
Laurence, thank you for the post. Your links present a lot to consider, and I have started to read the documents.
I have only seen the Style Guide so far but the strong emphasis on tradition (”Building a New Traditional Community”, “traditional homes”, and so on) and on minute details of building eve dimensions seems to prove my point. Considering that the newest style presented is Arts and Crafts suggests to me that there there is a desire to return to some idealized past and simply forget that any buildings were built in the 20th Century at all. Where are the Art Deco houses and Modernist commerical buildings and Deconstructionist apartment buildings? More importantly, what about simply square houses of cinderblock or concrete tilt-up commerical buildings?
As to whether these styles are regulations, I get the sense that following them is not required but strongly encouraged.
Perhaps it may be better to term this all as nostalgia, but the Style Book seems to go forward into the past, so to speak. Anyway, more thoughts once I get time to read the other documents and Dellinger’s article.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
I live in Biloxi and I thought the Times article was very good. Aurbach is a nut-case, who’s posting propaganda all over the internet. You do best to ignore hm.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
If you look at the “Architecture” report, you’ll see a few modernist designs. But the fact is, the people of the Mississippi coast were not asking the new urbanists to create designs for Art Deco houses, Modernist commerical buildings, or Deconstructionist apartment buildings. They brought out books and snapshots of the buildings they had lost, and asked for the heritage of those style to continue.
It’s happened before on the coast — after Hurricane Camille wrecked the coast in 1969, most of the destroyed homes were rebuilt in the local venacular styles rather than the styles that were fashionable in academia and the architecture magazines circa 1969.
As for square houses of cinderblock or concrete tilt-up commerical buildings, those will get built regardless of any architect’s designs or efforts because cheap, off the shelf plans and assembly systems are available everywhere.