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The Next Page: The rooms of our cities
Drawings from a lifetime of observation
Sunday, March 29, 2009
By Ray Gindroz
Place des Petits Peres, Paris, France

For the next several weeks, Concept Art Gallery in Regent Square is holding an exhibit of sculpture and bas-reliefs by architect Syl Damianos and a selection of my drawings of "Urban Rooms" in Pittsburgh and various European cities. Syl's sculptures exemplify the precision, cultivated eye and finely tuned sensibility of his architecture, but in a different medium from bricks and mortar.

My drawings are part of a lifelong study of the qualities of urban space in cities, which has been an important part of our work at Urban Design Associates. Both of us have found our architectural work enrichened by these "nonarchitectural" pursuits.


Urban Rooms

We experience the streets and squares of our cities every day. They are the settings for meeting our neighbors and friends, for unexpected experiences, for our civic lives, and of many of our fondest memories.

For example, in Squirrel Hill, we call the corner of Forbes and Murray "the center of the universe." Market Square is where we Pittsburghers have our most solemn commemorations and our most raucous celebrations.

But why call theses spaces "urban rooms"?

Many architects and urban designers have been inspired by the public spaces of European cities. The boulevards of Paris like the Champs-Elysees, or the piazzas of Italy like Piazza San Marco in Venice, have a special magic about them. They look and feel like rooms. They are enclosed by beautifully designed facades of buildings that seem to speak to each other across space and time. The pavements are designed in harmony with the architecture. The buildings themselves often provide places for us to sit and relax.

As we move through the cities, we find ourselves moving through a sequence of urban rooms. We are led through these spaces by the architecture, a tower on one building tells us that we are headed in the right direction, and a monumental arch tells us that we are about to enter a public square. These qualities are ones which we as designers try to bring to the streets and squares that we design or for which we design buildings.

The drawings of European urban rooms on this page and in the exhibit attempt to capture this three-dimensional, room-like quality.

Pienza, the first Ideal City of the Renaissance, introduces the concept of an urban room, with classical elements to create an orderly and humane place. Urbino demonstrates how these architectural ideas can be used in a larger setting. And the public spaces of Paris illustrate the way different architectural styles can work together to create harmonious urban rooms.


Pittsburgh Urban Rooms

The Pittsburgh drawings describe and interpret the interior public spaces of three Downtown buildings, designed by three of the greatest architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

All three of these architects studied in Paris. They traveled to visit and draw the monuments and urban spaces of France and Italy. In Pittsburgh, they were commissioned to design single buildings. Unable to create outdoor squares and boulevards with these commissions, they created interior spaces that have the scale and character of the public spaces of Europe. Pittsburgh is fortunate to have this remarkable trio of urban rooms.