Architects are a breed apart. I should know: I’m one of them. As a result of an intensive design-studio training method that we experience first as undergraduates, we architects look at the world a bit differently.
We learn a design process that results in a final product only after studying, proposing, and modifying, repeating those steps as much as we need to until we find the “right” solution. As a result, we tend to look at everything in terms of process: the world that we see, natural or manmade, as the result of change laid down in layers over time.
We are most intrigued by places that are the result of long, complex processes. We tend to love old, complicated cities because we try to analyze and imagine how they came to be. San Antonio, compared to most North American cities, is rich in layers of history, and in no place in this city are there more layers than Alamo Plaza.
Center-city residents are also a different breed. I should know: I’m one of them. While I don’t live in downtown proper, I live in Lavaca, the “oldest existing residential neighborhood” in San Antonio, barely a quarter mile south of the Tower of the Americas.
Whereas most San Antonio residents come downtown only infrequently, we use the city on a daily basis. I work near downtown. I meet friends for lunch or coffee on Houston Street. I walk my dogs in and around the construction zone that is Hemisfair, I participate in the occasional political protest in front of the Alamo.
We live here because most things are close, and its a rare day that I venture further north than Hildebrand Avenue. Additionally, many of us believe an urban lifestyle isn’t just a convenient and pleasant way to live, but that to do so is also more sustainable. Use your legs to run errands rather than get behind the wheel of a car. If you have to drive, find the closest destination. Reuse existing buildings rather than paving over what’s left of the Hill Country.
As a result, hardly a week goes by that I’m not driving or walking through Alamo Plaza, right in front of the Alamo, as part of my routine. I slow down, I dodge the tourists, I reflect on how many San Antonians have trod that ground.
As a representative member of both the fellowship of architects and also of center-city residents, I’m disappointed to report that the new Alamo plan does not respond to the concerns or needs of either group.
For architects, the essence of a classic plaza is a clearly defined place. Most plazas that are admired for their beauty are clearly defined by buildings.
You know when you’ve arrived at the Piazza Navona in Rome, or the Zócalo in Mexico City – from a relative narrow street, you burst into a wide expanse. You know you are there. The edges are clear. Some of the buildings at the edge are unremarkable. Some are palaces or churches. Each building, and the lives of its users and inhabitants, contributes to the sense of a definite, clear, and unique place.
The new Alamo Plaza plan suggests – as one of its confusing and occasionally self-contradictory “options” – that the western edge of the plaza, composed of commercial buildings by some of San Antonio’s best architects of the 19th and 20th centuries, be demolished entirely, to somehow recreate the sense of the original boundaries of the Alamo mission compound. The 3D renderings are evidence of the spatial confusion that would result: You can’t tell from the renderings if you are inside or outside of anything.
And, though I can’t believe I’m writing these words, I have to say the new plan has too many trees. You can’t see the space, or its edges, for the trees, the designers apparently having decided to overcompensate for the ill-advised proposal in the previous Alamo Plaza plan to remove the existing trees. Surely a balance can be found between important vistas of the Alamo chapel facade and the comfort of being able to sit under a shade tree.
The new plan also favors one portion of the Alamo’s history at the expense of all others: the 1836 battle. Successful plazas have different historical layers. The examples of the Piazza Navona and the Zócalo are both similar to Alamo Plaza in that their overall forms are a distant echo of much earlier periods in history. The Piazza Navona preserves the shape of the 1st-century CE Stadium of Domitian, while the Zócalo keeps the basic form and orientation of the main ceremonial space of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital city.
In either case, as with Alamo Plaza, the very shape of the current space tells us not only about its historic origins, but more importantly how the space itself has remained important to the city and the lives of its inhabitants. Like it or not, part of the history of Alamo Plaza is about American free enterprise, and how the space of the plaza began as a religious institution but later became a forum for commerce.
The current plan also is unclear about how the demolition of the buildings only at the western edge of the plaza will recreate the sense of the Alamo compound at the time of the 1836. If the plan were consistent, which it isn’t, wouldn’t it be logical also to demolish the Gibbs Building (now Hotel Gibbs), the Hipolito S. Garcia Federal Building, and the Medical Arts Building (now the Emily Morgan Hotel) at the northern edge to further the goal of recreating the original compound? And what about the symbolic importance of the Fiesta parades route in front of the Alamo? Is that a part of our history that won’t be told anymore?
For center-city residents – and here I’m getting personal about how the new plan would affect me and my neighbors – the plan makes downtown less livable. The strange proposal to open the plaza by night but limit and direct access during the day would create a virtual dead end for residents who use the plaza as a pedestrian route. I’m all for limiting traffic along Alamo Street by reducing lanes and lowering permitted vehicular speed, but cutting off traffic on Alamo Street and now even part of Houston Street will worsen traffic congestion in the eastern side of downtown for a radius of several blocks. Losoya Street becoming two-way will not suffice; it already is overburdened as a southbound one-way street.
I would perhaps be more sympathetic to the goals of both the original and current plans if I really felt that drastic action was necessary to somehow “save” Alamo Plaza. Neither the Alamo chapel or the plaza itself are threatened except, perhaps, by the zealous lot who have brought us to this point.
At this moment, in its present form, the plaza tells a compelling story of multiple layers of history and the process by which urban spaces form and grow over time. Tweak the paving, narrow the vehicular lanes, turn the buildings on the western edge into a museum. Plant a few more trees, let the raspa vendors set up where they always have, keep the bandstand and Cenotaph where they are. The paraphrased words of architect and writer Robert Venturi most clearly express my opinion: Alamo Plaza is “almost all right” just as it is.
Well said Darryl,
Limit traffic on Alamo st.to two lanes with a 15 mile an hour speed limit and close it only for special events or on weekends.
Fix the Alamo buildings and landscaping.
Transform the historic building into a museum that can be used to illustrate the original Alamo footprint during the battle. David Lake and you have much better concepts and perspectives on improving Alamo Plaza than the team the city and state hired.
The buildings on west side of Alamo Street do not define Alamo Plaza in any beneficial way. In fact they are an impediment to the understanding of the Alamo fortress. Should those buildings be determined (by whom I don’t know) to be of upmost value – then move them, even if by brick by brick and stone by stone to another location and reassemble. It can be done, it has been done successfully. Alamo Plaza must not have payment controlled access at any time of the day (or night). Alamo Plaza must not become an arboretum with cafés. The Texas Heroes Cenotaph is really best placed in Plaza de Valero. That offers a more open Alamo Plaza and places the Cenotaph in eyeshot of the Alamo church. The long barrack needs to have a reconstruction of the second level – but in the Hollywood set manner, that is not of real stone but lightweight material that requires less of the structure below it. Alamo Plaza is not and should not be park nor a dining destination or even an event center – it is a historical monument to the Siege of the Alamo and the subsequent battle. Something almost lost to posterity. This is no time to mess it up for all time.
This is a good commentary on some key issues.
I’m undecided about the historic buildings. I would only support their removal if there is something truly great being provided in return. Understanding the objective to be to somehow illustrate the boundaries of the original mission, I wonder why that can’t be accomplished somehow within the existing buildings. Understanding that these buildings would be part of the museum, it seems you could have something really cool inside where you excavate down to the foundations or whatever is left of the walls.
Regarding Alamo Street, I think it makes sense to close it to vehicular access. Convenient vehicular access in that part of downtown is less important than creating a better public space and a better historic site. If the project is successful, you have to imagine that area being extremely busy to the point that only a tourist would ever think of trying to drive through there. Pedestrian access is a different story but I thought the plan would always allow pedestrian access through the plaza but just that they would make the access points narrower . I guess I’m confused about that part of the plan and some more clarity is needed for public input.
I like the trees. Perhaps too many but the ideas of a lot of shade makes the area south of the Alamo (the Plaza de Valero) much more conceivable as a functioning urban square than what we have today.
There are many good thoughts/suggestions of “fixes” for the Alamo but I have yet to see a concise statement stating the OBJECTIVE for presenting the Alamo? What are we trying to present to the world? Is it to create the environment of the Alamo as it existed at the time of the seige?….or everyday life?…what?
Once that has been established then we can began to identify the
things that must be done to create that image, the costs and the environmental impact for San Antonio. FROM WHAT I HAVE SEEN/READ, WE HAVE NOT DEFINED OUR OBJECTIVE!
Rick Dibrell
Great article and very thoughtful. Thanks for sharing your ideas which are clear and tell the past and current history. I, too, know that the Parades cannot continue under the “alternate” routes proposed. The current, historical, 127 year Parade Route needs to remain in order for the Parade to be produced. The Parade was started to honor the fallen heroes of the Alamo with every entry in the Parade laying a fresh floral tribute on the lawn of the Alamo Church. This is our way, the SAN ANTONIO WAY, of preserving Texas history and honoring those before us. What better mesh of yesterday and today than coming together, as a city, to commemorate the fallen heroes who gave their lives for our freedom. We must never forget.
We must never forget that a large impetus for removing Texas from under Mexico’s rule was SLAVERY. Let’s don’t forget those “heroes” were fighting to keep an abomination in place. There were fighters of Mexican descent, too. And their people were treated very poorly once Texas was independent. I see very little reason for ALL Texans to revere that battle.
Change….Change to what. As an older life-long citizen, I tend to resist change. Yet, to have hallowed grounds which have always had bleachers for the Battle of Flowers Parade placed upon them… seems something that SHOULD be changed. Parade routes are by nature something subject to change. An alternate route could circle Hemisfair park, perhaps giving shade to its crowds. When I drive by Mission San Jose or Mission Concepcion, I never see retailers trying to find a space close enough for the sale of a trinket. Doesn’t the Alamo deserve a a similar area for reflection?
Darryl
The Alamo facade parapet and roof is “less historic “than the Crockett facade …it was constructed later than the Giles designed building by many years.
It is a total fantasy.
The arched shape conceals the new roof that lurks behind it and all constructed by the Corp of engineers to preserve the walls that were crumbling …
….
In fact the romantic top of the Alamo has so inspired us that we see its shape in many buildings and even bridges ..
One might say it is not dissimilar from the historic west block in that it was constructed during that period …
Yet the team is not suggesting its removal for the sake of historic clarity ..
Thank you for your thoughtful article .
Sign the petition !
…
The Crockett building is younger than the Alamo church façade.
David – please post the link again to the petition. Thanks.
You can find it at http://www.saconservation.org
Please sign.
Your article was well said and I hope someone will listen.
This whole process has gone off the rails. The blame goes to two groups–those who are only interested in the battle that took place and want to recreate the space as it was at that one point in time and those who hate the successful businesses on Alamo plaza and believe the plaza should be a dead space of reverence rather than something alive today. The plaza could be improved and the new museum would be nice (but the way they want to build it), but what is being proposed makes me wish the city had no plans for changing anything!! The present buildings (at least the facades) around the plaza should remain. The museum should be built upward behind the facades and off the current boundaries of Houston Street, or it should be located on other proposed spots such as the rear area of the Alamo grounds that were not within the original walls. Car and bus traffic can be cut off on Alamo Street, but the design should allow parades to continue to pass in front of the Alamo and should probably allow carriages and bicycles to pass by. Traffic is already diverted going westward on Houston Street, so it could be diverted going eastward, too, but the block of Houston Street between Alamo Street and Broadway should not be closed off to pedestrians in any way and should not be walled off in any way. The plaza should be kept open rather than walled off; the original boundaries should be shown only by some kind of outline at ground level that people can pass over (or by a linear fountain that would indicate the walls but provide a refreshing hop through it).
Finally, my guess is that such a terrible plan is going to be adopted that in a couple of decades the city will realize that it needs to start all over again to try to fix the problem (but not being able to do anything as good as they could now due to missing buildings if the present plan is adopted). It took us decades to realize that HemisFair Park was a disaster–walled off by the Convention Center which turned its back to it and by the fenced in Federal Courthouse parking lots , made almost impossible to visit because there were no nearby parking areas (even the neighborhoods across the street have had restricted street parking and restricted car access), etc. I think we are about to create an Alamo Plaza disaster that we will be as bad as the HemisFair Park was for citizens and tourists.
Thanks for expressing the view of one-long time downtown resident.
Great commentary, Darryl; I couldn’t agree more. My biggest concern is that the wishes of the citizens of San Antonio be honored, whether or not they reflect my personal opinion. History suggests there is reason to be skeptical of our city council’s respect for their constituents’ preferences.
Brilliant Darryl and right on! The old adage is still true – if we build it for the locals, the locals will come and the tourists will follow. But if we build it for the tourists, sadly, no one will go. The plaza will become lifeless and artificial.
No fences, street closures or demolitions. This is our history, for better or worse, but it defines who we are…please sign the petition. Let’s keep San Antonio REAL!!!