Cira Centre. Ethnoarch building models.

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This is the page of models, or specific examples of vernacular types. Although the name might generate some confusion with the idea of scale-model or maquette, I will call these examples "models" until finding a better term (some people would call them "typological versions," but it sounds too complicated for an online project).
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Cira Centre
United States

Description

Designed by Argentinean architect Cesar Pelli, this is the first skyscraper built at the West bank of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. As of May 2005 the exterior enclosure of this 29-story building is near completion. Building is expected to be open for occupancy in October 2005. Most probably, this will be the first one of several high-rises to be erected around, on vacant land and land presently occupied by low-rise, wide-area buildings.

With the form of a quartz and finished in an all-crystal enclosure, the Cira Centre is one of those Pelli's "abstract" buildings. Cesar Pelli's language, indeed, usually fluctuates between this kind of abstraction (also present in Buenos Aires' Bank Boston) and a more descriptive approach inspired in traditional or pre-modern architecture (exemplified in Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers or New York's Carnegie Hall Tower).

Key in the Cira Centre is the location: on one hand, the building operates as a magnet to de-centralize Center City. On the other hand, success of the de-centralizing venture is assured by the building's location, right at the north side of the interstate train station. In fact, the Cira Centre directly communicates to the station through the lobby, making it very easy for commuters to go from home in the suburbs to office in the building. This is particularly important, since urban displacement to the suburbs has been a historical tendency in Philadelphia since the late 1950s.

This tendency goes along with another, which is the gentrification of the West side of the Schuylkill River. In actuality, the Cira Centre is located in an area that used to house factories and municipal dump piles at the beginning of the 20th century. Over the years, it grew as an economically depressed area that would become more and more gentrified since the 1980s, in part as a consequence of the expansion plans of the University of Pennsylvania. According to the New York Times, during the past seven years (past as of 2005), the house price appreciation in the area now called University City has grown 24 percent annually, a record for the city of Philadelphia. Such gentrification affects deeply, at a cultural and social level, a community that until not long ago was mostly composed by low-income African American population.

Location

USA - Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, Corner of Arch and 30th Streets.

Images

There are quite a few images here, because I have been documenting the building process of this structure. Please be patient if the page takes more than expected in downloading.
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Classification
Keywords
Type	Global/unmarked
Related types
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References
Bibliographic / Online references
Emporis data page on the building: http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=149009 (Visited 4 May 2005). A report on page C5 of the NY Times printed edition: Milford, Maureen. "Philadelphians Take In Rare Sight: A Tower Rising." The New York Times, 16 March 2005, home edition.
Discussion	See members' discussion and contributions on this model.
Questions	Ask a question about this model in the forum.

For academic purposes, please cite this page as:
Arboleda, Gabriel. Cira Centre [online]. Berkeley, CA: Ethnoarchitecture.com, 25 April 2005 [cited 8 January 2009]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.Ethnoarchitecture.com/web/models/model/315>.

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