architecture essay

Gregory Marinic Internal disconnect: material memory

Chapter 31

Internal disconnect Material memory in the John Portman originals

Gregory Marinic

Iconic architectural interiors present a unique challenge and opportunity for designers who are charged with their renovation. Considering the temporal nature of building interiors in relation to forces of consumption and trend, this chapter considers the spatial theories of Henri Lefebvre, Jean Baudrillard, and Fredric Jameson to discern broader socioeconomic forces impacting materi- ality in John Portman’s late Brutalist architectural interiors. As a forerunner of twenty-first-century interior hyperspaces in Las Vegas, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere, Portman’s early works – specifically the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Westin Peachtree Plaza, and Detroit Renaissance Center – serve as precedents for contemporary entertainment-based environments worldwide. In 1967, Port- man unveiled the Hyatt Regency Atlanta and redefined generational expecta- tions for downtown development in American cities. Although his atrium hotels eventually gained stature as enduring design icons, recent interior renovations have largely ignored the original materiality and civic gravitas of the unique “Portman effect.” Drawing awareness to issues surrounding the renovation of historically prominent modern architectural interiors, this chapter critiques con- textually insensitive renovations in the shopping galleries, lobbies, and social spaces of the John Portman originals.

An interior-exterior provenance In the nineteenth century, the tectonic qualities and material conditions of com- mercial arcades blurred city streets into building interiors. Parisian passages and other interior urban environments such as the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (1865) in Milan, Galerias Pacifico (1889) in Buenos Aires, and the Old Arcade (1890) in Cleveland served as forerunners of the atrium hotel-shopping com- plexes of the mid-twentieth century. The architectural language of these Euro- pean and European-inspired interior spaces was appropriated by John Portman for his unique interior-exterior aesthetic in America. Analogous to Lefebvre’s

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consumption-oriented theory, arcades and Portman atria extended commercial space into large urban plots to establish new interior streets for storefronts and cafés. Although the historic European passages and American arcades main- tain strong interior-exterior readings, Portman’s buildings have undergone con- tinual interior renovations which have subverted the original exterior aspects of their interior architectural design.

As both architect and developer, Portman’s hotel-retail-commercial complexes transformed downtowns into increasingly isolated, transactional, and privatized forms of urbanism. These internally focused projects embraced a Brutalist aesthetic by appropriating exterior spatial conditions and materials to create interior urban experiences.1 Portman addressed the conventional wis- doms of various stakeholders – planners, developers, architects, retailers, and the public – who sought a substitute form of downtown urbanism that ignored the realities of civil unrest, disinvestment, and abandonment. As American inner cities shrunk from white flight, his city-within-a-city concept responded to increasing uncertainty. Building exteriors were turned outside-in to create autonomous internal plazas, encapsulated landscapes, and hermetic commer- cial zones.

Beginning in 1967 with the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Portman created bold interior spaces that brought the outdoors inside by challenging conven- tional assumptions of the hotel interior.2 Soaring spaces, building-scale internal facades, extensive landscaping, lagoons, and exposed concrete embodied an interior-exterior aura. As temples of consumerism subjected to market pres- sures and changing tastes, his late modernist hotel-retail interiors were among the first to be adapted in the postmodern wave. The qualitative permanence of these iconic structures – their monumental, austere, and sublime interior architecture – has been incrementally diminished and interiorized by the insen- sitive actions of corporations, real estate developers, managing agents, and professional designers. Focusing on recent adaptive practices, this chapter cri- tiques twenty-first-century renovations to the original John Portman interiors of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta (1967), Westin Peachtree Plaza (1976), and Detroit Renaissance Center (1977).

[Irreverent] dematerialization | Hyatt Regency Atlanta

Hyatt Regency Atlanta is completing the final phase of the $65 mil- lion transformation that has seen new enhancements made property- wide. The renovation positions the landmark downtown hotel as a leader in Atlanta, with design changes meeting the needs of today’s business travelers and conference attendees.

—– Hyatt Corporation, March 2012

The Hyatt Regency Atlanta forms part of the fourteen-block Peachtree Center master plan, which restructured the central core of Atlanta into an interiorized downtown environment.3 More than a hotel, Portman created a substantial piece of urbanism which contrasted significantly with the racial fragmen- tation of the American South in the 1960s. Isolated from the historic down- town, the Hyatt Regency was conceived as a district or neighborhood inside the Peachtree Center city-within-a-city.4 Portman used cast-in-place concrete,

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glazed terracotta tiles, extensive landscaping, water features, and large public sculptures as urban design elements distributed throughout the exterior and interior spaces of the complex. This networked world of skywalks, tunnels, arcades, and atria was designed to be weatherproof, convenient, and safer than downtown itself.

It is within the original materiality of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, however, where Portman’s ambivalence is most clearly manifested. The orig- inal interiors operated more like exteriors, yet external in ways that did not appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities of the general public. Brutalist forms and spatial qualities alluded to utilitarian drainage easements, expressways, and social housing – places that were perceived negatively or akin to public works. For the adventurous and architecturally sophisticated, Portman interiors were sublime and avant-garde, but for many, these grandly scaled spaces appeared stark and alienating rather than welcoming and conventionally luxurious.

By the early 2000s, changing tastes and stylistic trends spawned continual adaptations to the public areas of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta. For example, Portman originally designed a tunneled entrance experience as a narrow space that opened into a massive atrium. Although the space resem- bled the underside of an expressway flyover, it created an uncommon spatial aura. Intentionally low-lit, the original space encouraged guests to move quickly through its compressive confines. The main entrance – routinely criticized for its understated qualities and lack of a porte-cochère canopy – was renovated to more closely resemble conventional four-star hotels. Today, the uniqueness of Portman’s original entrance has been replaced with an expansive glass portal that undermines the intent of the arrival sequence. In the past, a dark and sub- lime space offered a powerful transition to the atrium. Its concrete surface – an unfinished material that conveyed interior ambivalence – was removed and replaced with smooth marble; bright lighting and new porcelain flooring further diminished the original atmosphere to achieve an expectable aesthetic.

Apart from the renovated tunnel, public areas throughout the hotel have been altered to address popular expectations for uniformly bright and neu- tral spaces. As evidenced in this post-renovation statement from Hyatt, aura has been abandoned in favor of familiarity:

The transformation of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta includes a sig- nificant refresh of the hotel’s soaring 22-story atrium lobby. The entrance area has a clean, open feeling upon arrival with pod-style desks providing an intimate and personalized check-in experience. Custom art created from brass key fob replicas from the original Regency Hyatt House embellish the reception area.5

One of the most significant and destructive alterations to the Hyatt Regency Atlanta was initiated in 2010 by TVS Design.6 TVS led an extensive renovation that removed the white-glazed terracotta flooring in the atrium and common areas.7 The original fan-pattern tiles evoked an abstracted European cobble- stone street that made the atrium feel both public and urban. Why was this critical interior condition replaced with conventional porcelain tile? Were the designers unaware of the historical importance of this material and its spatial intent? Among the most irreverent departures from the Portman concept, the

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new floor disrespects the historical integrity of the original interior surface. Furthermore, the scalar and material qualities of the new floor are incompatible with the monumental scale of the 22-story atrium. Reorienting an interior-urban space into an ordinary interior space, the civic stature of the Portman original has been significantly diminished.

While the original interiors of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta engaged layers of textural and spatial complexity, it was the lighting concept that imbued subtle, nuanced, and otherworldly qualities. In the 2010 renovation, the original internal exteriority was altered with a new lighting concept that changed the type and amount of artificial light, as well as its relationship to materiality. The entrance and atrium spaces were brightened substantially, while the material palette was lightened.8 The resulting environment no longer enhances spatial depth and unseen spaces; these distinctions have been neutralized and ren- dered equally. At night, the brightness of the ground plane detracts from the ability to perceive the dramatic verticality of the atrium. In short, this impres- sive interior urban space no longer appears as monumental as it once did.

In the original design, materials were coordinated to enhance their impact at the scale of the building and the city. In the 2010 renovation, TVS Design selected materials for their individual qualities instead of their relevance to the 1967 concept. Pursuing a safely conventional aesthetic rather than a rigorous and integrative approach to architectural interiors, TVS imposed new materials that disregard the notable provenance of this iconic building. Design- ers ignored the urban tenets of the Portman original. The monumental atrium space remains; however, its material articulation and overall effect have suf- fered immeasurably.

Apart from materiality and light, various significant architectural ele- ments have been removed. From 1967 through the early 1980s, the atrium ceiling served as a constructed sky plane surrounded by balconies that resem- bled landscaped terraces. Since 2010, hanging vegetation has been entirely removed and guest room corridors have been refitted with conventional pat- terned carpeting. The overall interior architectural effect has shifted from “exterior terraces opening onto the city” to “interior hallways surrounding a lightwell.” Furthermore, a pair of monumental hanging follies that gave scale to the atrium – a three-story birdcage with parrots and a grandly scaled, ornamen- tal parasol – have been dismantled.9 Their removal has altered the public sen- sibility of the atrium in favor of a more ordinary hotel lobby aesthetic. Although the structural bones of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta remain, the uniqueness of its interior urbanity has been largely erased.

[Superficial] adaptation | Westin Peachtree Plaza In 1976, the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel opened in downtown Atlanta on a site formerly occupied by historic theaters.10 Like the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, the Westin Peachtree Plaza shares Portman’s urban principles that appropriate aspects of traditional street life for the interior. A seventy-story concrete struc- ture sheathed entirely in reflective glass is anchored by a concrete podium base; glass elevators lead to guest rooms, a revolving restaurant, and a cocktail lounge at the summit. Its five-story atrium surrounds a circular elevator core with shops, cafés, and restaurants terraced along the eastern and western wings of the podium. The Westin Peachtree Plaza, Los Angeles Bonaventure,

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and Detroit Renaissance Center share similar formal qualities, yet dissimilar spatial strategies. Of these, the Westin Peachtree Plaza embodies the clearest and most compact spatial organization. The original design of its atrium podium employed a design strategy similar to the Los Angeles Bonaventure (1976) and Detroit Renaissance Center (1977). Rough concrete formed the backdrop for a dream-like indoor space with a lobby lagoon and cocktail lounge “lily pads” set within the lagoon or cantilevered above the central space. In the original design, vegetation and hanging “rain beads” softened this hard-edged space, yet the interior was criticized by the public for being both unfriendly and austere.

In 1986, the lobby lagoon was unceremoniously drained and the base-level cocktail lounge lily pads were removed to make way for postmod- ern follies designed by John Portman himself.11 Described by his publicists as “modern interpretations of a classic Venetian piazza,” these polychromatic pavilions were reinterpretations of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.12 Port- man’s stage set installations transformed the lobby into a more difficult space to navigate and occupy. Although meant to infuse playfulness and delight, the follies seemed strangely out of place within the Brutalist concrete podium; they quickly collected dust and grew outmoded and worn. Furthermore, the notion that John Portman initiated the design and installation of such work is quite remarkable, but reveals his hybrid architect/developer perspective on interior design. With the postmodern follies, Portman introduced an alternative spatial logic that recast the podium base as a context for temporal interiorities which addressed conventional preferences and consumerism. The architectural language of the 1986 installations embodies the ambiguities of postmodernism relative to interior architecture at a hyperscale. In addition to the postmodern follies, new restaurants, bars, and shops were introduced into the overscaled circulation spaces to facilitate greater financial return. These renovations dimin- ished many of the extraordinary interior-exterior conditions and spatial qualities in the Westin Peachtree Plaza.

In the early 2000s, the postmodern follies were removed, but the original lobby lagoon, base-level cocktail pods, and vegetation were not restored. Further subverting the exterior qualities of the space, circulation areas were carpeted and the exposed concrete structure was painted light gray. In doing so, the hard-edged Brutalism and urban characteristics of the space were further subdued. Like actual urban space, the early Portman hotel-shopping galleries offered voluminous, unarticulated, and unusable spaces. A maze of terrains vagues, these spatial gratuities have been reduced to minimums in the reprogramming of the Westin Peachtree Plaza. Today, there is very little terrain vague left to critique in the Portman hotels; the interior complexities and expansiveness of the podium have been value-engineered into leasable space.

[Radical] intervention | Detroit Renaissance Center In 1970, Henry Ford II and the Ford Motor Company formed a coalition with other business leaders to initiate Detroit Renaissance, a non-profit organization focused on generating economic revitalization in the city.13 The group announced the development of Renaissance Center and its construction commenced in 1971. The hotel tower of the Renaissance Center opened in 1977 as the Westin Detroit Plaza Hotel and became the tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the world.14 Although the hotel and office towers were encased entirely in reflective glass,

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the complex was perceived as an impermeable bunker, blocked by concrete berms that visually and psychologically separated it from downtown. Portman’s original design for the Renaissance Center created hermetically enclosed and secure interior spaces. Harshly criticized, these spaces were later reconfigured to connect with exterior spaces and the waterfront.

John Portman’s urban redevelopment projects, including the Atlanta Peachtree Center, San Francisco Embarcadero Center, Los Angeles Bonaven- ture, and Detroit Renaissance Center, have been deemed too big to fail. While they have never been abandoned, each has required intensive modifications to remain economically viable. The Brutalist spirit of the Renaissance Center has been unable to withstand the forces of time, trend, financial performance, and consumer preference. Viewed from the standpoint of historic preservation, var- ious interventions have attempted to reform its monolithic qualities, yet these renovations have resulted in a radically transformed structure. Changing market forces have played a significant role in the elimination of generous circulation areas and civic interior scale; some of these changes have been positive for Renaissance Center. Today, its shopping galleries receive more natural light, spaces are easier to navigate, retail areas open onto the riverfront, and the complex activates outdoor street life. Even so, many of these adaptations have created interior spaces that lack the avant-garde qualities of the original John Portman interior design.

Since opening in 1977, the Renaissance Center shopping galleries have suffered from poor retail sales, high turnover, and extended vacancies. Although the complex is sited on the Detroit River overlooking Windsor, Can- ada, the original design turned its back on both downtown Detroit and the international waterfront. In 2001, after more than two decades of criticism and falling retail revenues, the General Motors Wintergarden atrium was unveiled.15 Designed by SOM, the atrium added significant square footage and a direct connection to the international riverfront. Although the Wintergarden has been applauded for activating street life, the retail galleries of the Renaissance Cen- ter continue to suffer from high vacancies.16

Whether configured along streets or shopping galleries, retail is most successful when designed in frontally opposing sides; double-loaded retail offers higher return than single-loaded retail.17 In the original design, John Portman used monolithic concrete ramps, stairways, and guardrails as formal elements, while most retail spaces were single-loaded with views of the lobby lagoon, cocktail pods, and central core. Retail was dispersed evenly around the periphery of the podium base and lacked critical density. Likewise, the visually impermeable concrete ramps, stairs, and core obstructed sight lines across the complex. Although spatially complex and visually bold, these circulation armatures created dark interior spaces that were at once difficult to navigate and challenging for retailers. Once inside the Renaissance Center, visitors were spatially disoriented and unable to find the shops. Portman’s desire to privilege social spaces instead of revenue generators made RenCen’s podium base dif- ficult to lease. Retail spaces were not designed for optimum financial gain, but tuned to his utopian architectural concept. Lobbies were envisioned as piazzas and corridors were conceived as streets; their generous scale gave the complex a sense of spaciousness, well-being, and grand interior urbanism. Addressing spatial confusion in the interior spaces, SOM introduced a glass-ring mezzanine

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walkway in the 2004 renovation.18 This handsome feature dematerialized one of the most obtrusive aspects of the Renaissance Center base podium design. Replacing a maze-like pattern of movement, the glass-ring mezzanine walkway has improved lighting and sight lines. Its design is sympathetic to the original design and provides an impressive, stylistically appropriate architectural ele- ment set within the concrete podium context.

One of the most significant departures from the original Portman design of the Renaissance Center has been the rebranding of the complex by the General Motors Corporation. In 1996, GM acquired the Renaissance Center and began an extensive program of exterior and interior renovations.19 GM renamed the complex, drained the lagoon, removed public amenities, and introduced a promotional automotive exhibition. Reconceived as the GM Renaissance Center, the company began reprogramming the grandly scaled circulation spaces into a promotional showroom for GM vehicles. One of the first interventions was the removal of the concrete berms that sepa- rated the Renaissance Center from the rest of downtown Detroit, followed later with the Wintergarden, the glass-ring mezzanine, and several repurposed lobby-exhibition spaces. In a dramatic turn from landscaped water garden oasis to GM-branded exhibition, the podium base lobby was drained and vegetation removed. It its place – yet ironically appropriate for Detroit – a showroom of American-made GM cars and trucks stands permanently on guard. The year- round conservatory of trees, water, and filtered light envisioned by Portman in the early 1970s has given way to a glorified parking lot.

The efforts to make RenCen’s voluminous spaces economically via- ble has resulted in highly compromised interior architectural qualities. Although the most recent renovations have carved out economic viability in place of spatial gratuitousness, they have largely erased the last traces of civic gravitas in the Renaissance Center. While RenCen has been deemed too big to fail, its investors have responded by adapting interiors that have suffered immea- surably in their continual transformation. While embracing the larger city and increasing revenue, the interior glories of the Renaissance Center have been largely lost to memory. Today, the Renaissance Center remains activated and vital, but embodies a far less civic environment in its corporate reincarnation. The public reading of circulation spaces has been diminished by the extensive branding program – interior circulation spaces feel like a three-dimensional GM advertisement – rather than the interior urban spaces that they were designed to be.

The Portman originals through the lens of Lefebvre, Baudrillard, and Jameson Since opening in late 1960s and through the mid-1970s, the John Portman originals have been roundly criticized for their arrogance to cities, formal objec- tification, and fortress-like singularity. As generators of interior urbanism and forums for the guilty pleasures of consumerism, these complexes attempted to renew American cities by means of interior urbanity. Blending real estate development and architectural production with consumption, Portman suc- cessfully married his social ambitions to several mega-scale projects that were ultimately deemed too big to fail. His legacy stood apart from reigning para- digms to ultimately assert a longer-term influence, merging consumption and

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commercialization with urban revitalization. It is, however, within an embrace of consumerism and trend that Portman’s projects are beginning to lose their fantastical internal qualities. As evidenced in these case studies, the Port- man originals have been continually undermined by shifting stylistic and con- sumer preferences, as well as the destructive practices of insensitive interior renovations.

Although the Portman originals can only remain economically viable and resilient through their continual redesign, they were originally conceived as alternative images of the city and hermetic interior worlds. These projects embodied a utopian social experiment paired with the hedonistic pleasures of consumption and desire. Although the Westin Peachtree Plaza exudes a sophisticated spatial postmodernity, its emergence at the end of late mod- ernism paralleled emerging postmodern forces in popular culture reinforced by capitalistic impulses in politics, art, architecture, and design. As evidenced in the 1986 renovation of the Westin Peachtree Plaza, the postmodern reno- vations contradicted the most salient aspects of the original design aesthetic. Here, Portman himself used a symbolic understanding of postmodernism as a stage set intervention. In this sense, the follies embraced postmodernity as fashion in the form of consumer kitsch. After only a few years, however, the banal and vulgar follies proved to be a temporary intervention which met their own demise.

Acknowledging the dynamic nature of building occupancies, theo- rists Henri Lefebvre, Jean Baudrillard, and Fredric Jameson assert that techno- logically advanced societies no longer produce spaces that are entirely organic. Spaces are increasingly commodified to serve consumption; they as act as collectors of things. In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre defines space as a commodity directly linked to production and capital.20 He further identifies three spatial subcategories that include “abstract space,” responding to politi- cal and economic forces; “absolute space,” created by everyday, participatory actions; and “differential space,” mobilized by resistant forces existing within absolute space.21 Lefebvre situates his theoretical argument primarily within cities and the public realm; however, his postulations are particularly well suited to the urban-scale renovated interiors of Portman hotels. Lefebvre’s notion of differential space relates to the dynamic relationships among shifting physical conditions, material assemblies, spatial occupancies, and interior-exterior con- ditions in Portman’s work.

French theorist Jean Baudrillard identified the World Trade Center, Centre Pompidou, and John Portman’s Los Angeles Bonaventure – cousins of the Westin Peachtree Plaza and Detroit Renaissance Center – as crucial buildings revealing the cultural logic of modernity and postmodernity.22 Bau- drillard’s observations were rooted in the post-structuralist conviction that meaning is brought about through systems of signs working in unison. These systems are underscored by his analysis and critique of radical shifts operating simultaneously within both global architecture and popular culture. Baudrillard assessed the hyperspaces of the Bonaventure as an unintentional parody of modernism related to an arbitrary and misleading spatial language.23 Both Jameson and Baudrillard conclude that it is the subversive nature of modern parody that positions the Bonaventure within the postmodern.24 For Baudril- lard, the modernist parody represents a dialectic relationship between what

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is considered acceptable with regard to universal norms, while being influ- enced by subjective aesthetic preferences. Acknowledging his perspective on the death of the subject through enslavement to mass media, as well as Michel Foucault’s critique of subjectivity, the spatial freedom of the John Portman original interiors reveals the end of style and a return to something more coded and intuitive.25

In the Los Angeles Bonaventure, Baudrillard lauds Portman’s abil- ity to create an ideal inner world which replicates the city within a building.26 Similarly, the Detroit Renaissance Center isolates itself to create an even more powerful and autonomous interior world – a micro-world. This isolation is heightened by the obscurity and insignificance of its entrances, as if to say that the space within aspired to inaccessibility from the city beyond. The imperme- ability of the Detroit Renaissance Center at ground level is revealed in its lack of a central and hierarchically significant primary entrance. Its five towers emerge from a hulking concrete podium, yet the original pedestrian connections to the interior world were underscaled and discrete. Here, modernity marks a vio- lent insertion into the city by coding its superiority as indifference. The subtle way, however, that it connects interiority with downtown Detroit and beyond reveals the influence of postmodernity. The reflective glass skin turns its exte- rior surface into a mirror of the urban context. Further dislocating the complex within the city as if to dematerialize it, the interior space has no exterior, no “definitive” exterior. In turn, this lack of a definable exteriority underscores the subliminal reading and primacy of the interior. Although the renovations sought to adapt this relationship, the monumental internal civic spaces of RenCen are meant to be experienced from within, rather than engaged as an integral part of the city. Thus, the podium base of the Detroit Renaissance Center spatializes Baudrillard’s theory of consumption, ambiguity, and postmodernity envisioned in his seminal book, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, originally published in 1970.27

Jameson suggests that John Portman’s projects offer spaces which reflect postmodern societal norms. As a Marxist cultural theorist, Jameson has been instrumental in advancing postmodern architectural theory.28 He claims that a “new world of multinational capital” assumes an “impossible” repre- sentation in the interior hyperspaces of the John Portman megastructures.29 However, moving beyond its impact as a hermetic hyperspace, the renovated complex acts as a metaphor for our increasingly fragmented society, the con- tentiousness of the building-oriented design disciplines, and even more for the American city. In his 1984 criticism of John Portman’s work, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Jameson asserts that in uncritical, media-enslaved societies the possibility for pastiche thrives.30 This postmodern spatial pastiche reflects a media-dominated culture whose citizenry lack subjec- tivity and the desire for high art. Claiming that capitalism and consumer com- modification have destroyed the ability for contemporary culture to innovate, Jameson further rationalizes that postmodern pastiche is linked to an inability to develop new “styles” as they are perceived to have already been invented.31 Thus, art and the past are endlessly recycled and modernism becomes merely a postmodernist code. In this sense, Portman codes his reflective glass build- ing envelopes for the Westin Peachtree Plaza and Detroit Renaissance Cen- ter as “modern,” while simultaneously experimenting with interior spatial

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postmodernity. This skin serves as a tenuous boundary between an ordered external architecture and the ongoing aesthetic chaos of its renovated interior spaces.

Jameson further explains the public desire for nostalgia and an obsessive reinterpretation of the past through postmodern art and architec- ture. The commodification of culture and the increasing vacuum of a recycled past has also resulted in what he terms a schizophrenic disposition within post- modern space.32 For Jameson, postmodern schizophrenia derives from a lack of historicity, or the disappearance of a sense of history due to postmodern recycling of the past. He posits that Portman engaged in postmodern spatiality well before the overtly literal postmodern follies at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in the early 1980s. He asserts that the spatiality of Portman’s work embodied the postmodern excesses of a consumptive society blindly producing pastiche as a placeholder for high culture. This sensibility may be further applied to the temporality of later renovations and the incremental breakdown of the original interior architectural design.

Today, Portman hotel interiors are characterized less by the per- manence of their original interior architecture and more by temporality and trend-influenced interior design. The unthoughtful renovations of the Portman originals in the early 2000s have not been well documented – or lamented – or considered in relation to marketplace pressures alongside the cyclical nature of “entertainment” architecture. The theoretical critique of Portman’s earliest buildings by Jameson and Baudrillard has long since passed, yet the adapta- tion of these structures has not been adequately critiqued regarding stew- ardship of their historically significant architectural interiors. While it may be somewhat harsh to claim that theses spaces have been entirely destroyed, as iconic works of spatial postmodernism, they are certainly fading away with little notice or concern. For the most part, the spatial complexities and terrain vague ambiguities that so entranced Jameson and Baudrillard no longer exist in the iconic John Portman originals.

The spatial theories of Lefebvre and early critiques of Portman’s work by Baudrillard and Jameson assert that buildings are often critiqued most rig- orously in their original form – whether celebrated or derided – and changes to their interior spaces are often forgotten. Building interiors, such as the Portman originals, allow social processes to be manifested, observed, and reconfigured. Accordingly, the interior renovations and manipulations of significant works of interior architecture should form part of the most vocal discourse of design theory and criticism in the field. The critique of the renovated Portman originals has, for the most part, ground to a halt. Or have the critics simply not noticed that these iconic interior spaces have been nearly erased?

Notes 1 Paul Goldberger, John Portman: Art and Architecture (Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 2009).

2 Ibid.

3 William Neill, Urban Planning and Cultural Identity (London: Routledge, 2003).

4 Ibid.

5 Hyatt Corporation, Press Release, May 2011. Lucinda Press, ASID, Senior Associate/Design Coor-

dinator for the Atlanta renovation, TVS design.

6 Hotel News Resource, Press Release, 26 March 2012. Hyatt Regency Atlanta Debuts $65 Million

Transformation, www.hotelnewsresource.com/article62229.html (accessed 12 January 2016).

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7 Leon Stafford, “No More Retro for Iconic Hyatt Regency”, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 20

August 2010.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Daniel Niemeyer, 1950s American Style: A Reference Guide (New York: Lulu Publishing, 2013).

11 Westin Corporation, Press Release, Atlanta’s Icon: The Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, www.

westinpeachtreeplazaatlanta.com/hotel-history (accessed 12 January 2016).

12 Office of John Portman and Associates, Press Release, 1986.

13 Katherine Mattingly Meyer and Martin C.P. McElroy, Detroit Architecture: AIA Guide Revised Edi-

tion (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980).

14 Buildings of Detroit, GM Renaissance Center, 2016, http://criticaldetroit.org/buildings/gm-renais

sance-center/ (accessed 12 January 2016).

15 Metropolitan Affairs Commission, Building the Riverfront Greenway: The State of Greenway

Investments Along the Detroit River (Detroit: Metropolitan Affairs Commission, 2001).

16 Ibid.

17 Collin Anderson, Evolution of a Retail Streetscape: DP Architects on Orchard Road (Singapore:

Images Publishing, 2013).

18 Sherri Welch, “GM to Launch Major Renovation of Renaissance Center HQ This Summer”, Auto-

motive News, January 2016.

19 Robin Meredith, “GM Buys A Landmark of Detroit for Its Home”, The New York Times, 17

May 1996.

20 Lefebvre, The Production of Space.

21 Ibid.

22 Mike Gane, Baudrillard’s Bestiary: Baudrillard and Culture (London: Routledge, 2002).

23 See The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsend, WA: Bay

Press, 1985); republished as Postmodern Culture (London, 1985).

24 See Jameson, Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature (Prince-

ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 34. Despite describing the difference between

postmodern pastiche and modern parody, Jameson’s “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of

Late Capitalism”, also links the origins of pastiche to Thomas Mann and Adorno.

25 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra et Simulation (Paris: Editions Galilee, 1981).

26 Ibid.

27 Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publi-

cations, 1998).

28 Perry Anderson, “Forward”, in The Cultural Turn, ed. Fredric Jameson (London: Verso, 1998),

pp. xi–xiv.

29 Ibid.

30 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke

University Press, 1984).

31 Ibid.

32 Fredric Jameson, “Culture and Finance Capital”, in The Cultural Turn, 1996 ed., ed. Fredric

Jameson (London: Verso, 1998).

Marinic, G. (Ed.). (2018). The interior architecture theory reader. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from asulib-ebooks on 2019-11-23 11:20:11.

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