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Originally Posted by Philadelcago
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I can't help but wonder if this building would have been more well-received by the residents at Symphony House and Perlman had the architects been better, more engaging speakers/presenters that could communicate the positives more effectively. We really didn't get someone that can speak well publicly until the young Asian man spoke at the end. To be honest, it's disturbing that an international architecture firm would give such a freshman-college-level type of presentation to a major city planning commission. For example, slides with entire sentences and paragraphs on them being read aloud by the presenters between "uhs" and "ums" is amateurish, and it breaks the most fundamental rules of public speaking. If you have ever taken a speech communication course, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Peter Kelson was the only other somewhat natural speaker.
By starting off the meeting with the hottest issue - the scale of the building - without any type of lead-in immediately turns people off that are not already in favor. I know exactly what Mr. Kohn was
trying to do, but it didn't work in my opinion. Instead of identifying with his audience, he came off as presumptuous about their opinions. You make your most difficult appeals at the
end once you've lured your audience in through a number of key devices. These people need to learn how to make persuasive arguments, because that's the only way they're going to have a fighting chance to win over the opposition. This meeting could have been colored in a completely different light had they found people to present this well. Instead, the entire thing was colored negatively by Fumo. If they had an engaging speaker, I can tell you right now that Fumo face wouldn't have been the only thing plastered all over the news, and coverage might have been more balanced. I can guarantee that the only things those Symphony house residents remember from that meeting are the image of the building on the skyline, and Fumo's tirade. The meeting failed what it intended to do from the architect and developer's point of view, which was to break misconceptions and hopefully win over support, and I'm discouraged by that.
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Agreed...round of applause for Swinefeld
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