Quote:
Originally Posted by Pennsgrant
Perhaps the color is supposed to compliment the nearby washed out looking Harnwell Towers . Don't understand it. Why go to all this trouble and come up with somethng so milquetoast?
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That's highly doubtful. By the way, only one of those towers is called "Harnwell," or Harnwell College House. The other two towers are called, respectively, Rodin College House and Harrison College House. Each one is, since Penn started its college house system in the 1990s, one of Penn's 11 (and soon to be 12) college houses. And they're several blocks away from this new tower and have nothing to do with it, either institutionally or even in terms of location. The 3 college house towers are owned by Penn and part of its campus, while this new tower is a private development by the Episcopal Church and has nothing to do with Penn (other than both being in University City). Quite frankly, I can't imagine the 3 college house towers playing ANY role in the design or esthetic of the new tower at 38th and Chestnut.
And I think you guys should stop thinking of University City as having or developing a "skyline," except perhaps for the eastern fringe as it relates to Center City. With (1) a 300-acre leafy Ivy League campus smack in the middle of it, (2) Drexel's ongoing efforts to give its campus and neighborhood more of the feel of a residential university as it foresakes its historical reputation as a commuter school, and (3) the focus of University City development being educational, research, and some high-tech incubator activity, you need to think more in terms of a Cambridge (as in Harvard and MIT) kind of vibe, and not a Center City canyon of towers. At least that's the way I've always understood the development plans of Penn, University City, and now Drexel as I've followed them for decades.
Remember that the largest driving force in University City--Penn--sees itself as competing with the likes of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Brown as fellow urban Ivy League schools. And while Penn seeks to better connect its campus and University City with Center City (hence the Evo and FMC towers being constructed on land owned and controlled by Penn), it does NOT want to turn its neighborhood and campus into merely an extension of Center City either visually or in atmosphere.