302 North Mangum Street

It's a terrible building. Modern architecture can be warm and inviting. Look at the 1960s banks on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh with their totally glass street-level lobbies. But this building repels the public. I mean, it is even hard to figure out how to get inside the thing. New buildings don't have to be this bad.

Anon

I don't disagree, but what's interesting to me is that we continue to build ugly modern buildings. If the Human Services Complex is built as designed, it will be one. So I was interested to see, as someone who has always despised this building, that when I took pictures of it, it looked more interesting. So I'm wondering if therein lies the disconnect - dramatic modern structures that look daring and interesting in a rendering, but are clumsy, imposing - even hostile, and sterile in life. Since our public sector seems to be permanently endeared to modern/post-modernism (even as the private sector goes neo-traditional,) it's incumbent upon someone to realize the disconnect - that architects are either incapable of conveying the imposition of these structures upon the landscape, or unaware. The style that I call RTP-Pharmaceutical-Modern looks good on a grassy plain, but does not play well in the urban context.

GK

I know that I'm in the minority among just about every downtown and urban enthusiast I've ever spoken with, but I have an odd attachment to this building, and I'd actually be sad to see it torn down. The face on City Hall Plaza is really unpleasant, I agree, even though the facing on it at least tried something other than Big Wall O' Glass, or worse, Big Wall O' Concrete or Big Wall O' Stucco. While there's no denying that the Great Cylinder of Power is incredibly goofy and weird, I kind of like it. (I wish it had windows in it, but I like it.) And there's something to be said for the stairstep backside of it, and the funky non-entrance entrance underneath the cylinder that leads to some interesting spaces, which Andrew Barko would probably term "spandrel spaces."

The biggest problem I have with it is, as you mention, the "how do you get in?" problem. That the southern side is the main entrance, swallowed in the backwater of the bastardized City Hall Plaza, I just find wrong. This is perfectly suitable for a back entrance, but as a main entrance, it's pathetic.

I've already stated my preferred solution, but I'll do it again. If the godawful Annex were torn down, and a building which truly worked in dialog with the street were built facing E. Chapel Hill and Rotary Park, I think this brick thing would work fine as a secondary annex-style building, with the current front entrance on CHP turned into a back door. That way, we could get a beautiful, neoclassical facade that really presented the face of city government to the street and to the passerby, and not lose what is otherwise a perfectly functional office building that, without the pressure of being The City Hall, might actually be considered to add an interesting touch to the cityscape.

For that matter, if nothing else, the interior layout would actually make it a phenomenally good art museum.

Michael

I should have mentioned your idea, because I thought it was a really good one. Freed from the mantle of City Hall, and transformed into the back entrance, I think this building could become the modern 'addition' onto the Neo-Classical structure with frontage on East Chapel Hill and North Mangum. I think urbanists could be more forgiving of this building in that context.

Unfortunately, I think even in that scenario, it turns the abandoned block of Holloway (City Hall Place) into a grim canyon. The importance/unimportance of that will depend on the fate of this street at whatever glorious time the Loop is improved - will it become a viable connection between the east side of town and the city center again?

GK

I think this building is a nearly perfect visual reflection of the Durham city government.

Think about that.

If you think it's ugly to look at, trying working in it. Whoever designed the lobby, a huge volume of wasted and energy inefficient space, should be forced to restart design school.

And I'm not going to take the bait on John's broad-brush statement about the 2000+ employees and seven elected officials who work hard for this community every day.

Mike Woodard

I'm surprised the visionaries on this blog wouldn't see the financial and functional legitimacy of adaptive reuse for the City Hall Annex. The service entry could be gutted/demolished to accommodate a three/four-story plus addition providing a building face on Holloway/Chapel Hill St. with retail/small office on the street level.

The non-entrance entrance could be configured into ADA-compliant entrance to City Hall, the annex and the redesigned inviting courtyard.

A sale-leaseback deal may work better for City Hall in the long-run and allow a private developer to redevelop and maintain the space over a period of time.

Just my thoughts on the discussion...

Khalid

Khalid

Perhaps, although I'm not sure there is enough to City Hall Annex to make it reasonable/feasible to demolish part of it and build a usable streetscape on East Chapel Hill. But, in principle, I'm always for reuse of existing buildings if you can correct the parts that make them unusable.

GK

So is the entrance on the corner of Mangum and City Hall Plaza actually the main entrance to the building? That's the one I went into the one time I've visited City Hall, but I wasn't sure if it was an incredibly poorly marked main entry, or if I'd stumbled upon some sort of side lobby.

Then there is that long staircase on the annex side--what does that lead to? It has the big "CITY HALL" signage above it, but the staircase is totally ADA incompliant unless there's a ramp or an elevator inside the giant cylinder. Not to mention that the big pine trees flanking the stairway, while attractive, obscure that large signage such that I totally missed the stairs and the sign as I was walking past.