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Beautiful Stair Reinforces My Architectural Optimism

The Shepherd Center parking deck reinforces my architectural optimism, more on that in a minute.


Did the architects know how beautiful this would be? You can only see this from Bennett Street in the evening.
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A quick glance south from Bennett shows a substation, railroad, then parking lots. Ugh. But wait a minute, this is beautiful.
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An architectural optimist believes that we can have beauty without $billions; that the modest and the practical can delight and inspire, that the mundane can be art.
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Here the requirements for stairs, lighting, ventilation, safety, paint, make something special for the few folks that happen to look.
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I hope that it didn't take one extra dime to make it beautiful. Did the architects know? I'll bet they did.
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