The Dranoff Properties project, designed by Philadelphia's Bower Lewis Thrower Architects (BLT), was chosen in a city-run competition and was meant to serve as a flagship for a newly revived, and increasingly residential, Avenue of the Arts. As a business proposition, the Symphony House condos are such a runaway success that owner Carl Dranoff is developing three more housing concepts for Broad Street.
If Symphony House is the flagship, dare we imagine what the rest of the flotilla will look like?
Judging by the flock of city boosters who bleated praises to Symphony House at a recent ribbon-cutting, there will be a mad rush to champion the project's virtues. Partisans will point out Symphony House's positives: It replaced a gas station and a surface parking lot. It provides a lavish new home for a growing theater company. It behaves in a proper urban way in that it includes two ground-floor spaces for restaurants.
While that's all true enough, Symphony House's defenders operate on the belief that any new construction in Philadelphia is good construction.
But after a vigorous real estate boom, Philadelphia can't be satisfied anymore just to build new. The city needs to build well, with taste, integrity, creativity, and, whenever possible, real aesthetic ambition. Looks matter, especially as the city comes to depend on tourism for its livelihood.
