The Deleted Scenes - Big And Tall
I want to show you a mixed-use development not far from where I live: When do you think it was built? This is Lake Anne Plaza, the first of the “village centers” built by Robert E. Simon, the founder of Reston. Reston is a planned community in Fairfax County, Virginia that was part of a movement called “New Towns” which also included Columbia, Maryland—a sort of proto-New Urbanism that intended to build places where people could live, shop, work, etc. (though commuting was expected from the beginning here.) “Work, Play, Live” is almost a joke now with these mixed-use developments, because in reality the job market never worked in a way where most people would work within the community. Oh—year built, with the tower in the no-background: I think it’s interesting that as early as the 1960s, you could already call something “New Towns.” There was also an understanding that these communities were suburbs—both Columbia and Reston are about 20 miles from the urban core. We had already lost the idea of actually living in towns that early, and we were already talking about reimagining them. But there were still some “legacy” elements of this development. Look at this historical overview of Lake Anne:
There was even a Safeway grocery store here when it opened! That spot is obviously too small for a modern chain grocery store today. But I mainly want to focus on that tower. (It’s condos rather than apartments, and it’s undergoing repairs this year. Robert Simon actually lived in it!) Imagine a building that tall and modern going up in the mid-1960s in western Fairfax County, which was still quite rural in those days. Perhaps that made it easier to build something like this, since the area wasn’t already “built out” in a way that was expected not to change. One thing you’ll hear from Reston community groups is that Reston is getting too crowded, growing too much, or losing open space. Reston is growing, but most of the growth is concentrated in a few areas: around two Metro stations and some of the older residential clusters. Pretty much everything else is low density. I once saw on Nextdoor (my mistake) an article about new apartment high-rises near the Metro stop, and someone commented, “Robert Simon must be spinning in his grave.” I responded: “Robert Simon built this in 1964:” But Simon himself, in 2012, commented on the controversies over growth and density:
More from Simon, from a previously unpublished interview:
The Reston Town Center, a later addition, also gets an endorsement: “He [Simon] described Reston Town Center as ‘the perfect plaza.’” Even on the preservation of a golf course, which Simon was known to support, he allows some wiggle room:
Not quite spinning in his grave. It’s funny—there are people who would think of Simon’s openness to new growth as a kind of arrogance—I’m the town founder, I know better than you residents what you need. But it’s really a kind of humility: the ability to start something in motion, and then step back and watch it take its own path and be content with that. What the founder does not express is the idea that he got it all right and nobody should ever change it. In that respect, this “New Town” kept a continuity with the old towns and cities. Related Reading: Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only piece, plus full access to the archive: over 1,000 pieces and growing. And you’ll help ensure more like this! You're currently a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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