The drawing on the left is just a quick look at the exterior of Lancaster's Pennsylvania Station showing two courses of marble revetment, the limestone base molding and the system of brickwork. The Pennsylvania Main Line to Lancaster stops at one of PA's most important steel-mill towns, Coatesville. The steel beams of the World Trade Center, for instance, were manufactured here. The quick sketch on the right tries to map the dynamic microcosm of Coatesville that developed at the intersection of the Brandywine River and the Main Line railroad. There is Lukens Steel, the 19th-c grid town with its cottage row houses, and a conspicuous suburbia that developed around Rt. 30. Coatesville contains one of Modern Architecture's forgotten landmarks, Carver Court, a housing project designed by Louis Kahn, Oscar Storonov and George Howe in 1940. The complex seems to be still standing, but I haven't explored it yet. It would be interesting to compare Carver Court with the "Pennsylvania House" that Howe designed with Wharton Esherick the same year for 1939 World's Fair in New York.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Prospecting Coatesville
The drawing on the left is just a quick look at the exterior of Lancaster's Pennsylvania Station showing two courses of marble revetment, the limestone base molding and the system of brickwork. The Pennsylvania Main Line to Lancaster stops at one of PA's most important steel-mill towns, Coatesville. The steel beams of the World Trade Center, for instance, were manufactured here. The quick sketch on the right tries to map the dynamic microcosm of Coatesville that developed at the intersection of the Brandywine River and the Main Line railroad. There is Lukens Steel, the 19th-c grid town with its cottage row houses, and a conspicuous suburbia that developed around Rt. 30. Coatesville contains one of Modern Architecture's forgotten landmarks, Carver Court, a housing project designed by Louis Kahn, Oscar Storonov and George Howe in 1940. The complex seems to be still standing, but I haven't explored it yet. It would be interesting to compare Carver Court with the "Pennsylvania House" that Howe designed with Wharton Esherick the same year for 1939 World's Fair in New York.
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