The story below is a preview from our May/June 2017 issue. For the full story Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
The design of area buildings gives a solid indication of the Roanoke area’s often-rich history.
Dan Smith
Roanoke has never been known as The City of Great Architecture, but it has had its moments. Sprinkled among the mundane and the grotesque are a few gems here and there, at least one of which is strongly argued in both camps.
The Taubman Museum of Art has won international awards for its design by Frank Gehry acolyte Randall Stout, even as one critic laughed that it “looks like the Flying Nun crashed.” The small, unassuming Jefferson Electric building downtown gets high praise, while the huge old FNEB building is roundly despised—at least partly for what it replaced (the glamorous old American Theater).
Architect Martha Chester: “The architecture of buildings in Roanoke has benefited from the fact that the city did not grow too quickly and therefore have a monotony of architectural influence. Growth over many years has afforded us a delightful mix, which pays tribute to several architectural styles. Larger cities that experienced a sudden growth boom often suffer from far too many glass-box skyscrapers.”
To get a handle on all this, we asked more than a dozen prominent Roanoke architects to tell us what they think best represents the city’s architecture, past, present and future. We also asked for their thoughts on designs people “love to hate.” These architects (and one engineer) mostly design buildings. Two specialize in interiors and landscaping.
Here’s what they had to say:
Steve Sunderman, President, Terrazia
Past: Hotel Roanoke because it provides an elegant link to our sturdy railroad heritage and continues to serve as the best place to stay in Roanoke. My wife and I spent a weekend there to celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary recently.
Present: The Taubman Museum because it shook up our traditional approach to conservative architecture and makes a statement about what the future could have in store. It also makes a statement to visitors that Roanoke can be recognized on the national stage, and is not entirely conservative nor restricted to traditional architecture.
Future: Valley Family Dentistry on Franklin Road is the first certified Passivhaus (Passive House U.S.) building in Roanoke and the first Passivhaus dental clinic in the country. It represents a future in which high performance buildings can provide healthy and comfortable environments for its occupants while also minimizing energy consumption (70 percent less than code standard) and maintenance of its simple mechanical systems. It is a traditional looking building with hidden high performance features.
Lora Katz, Architecture/Interior Design
Past: At the Hotel Roanoke, you can feel the travelers getting off the train and making their way from the station to the hotel that overlooks a growing downtown. It still feels much the same as it always has and is a reminder of our roots.
Present: The Heironimus building downtown exemplifies the obstacles to our city’s success. It is just one of many properties that impede the development of Roanoke, but is by far the most visible and significant.
Future: This is exemplified by the obvious choice and a building that also makes my list for one that the public loves to hate: The Taubman Museum. I believe that the public arts program, with the Taubman being a visual mainstay, adds to our quality of life much in the same way that the greenway system and our outdoor activities contribute.
John Garland, President, John Aubrey Garland, Consulting Engineer. Former President of Spectrum Design.
Past: The Hotel Roanoke and General Office Buildings north and south harken us back to our railroad roots.
Present: The Grammercy Building on Williamson Road is ugly, but I’m thinking more about use. It represents the first new build for downtown residential and associated commercial space in many years, as an exclamation point to the success of historic preservation projects that have brought 2,000 residential patrons to downtown.
Future: Virginia Tech/Carilion Medical School building on South Jefferson Street and associated biomedical research buildings shoot us forward from trains to brains. It is not in a high category of architecture, but it is about the future.
Husain Alam, Alam Design Group; President American Institute of Architects, Blue Ridge
Past: The Patrick Henry Hotel, designed by William Stoddart in 1925, is a landmark for Roanoke. During a recent renovation, Developer Ed Walker maintained the historic character and fabric of the old building, and most of the public spaces including the beautiful old stair cases and balconies. Upper level has apartments instead of hotel rooms now that are used by Carilion students. The Patrick Henry still functions as one of the major community spaces in Roanoke.
Present: Center in the Square underwent extensive renovation by Spectrum Design recently, adding a butterfly house, exhibit space and roof-top community and dining area. That allows downtown residents to access the urban spirit of Roanoke. Its beautiful glass rail staircases and Ipek decking on the roof, along with the water garden features, are frequently used for pictures, weddings and gatherings. The main level architectural ceilings, aquarium, bathroom and lobby have elevated the daily experience. Without this building the downtown experience won’t be the same.
Future: The Virginia Western Community College Student Center is a new academic building designed by SFCS that has allowed our student and local population to interact. This building is constructed with modern technology and details that save energy, while allowing light to flow through the spaces. It provides a spectacular view of the surrounding valley and the old fabric of the adjoining neighborhoods. It recently won the AIA Blue Ridge award for 2016.
Martha Chester, President, Hughes Architects
Past: St. Andrew’s Catholic Church was contracted in 1897 and dedicated (at a cost of $108,000) in 1902. The architectural style is High Victorian Gothic, and care has been given to preservation. The beauty and richness of the interior finishes and furnishings have been carefully added over time. It seems to me that our histories are still tracking together.
Present: The R & K Solutions building is attractive inside and out. It is basically a large metal building, yet because of the thought that was given to its design, landscaping and site placement it has been elevated from what could have been an industrial presence, to a corporate image. Color and form attract the eye to the front of the building, careful detailing in the lobby and office spaces inside the building and thoughtful planning of the work processes through laboratory and manufacturing spaces complete the architectural significance of this facility.
Future:The Hancock Building was built in 1898 by Hancock Dry Goods and became a department store in 1928. Grand Piano took it over in 1965 and it was renovated as an apartment complex in 2007. Many times renovations are at best a recycling of our buildings, changing out materials, upgrading for safety codes, and modifying the building to accept a different occupancy. This building exemplifies the ideal of honoring a building’s local context and history, while making changes to adapt the structure to our changing cultural paradigm.
Bill Hume, President, Interactive Design Group
Past: Jefferson Electric Company has a classical architectural façade which like in many older buildings in Roanoke seems to disappear from the downtown fabric until you stop and take notice. The elegant architectural façade speaks of an older more respectful time when simple details of building materials were expressed as a means to convey a strength about a company and their place within a community.
Present: Meridium represents the tasteful transformation of the former American Chemical Company exterior to create a vibrant architectural statement. The utilization of strong design elements enhanced the existing building as well as provided another visual component to improve the gateway into our valley.
Future: Tuco’s Taqueria Garaje is the pick here because Bill Chapman took a nondescript building on depressed Salem Avenue and added a few design elements both interior and exterior to completely transform this structure. A fun whimsical approach was tastefully accomplished in the tequila bar, which makes this building even more fun to experience. I believe that with our inventory of older buildings we have the ability for more of this type of redevelopment.
Bob Fetzer, President, Building Specialists Inc.
Past: St. Andrew’s Catholic Church because Father John Lynch must have had a premonition that big things were in store for Roanoke when he suggested the architects to design this magnificent structure for what was then a small town. It is not only a place of worship but an icon for the whole community as it sits on a prominent site at the gateway to downtown. The attention to detail and bold use of color are phenomenal.
Present: Roanoke Higher Ed Center/Former Norfolk & Western General Office Building are classic Art Moderne design. The placement of windows and the sculptural elements on the façade still look fresh. Locating its headquarters here was a bold move for N&W. Re-purposing of the building as a graduate center was a bold move for the City of Roanoke and a symbol of its evolution from an industrial town to a technology-driven city.
Future: Taubman Museum of Art design is futuristic, but its scale, industrial-inspired materials, and re-use of building façades along Market Street helps it fit into the historic area and the railroad shops. Its bold use of forms and materials say that Roanoke is not afraid to take risks. It presents a strong image of the future and represents the city’s confidence and vision to move forward.
Craig Balzer, Balzer Associates
Past: The Williamson Road “strip” complete with its unadorned, non-detailed architectural building stock speaks to me so much about the past. It is a response beginning in the late 1920s to the growth of our area and uncontrolled development. This includes all the buildings with no sense of architectural significance, closely built next to the road, telephone poles and wires everywhere, and a roadway that provided area residents with a place “to cruise.”
Present: Roanoke’s Municipal Building speaks of the present and qualifies for a nice architectural building example. The city’s recent reopening of the front doors with a fresh look sends such a message to the citizens of Roanoke, and talks about the current attitudes of our local city government looking more at the present and future of our city.
Future: The Taubman Museum, as a municipal building, deviated from the status quo and its modern/contemporary architectural statement is definitely a forward thinking/future thinking response by the architect. The building’s location adjacent to the Interstate sends a huge message (liked or disliked) to passersby that the city is not stuck in the past.
Richard Rife, Partner, Rife + Wood Architects
Past: The Hotel Roanoke’s history parallels Roanoke’s history in many ways. Built in the city’s heady formative years, it reflected Roanoke’s aspirations to be more than just a roughneck railroad town. It went through some rough times during the 1870s and ‘80s and finally closed. This period of decline paralleled the railroad’s declining presence in Roanoke. Then it tied its star to Virginia Tech and was re-imagined, renovated and reopened in 1995, presaging Roanoke’s efforts at economic transformation with the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.
Present: The Roanoke Star. This beloved structure, for all of its kitsch, is uniquely ours, remaining the symbol of Roanoke. It’s still one of the coolest places around to visit on a warm summer evening.
Future: Raleigh Court Neighborhood is a living example of Traditional Neighborhood Design, the kind of old-fashioned neighborhood that architects and city planners are now trying to design from scratch. It offers its residents a wonderful modernized Norman Rockwell quality of life.
Future 2: The Airport Terminal is nearly 30 years old and has aged well. I’ve always liked the design, with its airplane wing canopies, its glass exterior façade and its brick interior façade. It’s a design that points to the future while still reflecting the past.
John Dorlini, Co-Owner, Circle Design Studio
Past: Whether you’re grabbing a quick lunch or attending a lecture on the top floor, the Roanoke City Market Building is a hub of social energy in the heart of downtown where you might run into somebody you know and strike up a conversation.
Present: The Y Lofts is one of many projects downtown that re-purposes an old, vacant, building with new life. The Y Lofts uses its previous life of sports and exercise in the old YMCA building to become both a theme and amenity to its renters.
Future: The Bridges Development is a combination of new construction and adaptive reuse of historic structures aimed at a millennial demographic that craves a work/live/play environment with proximity to Roanoke’s outdoor activities. Although it might not resemble the architecture of downtown, it is a sign that Roanoke’s population is getting younger and more hip.
Monica Rokicki-Guajardo, Owner, Better Building Works
Past: What a history is represented in Claytor Memorial Clinic in Gainsboro! It is, unfortunately, on the endangered sites list of the Roanoke Valley Preservation Association. It is listed on both the state and national registers and displays gorgeous Art Deco detailing. I can’t wait to see what happens with this building in the future and hope that it can be renovated in a way that showcases the extraordinary contributions of the Claytor family and Gainsboro neighborhood.
Present: My relationship with Taubman Museum is complicated. I do love the way the spaces stack and relate to each other. I love its contrapposto (asymmetrical arrangement) attitude to the linearity of the train tracks and the orthogonal blockiness of historic downtown. I have misgivings about it from a building science standpoint, but as a gesture of pure joy in artistic expression, and the conversations it stirs up, I welcome its irreverent presence in our more sober midst.
Future: The Roof at the Center in the Square hints at the future potential of roofs, both existing and for new buildings. The tops of buildings are like canvases just waiting for the right architect or artist to turn them into inhabitable sculptures, or even just paintings visible from higher buildings.
Not all architecture has to do with the exterior of buildings. Some of it takes place inside and on the grounds. Here are opinions from Landscape Architect David Hill and Interior Architect Theresa Dorlini:
David Hill, President, Hill Studio
Past: No other building or landscape can convey so eloquently the past, present and future of the city than John Nolen’s 1907 and 1928 Comprehensive Plans for the City of Roanoke. This is the vision for the place, this living document that outlined how we would deal with our natural and cultural assets. Natural-area set-asides, downtown and its expansion, neighborhoods, boulevards, the greenway system, our very convenient school and park system, and just about every aspect of life that we now enjoy as a hip city, was outlined in these visionary documents.
Present (Past and Future, too): Stanley Abbott’s 1930s plans for the Blue Ridge Parkway cover it all in his magnificent vision of incorporating the new automobile into this controversial new type of national park that borrowed scenery from the valleys below. America’s most visited-unit of the National Park Service was designed from the little office Abbott and his atelier had downtown.
Future: The Roanoke Valley Greenway system is amazing, originally planned in 1995 with consultant Chuck Flink, a famous greenway designer. It approaches all the communities in the Roanoke Valley and is one of the nicer things government has done. It is a remarkable social and exercise community builder.
Theresa Dorlini, Co-Owner, Circle Design
Past: Metro! Restaurant in downtown Roanoke has done a wonderful job of preserving the history of the structure while updating the interior to reflect a hip vibe. Pressed tin ceiling tiles are a nod to the past and stand in fabulous contrast to the modern LBL Twilight Chandeliers.
Present: Belvedere Gardens Mausoleum in Salem is a beautiful, contemplative modern space and one that our family frequents on random Sunday afternoons. I love how the design prioritizes private spaces through room-like alcoves, inviting the visitor into contemplative thought while also grounding to the natural world through the use of local, textured stone.
Future: As the Roanoke Valley draws in new businesses and developments, the surrounding communities find increased opportunity to benefit from the wave of new urbanism. We are closely following a mixed-use development project in nearby Boones Mill and are excited to see what is in store for our ambitious neighbors. I
... for more from our May/June 2017 issue, Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!