(re)Marketing Modernism: the revision of an iconic mid-century, mixed-use hotel

Cincinnati's Terrace Plaza Hotel was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill between 1945-1947 and completed in 1948. The 20-story mixed-use building included a 350-room hotel, apartments and three restaurants built above seven stories of office space, a cafeteria, retail spaces, a Bond Clothing store and J.C. Penney department store. It was the first International Style building in Cincinnati and one of the first International Style hotels in the world. It is located on West Sixth Street between Vine and Race Streets in downtown Cincinnati. John J. Emery of Thomas Emery's Sons developed the Terrace Plaza and had previously completed the Carew Tower and Netherland Plaza complex. Emery commissioned original art work for the building by Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Saul Steinberg and Jim Davis. The building included many experimental technologies and cutting-edge designs including the first all-automated elevators in the country, the first user-controlled air conditioning units in all hotel rooms, a subterranean loading dock, ice skating and summer dining on the terrace, Formica surfaces, custom-designed furniture, lighting design by Abe Feder and textiles by Marianne Strengell.

The hotel was purchased by the Hilton Corp. in 1956 and in 1965, the art was removed and the building renovated. The department store left in the late 1970s and the lower retail portion was renovated into office space in the early 1980s. The building is currently 95% vacant - the hotel having closed on October 31, 2008. It still has much of the original interior finishes and the exterior is in good condition, though the building certainly needs renovation and restoration due to its historical and cultural significance.

The Terrace Plaza was designed largely by Natalie de Blois, a young architect who served as lead designer on the project. Because of sexism in the mid-1940s, de Blois was never allowed to meet with the clients or visit the site so in November 2008, we brought her to Cincinnati to visit the building and be interviewed. De Blois went on to help design other incredibly important building in the Modern movement including the Pepsi-Co Headquarters and the Union Carbide Building in New York.

As part of my Master of Architecture thesis (2009) at the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, I proposed reusing and restoring the Terrace Plaza as a mixed-use building with the lower seven stories housing a cinema, grocery store, retail, hotel amenity space and an archive for regional 20th century art, architecture and design, while the upper stories would be renovated into a boutique hotel and affordable apartments marketed toward young professionals. The exterior and key interior spaces would be restored and reused as restaurants, cafés, hotel functions, etc. A handful of guest rooms could be restored as special suites for those who wanted to see what were called the "most modern hotel rooms in the world" in 1948 when the building opened to nationwide acclaim.

To remediate the problem of the seven stories of brick facades, I proposed restoring the two stories of glass at the corner of Vine and Sixth Street where the cinema entrance would be. I also proposed restoring the street level hotel lobby and retail spaces along Sixth Street with its elegant canopy. Because I believe it is critical to preserve the brick walls since they were an integral part of the original design, I found interior uses which did not need windows, but to help reinvigorate the building's urban presence and ameliorate the publics' perceived disdain for the brick walls, I proposed projecting images, art work and film onto the walls at night. This would help reinforce the public art and contemporary design happening along Sixth Street and draw on the energy of the adjacent Fountain Square.

For this proposal, I used JIm Davis's 1956 film "Let There Be Light." Davis had been commissioned to design a plexiglass light sculpture for the Terrace Garden at the eighth floor of the Terrace Plaza. This was one of his last sculptural works before he switched to the medium of film and became known as one of the most important experimental filmmakers of the mid-20th century.

Ultimately, the goal of my thesis was to remarket the Terrace Plaza to a new generation and try to bring back some of the excitement and energy that this extremely important building had in the late 1940s. It deserves recognition and needs to be preserved and reused in a sensitive way which will allow it to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

for more information on the history of the building, images and my thesis, please visit:
http://terraceplazacincinnati.blogspot.com/

Please email me if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks,
Shawn Patrick Tubb
shawnpatrick.tubb@gmail.com

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Terrace Plaza Hotel
• Cincinnati
• SOM
• Natalie de Blois
• Joan Miro
• Alexander Calder
• Saul Steinberg
• Jim Davis
• Modernism
• architecture
• historic preservation
• adaptive use
• Fountain Square

[woxyfancincy]

It's a shame what previous owners have done to the building. What I find really interesting is that if you were to restore that building back to the way it was when completed in 1948, complete with reproductions of the original furnishings, it would still be very much in style. Great design is timeless. We are blessed to have such an important building here in our city. We need to restore as much of it as possible. Thanks Shawn for raising awareness, and thanks Natalie for a great design.