TCLF calls for preservation of Polk Park following vote for its demolition

Earlier this month the Charlotte Metropolis Council voted to demolish Polk Park, an city respite in Charlotte, North Carolina, designed by Angela Danadjieva in 1991. The Cultural Panorama Basis (TCLF) has added the park to its Landslide checklist, a set of threatened landscapes.

Thomas Polk Park is located inside Independence Sq. in uptown Charlotte. The positioning has a protracted historical past: Independence Sq. is called for the Mecklenburg Resolves, a set of resolutions produced right here in 1775 that set the groundwork for the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Polk Park will get its title from Thomas Polk, who lived at that location. It additionally marks the intersection of an indigenous peoples’ crossroads and two historic commerce routes.

Danadjieva & Koenig Associates, the agency run by Danadjieva and her husband Thomas Koenig, was commissioned in October 1986 to design Polk Park. Danadjieva grew up in Bulgaria; she holds a level in structure and labored for a time as a film set designer. Previous to establishing Danadjieva & Koenig Associates, she labored for Lawrence Halprin at Lawrence Halprin & Associates for practically a decade on tasks just like the Ira Keller Fountain Park in Portland, Oregon, and Freeway Park in Seattle. The James River Park System in Richmond, Virginia, and White River State Park in Indianapolis are highlights from the work of Danadjieva & Koenig Associates.

Polk Park, about 15,000 sq. ft in space, consists of 30-foot-tall artifical waterfall and a reflecting pool. Water pours down the cliff- and rock-like building comprised of Piedmont pink granite. The reddish, brown shade of the waterfall construction and the plantings and greenery interspersed all through the positioning camouflage with the close by tree-lined streetscape and brick pavers.

In its current state the park is a far cry from the place of reprieve it was initially designed to be. Its water options now not function, and it suffers from poor lighting, rodents, and an absence of gathering locations. As detailed by TCLF in a press launch, these points are all “because of poor or diminished upkeep and poor programming by the town.”

On the latest Metropolis Council assembly, at which the council members voted for the park’s demolition, the park’s lack of upkeep and subsequent want for demolition was echoed by Mayor Professional Tem Braxton Winston.

“The Council’s rationale is unnecessary. It’s the equal of ravenous a affected person of wanted medical care, after which blaming the affected person for getting sicker,” mentioned TCLF’s President and CEO Charles A. Birnbaum in a press release. “To make issues worse, the town, whose administration negligence resulted within the park’s present situation, could be answerable for sustaining the brand new park.”

Along with being razed, the vote additionally licensed the alternative of Polk Park with a brand new one that will be named after Financial institution of America govt Hugh McColl. (Financial institution of America is headquartered within the metropolis, and its primary places of work are simply across the nook from Polk Park.)

TCLF has additionally known as for Polk Park to be listed on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations.

TCLF added the park to its Landslide checklist of at-risk landscapes throughout the nation in 2020, when it centered on landscapes designed by or related to girls. Final yr, the itemizing was organized to coincide with the 2 hundredth anniversary of Frederick Legislation Olmsted, Sr.’s delivery, so the group highlighted imperiled websites designed by the panorama architect and his successors.