I remember when this idea was printed in the LSJ. If you take a look at it the "mall" behind the Capitol it resembles this plan except for the obelisk! Thank goodness they did not take down the Capitol Building to build this. The movement to the modern away from the old was understandable in some ways. People had just "had it" with old cold leaky buildings with bad plumbing and wiring from the last century, and saw little value in spending a lot of money to rehabilitate the old structures. I believe the "hippy-back to earth" type movements of the late '60s and '70s that found beauty and value in old houses and buildings is when the "knock it down and build something new" attitude started to change. Just in time for our old Capitol! Now it looks better than ever!
Very interesting link! It looks like - and if you look closely you can see it in the tweet - Scheme C would have saved the Capitol Building, but for what it's not made apparent. This actually wouldn't have been bad now that I look at it; it's basically an alternative to the existing Capitol Complex, and it would have been better than the mess of surface parking we got, instead.
I kinda like the designs, as long as the Capitol building is kept. Scheme C, with the obelisk and senate and house office buildings within the complex is nice. There is also some nice and unique designs, even though they are so brutalist. One of these designs reminded me of the capital of Brazil, https://www.phaidon.com/resource/brasilia-congresso-nacional-05-2007-221.jpg
It would be nice to have the branches of government within the same complex whereas right now they are in office buildings across the street from the Capitol. I do like how the Hall of Justice frames the end of the complex, but I wish we could have skipped all of the surface parking and built more underground parking as these designs had envisioned. Thanks for the link Sabatoa!
Most of the major executive offices are in the Capitol Complex. And not every state has a capitol complex, so the offices are all around the downtown area and beyond. Only thing around the Capitol Square is the Governor's office and the legislature's offices.
BTW, Scheme A kind of reminds me of Kentucky's old executive complex. Capital Plaza Office Tower was 28 stories and 338 feet, the tallest buildings by far in the tiny capital of Frankfort. It was demolished in 2018 after only 46 years in existence for a 5-story, lowrise complex. What a waste.
Wow, that Kentucky building had some good design features, I think they could have rehabilitated that one. Lansing City Hall is a much better example of Mid-Century design, it would be a shame to lose it and have replaced it with something like the above.
Back in the day here in Lansing, it became a popular idea in the legislature that there was too much investment in downtown Lansing which was kind of an anti-Lansing bias that developed. The big plans were cut and cut until we found ourselves with about half of what was going to be developed with that was the cleared land destined to become surface parking lots. it is true that many of the buildings and departments that were built in the Secondary Complex may not have been a good fit for downtown but I think they could have found appropriate locations in the City of Lansing to build the secondary buildings. We are the Capital City and today I think it is so great that the Capitol Complexe looks pretty good and there are funds to take care of the buildings. I wonder if there will come a day when the State will want to build on those parking lots that we are so famous for?
Looking at the old versus new complex for Kentucky is depressing, the older one was actually interesting, the replacement looks as generic as you could get. This is the kind of building I suspect would be built if City Hall were replaced and part of why I'm totally against the city selling the building.
Wow the Forever Park in that linked document is awesome, really a game changer. Combine that with reduced automobile lanes and more multimodal lanes around the complex and we really could have a forward-thinking downtown. It's sad that these ideas were proposed so long ago and nothing was ever done with them.
We have a friendly governor this cycle; I'm not sure why this isn't on anyone's radar. The state properties are managed by the Department of Technology, Management & Budget, and specifically the State Facilities Administration offices, I believe. Perhaps now would be a good time to write them to figure out if this is something that could be resurrected.
To be fair that document shows the large parking lots being transformed into a park in the "2020 and beyond" phase so it's not entirely clear that the state isn't still pursuing something like this. I sort of wonder if the site plan in the second link may be later than the study done by the city, that one says that it was commissioned by the DTMB themselves so it could be them pursuing the recommendations from the city's study. I'm optimistic that all or a large chunk of those lots will become a park, I'm not sure about the timeline though.
Comments
Very interesting link! It looks like - and if you look closely you can see it in the tweet - Scheme C would have saved the Capitol Building, but for what it's not made apparent. This actually wouldn't have been bad now that I look at it; it's basically an alternative to the existing Capitol Complex, and it would have been better than the mess of surface parking we got, instead.
It would be nice to have the branches of government within the same complex whereas right now they are in office buildings across the street from the Capitol. I do like how the Hall of Justice frames the end of the complex, but I wish we could have skipped all of the surface parking and built more underground parking as these designs had envisioned. Thanks for the link Sabatoa!
BTW, Scheme A kind of reminds me of Kentucky's old executive complex. Capital Plaza Office Tower was 28 stories and 338 feet, the tallest buildings by far in the tiny capital of Frankfort. It was demolished in 2018 after only 46 years in existence for a 5-story, lowrise complex. What a waste.
It was replaced by this suburbanish trash:
Back in the day here in Lansing, it became a popular idea in the legislature that there was too much investment in downtown Lansing which was kind of an anti-Lansing bias that developed. The big plans were cut and cut until we found ourselves with about half of what was going to be developed with that was the cleared land destined to become surface parking lots. it is true that many of the buildings and departments that were built in the Secondary Complex may not have been a good fit for downtown but I think they could have found appropriate locations in the City of Lansing to build the secondary buildings. We are the Capital City and today I think it is so great that the Capitol Complexe looks pretty good and there are funds to take care of the buildings. I wonder if there will come a day when the State will want to build on those parking lots that we are so famous for?
There's an option that leaves most of the parking and one that get rid of all of it. I also found this: http://nfe-engr.com/projects/state-of-michigan-capitol-complex-master-plan-0 I'm not sure if that's related to the newer study or something earlier.
Looking at the old versus new complex for Kentucky is depressing, the older one was actually interesting, the replacement looks as generic as you could get. This is the kind of building I suspect would be built if City Hall were replaced and part of why I'm totally against the city selling the building.
dtmb@michigan.gov
https://www.michigan.gov/dtmb/0,5552,7-358-82551---,00.html
The city on its end has done all it can do.