Norfolk: Gaudi V. Guns 'n Buns

Sant Boi Courthouse in Barcelona

The other day I stumbled upon Norfolk's latest pinnacle of pulchritude.

 
The new courts complex.  

It took me a few minutes to realize that the skeletal blockhouse of beams less than a block from me was the $123 million edifice of justice.

How could I miss it? 

I’ll tell you why. 
 
It’s bland, dull and utterly lifeless.

It has no style and no charisma.

The outside is the color of dirty sand. It’s a box with a turret.

It’s a Medieval fortress, minus a moat and a drawbridge.

Quasimodo swings from the steel girders, laughing at us peons on the street.

A hotel?

It might as well have the personality of a prison. Even some prisons have more personality and style than this structure.

The building blends with the rest of the buildings at City Hall – bland, lifeless and boring.

It doesn’t stand out.

It doesn’t say anything.

In fact, it says nothing, represents nothing, evokes nothing.

It’s just another building.

At least make the exterior distinct and eye-catching. It doesn’t. It’s too much like the rest of the other buildings, which are the color of dirty sand, tarnished and deteriorating, like something else in Norfolk.

It falls flat on its edifice.

Judges should judge and leave the art and aesthetics to someone else.

Here was a chance to create something evocative, something that people who fly into Norfolk point to and say “that is really cool, awesome and impressive.”

Nope. Not a chance.

The city could paint an Aztec sun on the roof of Scope. (Not an original idea.)

Anything to give this town character, charisma and style.

But I suppose that’s what you get in Norfolk. We’re more interested in guns, buns and back fin than in anything else.

This city isn’t hot.

And this city isn’t cool.

It’s tepid, like warm bathwater in which several people have washed.

Charisma is one of the four attributes of great American cities, according to an article  written by H.V. Savitch, PhD, Brown and Williamson Distinguished Research Professor at the School of Urban & Public Affairs at the University of Louisville.

 In his article entitled, "What makes cities great? An American perspective," Savitch wrote that great American cities epitomize one of the 4 Cs.

The inspiration of Gaudi

 Currency

Cosmopolitanism

Concentration

Charisma

As applied here, the idea of currency has a double meaning, Savitch wrote.

On the one hand, currency connotes the value of something and its ability to carry weight in crucial circumstances. On the other hand, currency indicates a city is up to the temper (zeitgeist) of the times. Currency conveys that a city shapes the world by the value and forwardness of its actions…

Cosmopolitanism entails an ability to embrace international, multicultural or polyethnic features…

Concentration is a long-standing feature of cities. As used here, concentration embraces the dual ideas of demographic density and productive mass. The controversy over whether great cities can also be sprawled cities makes this attribute all the more important. Accordingly, we put these claims to a modest test by examining development patterns in Los Angeles…

Charisma is an elusive concept because so much of it is based on perception and is commonly evaluated by examining mass attitudes…

To be effective, charisma must be authentic and genuinely reside in the history of a city. Beyond the mere sign of a city's logo is a substantive history which is replete with meaning… 

Which C does Norfolk represent?