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PHOENIX REBORN

New architecture and design are transforming the lives of the desert dwellers of the American Southwest.

Text: AMANDA ROSS

1 | 2 | 3 | MAY '04

"We’ve got parking meters older than Phoenix!" That was supposedly the Philadelphia mayor’s response when hearing that the population of the Arizona city would soon overtake his own. Or so our driver from the airport, Charlie, told us as we cruised into the United States’ new fifth largest metropolis. I see where the sour grapes come from. Isn’t Phoenix your grandparents’ golf destination – a vacuous strip mall-dotted geriatric paradise for the blue-haired in plaid pants? Well, yes. But lately, Phoenix is also generating heat for some bold modern architecture, ingeniously engineered for desert living. Add to this a developing new southwestern style and a burgeoning urban sophistication, and suddenly, Phoenix’s wrinkled old skin is getting a facelift.

My husband and I get history at a glance when we pull up in our rental convertible to the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, the swanky Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired landmark resort hotel circa 1929. A self-proclaimed father of modern architecture, Wright saw the Phoenix desert as a blank canvas for his creativity. He even opened an architectural school, Taliesin West, in 1937 in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains near Scottsdale. Considering that Phoenix was largely uninhabitable year-round until the advent of air-conditioning in the mid-1940s, this desert camp where Wright wintered with his students seems even more unconventional. Nearly 75 years later, it’s still a fervent breeding ground for the organic modernist design talent that infiltrates the Phoenix building scene.

Wright’s Biltmore is unlike any über-resort I’ve ever seen. This grande dame of a hotel is made up of 250,000 custom-moulded concrete blocks stacked four stories high. Wright’s signature low-slung style always took the landscape into consideration, and the Biltmore is no exception: I’m in awe of its breathtaking mountain backdrop.

Locals will tell you that former mayor Terry Goddard’s drive to invest in significant civic architecture resulted in a cutting-edge library, science centre, art museum and courthouse. Ron McCoy, director of the school of architecture at Arizona State University, says, "Before you knew it, we were getting groups of architects coming from all over the world." He also warns me that "the contemporary scene here can be, depending on the itinerary of the visitor, totally hidden or something you see everywhere." Fortunately, the city’s architectural calling cards are all obvious landmarks of Phoenix’s relatively modest downtown.

Our first stop is the Burton Barr Central Library since The New York Times recently tapped its architect, Phoenix local Will Bruder, as the next big thing. A quick stroll through makes me a ready convert too. The library mirrors the desert’s stunning simplicity and intense plays of light. "It’s not only about function, but poetry too," Bruder later explained to me. The design is a curving copper "mesa" split by a stainless steel "canyon," and the shades on the north windows were crafted by sail makers in Maine to allow sunlight and views of the city, while cleverly deflecting heat and glare.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many is a stunning picture repository worth? The Phoenix Art Museum, revamped by New York’s modernist darlings Todd Williams and Billie Tsien, features only a fair-to-middling quality permanent art collection. The American cowboy art and 19th-century portraiture simply pale next to the lyrical light-green crushed granite building. The minimalist concrete interior abounds with clever little wall and window openings in unusual locations and configurations. I happen onto a hidden stairwell and pause at the landing where a long, knee-high horizontal window reveals an unconventional view of the outdoors, while shedding abundant sunlight inside. To my eye, the Eames-inspired moulded plywood and grey leather viewing benches are the real masterpieces of each gallery.

We feel obligated to check out the Arizona Science Center, though to be honest, all science centres generally look the same to me – all wacky angles in the guise of being futuristic. But this one looms large, with its Star Trek look. Designed by New Mexico-based architect Antoine Predock, this abstract sculpture/monolith feels completely in sync with the harsh desert landscape – like a natural rock outcropping. I’m not surprised to learn that Predock, in the tradition of Wright, took the environment into consideration and sunk the planetarium, theatre and galleries into the earth to create thermal stability and a retreat from the desert heat.

Celebrity scandals excepted, I wouldn’t typically count a courthouse as one of my usual travel destinations. However, the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse is a must-see. Designed by architectural superstar Richard Meier, the building’s cavernous 30-metre-high glass atrium uses an innovative desert-tailored misting system for cooling. (Confidentially, some local design cognoscenti gossip that this multimillion-dollar system doesn’t work so well.) Unless Phoenix commissions, say, Frank Gehry to design a prison, this glass box will be the most beautiful surroundings many of its occupants will ever see.

1 | 2 | 3 | MAY '04