The Bewildering Architecture of Indoor Cities
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Interior Urbanism describes interior spaces so large that they behave like cities. These kinds of constructions can develop either as an adoc growth over time, or as a planned and cohesively designed set of volumes. Each has its own opportunities and problems when it comes to efficiency and architectural integrity. This video explores both and uses Chicago’s Pedway and John Portman’s Hyatt Regency near O’Hare airport as examples. Stewart Hicks visits these examples, discusses the implications of bringing our urbanism indoors, and compares and contrasts the spatial qualities of each approach - the contingent and gritty urbanism of the Pedway, with the pristine perfection of the hotel lobby and conference center.
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Architecture with Stewart is a TH-cam journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
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Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
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The first time I went to Montreal it was -25C before wind chill and snowing. I was wandering the streets downtown and freezing my ass off. I would see (in any direction) maybe one person every 3 city blocks or so. It was very eerie. Eventually I was too damned cold and ducked into a building. A woman passed me wearing summer-wear, short shorts and a light loose shirt. And then some more people - all dressed like it was hot outside. And then I found the interior urbanism that connected the city, that's why nobody was above ground except hypothermic tourists like me. I spent the rest of the day just wandering around the vast labyrinth, fascinated by the underground world of it all.
It is one of the best things about the Montreal underground city, that you can arrive at the train station, then walk all under the down town core with out having to brave the cold winter streets. Of course getting lost can be a problem.
I lived in Montréal for 3.5 years not long ago and I miss it already 😭
@@Sikosm McGill?
@@lazaruslong92 yeah for work 🙂
Minneapolis/St.Paul has a very similar system, but we use skywalks instead.
You can get from one end of the city to the other all indoors with a view of the street level!
I was working in downtown Chicago at the Hyatt regency (center of the pedway) doing some renovations to it during the height of covid and I got lost in the building and eventually I realized I wasn't even in the hyatt anymore so then my goal just became "find the surface streets" which then turned into "find another human" since everything was shut down from covid.
I eventually found a random Dunkin donuts in the basement of another hotel that was OPEN. not a soul in the entire pedway aside from me and this dude selling donuts.
How long where you trapped there wondering around to find a way out?
lol this would for sure have me thinking the rapture happened 😩
Lol it's like the backrooms
@@schmecklin377 Was thinking the same thing heh. It sounds so surreal, as if in a dream.
this went post apocalyptic real quick. I love it
I remember being so impressed with Montreal’s indoor city design - due to the harsh winters it had developed so that between connected buildings, shopping corridors, large indoor plazas with multi-story headspace, walkways huge and small, so that you can walk for blocks indoors in the downtown area. It does have kind of a mix and match, maze-like feeling, but the lack of uniform look helps with finding your way around.
It's in a pretty sad state now. At least half the commercial spaces are empty, and same with foodcourts. Covid measures really wiped out a lot.
@@andychow5509 tbf it was already in decline before covid.
For decades now most of the malls have just become worse. They got rid of a lot of open design areas or communal zones like in Faubourg, Cathedral, 2020, LaCite, etc.. and countless other non-downtown malls.
30 years ago almost every 2nd mall had a movie theater, arcade, and a large food court with a fountain, sometimes with a play area for small kids. All of that has been gutted over time and all that is left are small uninviting fast food courts.
I remember loving the mall as a kid but now when I take my kids they hate it. There is little reason to go downtown anymore.
@@martianproductions997 Faubourg near Concordia has been a complete failure for at least the past 20 years. The two subterranean levels have been locked (except for the bowling area, but that used to be connected to a whole underground mall), the rez-de-chausse is completely empty and has been for a decade, the fountains are off or destroyed, and as you said a handful of food courts on the second level that don't look fresh. I never understood that building. Never.
But now it's everywhere like that. I read this morning that "The Main" closed on St-Laurent.
There's really no reason at all to go downtown. The decline might have started before, but covid measures, and now inflation. I really don't see it coming back this decade.
as a guy from a small town in France who hasn't ever been inside a building larger than a shopping mall and never stepped into a skyscraper once in my life the concept of interior urbanism is absolutely surreal for me, look straight out of a sci-fi movie
tbh I would love experiencing living in a place like that at least once in my life
Im from a tiny American town and other than malls the closest i have come to interior urbanism was my college connecting its 4 main academic buildings together with skybriges because northern NY gets real winter and it is both way more comfortable and saves energy by not having the doors constantly held open as people come and go. (Which would drive up heating and cooling costs)
And since starting my job as an engineer and moving to a city i must say that i intensely dislike being in tall buildings. (Actually size/area doesn't matter but getting over 5 stories starts to bother me)
Why does he have to be from France? Imagine he was from Afghanistan and only ever slept on a dirt floor and had no indoor plumbing or clean water.
@@docdildonica7515 because he's talking from personal experience..?
It’s nightmarish!
Nothing but people and spoiled pets.
No wildlife. Sterile. Cold. Unnatural.
@@docdildonica7515 ???
The design of indoor cities is particularly interesting because space colonies will presumably be indoors. Future space colony architects will probably use similar techniques.
From my (limited, personal) experience with large indoor spaces, I fear for the colonists. I wonder how expensive it will be to replicate the feeling of being in the living outdoors. I wonder if any communities in space will be willing to pay that cost. I'm sure we will see anxiety, depression, suicide in these colonies - like living in Greenland. However, it also makes me wonder what amazing new architectural ideas we will see to combat that.
@@MSpacer wrong. look at elysium movie for example.
@@MSpacer the communities would most likely not be made if they didn't pay for the cost. I doubt it would take less than tens of thousands of years of modernity to replicate the feeling of being on Earth by creating an entire planet in space artificially, or terraforming many planets that are unlivable.
@@MSpacer I agree it will be challenging but I also believe space colonization is inevitable. I think architects can rise to the challenge.
We don't care about the aesthetics in the ISS, I'm not sure why you think we'd care about it on a colony.
The most city like structure I've ever experienced was a cruise ship. Those are so absolutely massive, yet quite easy to navigate through after just a couple of days
Especially some of the newer ships like Oasis of the Seas. It literally has a massive outdoor area right in the middle.
Disneyland
Wait a minute, the lines are terrible at Disneyland. Maybe EPCOTT (The concept city) not the theme park.
The people mover needs to be in malls and other areas. People are too slow.
So true
we should abolish the cruise industry and dock the ships at major cities to provide housing!
I know I am among a very small amount of people with this opinion, but I have always found Chicago's Pedway to be exciting, new, and mysterious. It kind of feels like I'm a kid playing hide-and-seek in a big stranger's house. Other than the lack of directions (maybe adopt the street names from above ground) I think they've really got something going there. Thank you for the great videos.
I love the Pedway... the idea of being able to come out of the subway (or the L I guess) and be surrounded by people and shops and can walk several blocks and come up to the surface is amazing!
I loved the look of it, to the point I would really like to visit Chicago just for that. The idea of walkable cities and areas really appeals to me, and that looks like my wildest fantasies lol
I've lived in a few countries with such infrastructure. It just takes some time to get used to. After a while you get the spacial awareness to navigate these spaces (like in scifi shows showing spacers having improved 3D awareness). I don't share many of the negative feelings shared by the video creator. Its comfortable, convenient and safe. I think a big part of that is having higher ceilings. The ones in the video do look a bit low.
Did they shoot the dark knight batpod scene in there? It looks so familiar.
This TH-camr is cleary biased towards certain experiences and perceptions... favoring grand statements over proliferations of variety. I personally like to be surprised, and love to explore unusual and unexpected places like the pedway.
Kowloon Walled City, which while no longer exists, I think is the greatest example of a contingent and 'natural' growth of a building complex, with more buildings and floors being added to the limited space as needed, fitting into the gaps and spaces that already exist. While it has been torn down, the pictures that exist of it are fascinating to look at, a true jungle of instinctive architecture, built only for function, not for aesthetics.
Taking in the historical context, I’d look at the medieval monastery with it’s cloisters connecting the chapel, dining hall and dormitories. Taking it back a bit further, the castle bailey encloses the core buildings needed for survival, but doesn’t usually go as far as protecting the inhabitants with a roof.
Good examples.
Taking in the historical perspective, we're going extinct
@@GlennDavey every species does eventually
@@DeosPraetorian this decade
@@GlennDavey doubt
A good example would be airports, where you sometimes take a 5 minute train ride to get from one end to another. Or, if you're laid over and have energy to spare, you can walk for an hour or two without ever retracing your steps. And they're big mostly just because they need to be to facilitate enough loading/unloading areas and the support infrastructure necessary to staff them.
People say the Denver airport has a massive underground city
Atlanta. That place is huge. I deliberately chose a connection that allowed me hours to explore the place.
@@lytmos it does
yes!! like signapore airport
Pz x z z
I don't think anywhere can top the interior architecture of Tokyo. There are fully interconnected and overlapping above-ground train and subway networks, and most of the stations support some interior architecture. The train stations are more liminal, with some station exits dropping the user at street level; but many stations merge directly with department stores, offices, and shopping promenades. And of course, since the surface trains and subways are themselves linked, many connection hubs have verticality from skyscraping station buildings down to subterranean mazes.
In your video, you seem to discuss the train linkage on the Chicago Pedway as an appendage. In Tokyo, the transit systems integrate each individual interior space into an organically linked and unimaginably massive whole. The combined surface/subway complex of Shinjuku Station alone handles upwards of 3.5 million users a day, many of whom enter or exit through other adjacent interior spaces.
And the scale gets even larger if you imagine the transit system as it links one conurbation to another. You can exit your hotel room at a major Tokyo hotel, go through the lavish interior to the subterranean promenade, walk past shops and workspaces to the subterranean train station entrance, take a subway to one of several inter-city transit hub stations, enter the bullet train network to any of the other major cities, reverse the process several hundred miles away and get to your next high-rise hotel room -- all without ever leaving air conditioning.
i have a feeling ``the wall`` project in the desert is gona blow that out of the water...literally hahaha
This also describes Singapore
I was thinking this same thing. When I was in Tokyo for a month in highschool, I got lost for a couple hours without ever going outside, the train stations connection the smaller cities within the larger one had their own malls and even connected to some apartments! Theoretically, you could get to just about anything you need without ever going outside. If you planned it out, you could live your entire life from home to school or work and back all indoors... I kind of loved it and wish I could go back to explore as an adult
The PATH in Toronto is probably one of the largest and most successful indoor pathways that has been organically developed in Toronto. It includes both large spaces designed and built vertically ( A massive mall) as well as atriums (Atrium on Bay). Connection to a university, hotels, parking lots, banks but most importantly connection to a bus / train and 4 subway stations and hundreds of office towers and dozens of residential buildings.
having lived in toronto for over a decade now, frankly i find the PATH to still be one of the most disappointing aspects of the city relative to its potential. for a city as cold as toronto i think a far more extensive underground network is called for, while PATH primarily serves the CBD, lying largely outside of, though close to, centres of "entertainment" (save of course Yonge-Dundas and Eaton Centre -- but as i am saying, really is lacking in terms of connectivity where one would expect the obverse,, i.e. for it to provide easy access to and from this central node up Yonge, farther west on Queen and King out to the Entertainment District, etc.) and of some of the highest population density in the city (the CBD being by far the least populated area downtown, as is not uncommonly the case, seeing as they are often districts intended strictly for business, to the intentional exclusion of potential residential populations). i think an instructive example in this regard is that it was only very recently that i finally found, through some research, how to pass from Eaton Centre to City Hall using PATH, after thinking for a decade that it simply was not possible
You forgot to mention that it is 30 km (19 mi) in total length and began in 1900. Whatever you do, if you plan on visiting it, don't visit it on weekends, when virtually ever shop there is closed. The majority of people who work in downtown Toronto live far outside the city center and have zero interest in visiting their work location on weekends - hence the reason it's a ghost town on weekends.
Montreal has always been internationally well known for the amazing and world largest underground city , connected to all services, subways , trains, hospitals , universitie, parks, shopping malls , hotels , Stadiums ..... Toronto has no creativity copying other cities and projects .. As usual , Toronto thinks they are unique but they just copy the best citiies like Montreal
Past years when I visited, in heat of summer, it was a pleasant place to go thru, could still sit and have a soda-pop or coffee in a few places. No matter many shops being closed. Sad it sound deteriorated. Well, I saw a video that Cumberland underground in Yorkville is mostly closed up. At least I guess these are not the like the sewers of some NYC spaces.@@SnoopyDoofie
This is how I felt when I spent time in Osaka, Japan. Their underground subway stations are pretty tunnels of shops and restaurants. I remember walking from one train station to another without ever having to leave the underground.
happend to me in tokyo. There are even 7 stories underground buildings. where as in my country, switzerland, we do not have this. there is just a big trainstation in zürich which might goes into that direction.
I was also going to mention Osaka specifically! I was there for an exchange program through my college and was really mystified by the underground sections, entire shopping and restaurant districts just directly underneath the streets. It was especially interesting since I had lived further north in Misawa for years and never saw that level of urban development.
Similar thing is in Warsaw, but at smaller scale. However you can go from WKD Station through Warsaw Central Station to Forum Hotel totally underground
Lol! I was going to mention Osaka, Japan. I lived there for 3 years. The big one goes on for miles and stretches all around Umeda. You could plan an entire date underground on a super rainy day and never go outdoors!
Osaka is nothing compared to Sapporo. Sapporo is king of the underground shopping arcades all connected to each other. Japan has some harsh weather and almost every moderately to large town has a shōtengai, or shopping street/arcade has a roof that keep away the elements. So it just natural that this type of architecture really took off in Japan. I love Kyoto station it is the best example of this indoor terraced structure of stores, restaurants, hotels, and train platforms.
Hong Kong is interiorized urbanism on steroids. Frampton/Wong/Solomon's Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook provides a fascinating mapping just how vast these uncoordinated growths have become over the decades.
Yeah, the giant and smaller malls, with several dense floors of businesses works really well!! And since it's so busy and the buildings are both v big and close together and really warm, it makes so much sense to have passageways between the buildings!
Kowloon was a pretty wild example
ohh I'll definitely check the book out - thanks for the recommendation!
Kowloon Walled City comes to mind for some reason, I wanted to visit that place since I was a little kid in the 70s. I'm so happy Hong Kong still exists, I want to go!
@@0therun1t21 But Kowloon walled city itself was demolished in 1994, the park that replaced it is simply generic.
I love that you included the Hyatt Regency - I've only ever been there when it's hosting conventions of like-minded people hanging out together over a common interest. It's an already incredibly unique space that feels like it's being used to it's fullest when these several 1000 people co-habitate for a weekend together. The space takes on more of the feel of an interstellar luxury cruiseliner than a cold and foreboding hotel.
I participated in an all-state choir once. We all stayed at a hotel with a huge atrium, we also rehearsed in the hotel, and for our final performance we spread to multiple balconies in the atrium and sang for the whole hotel! It was amazing
This is a very cool take on the subject, how the activities of the people in the space can dramatically affect the experience of the space. Obvious in retrospect, but he didn't mention it in the video.
I went to Minneapolis this summer to explore downtown for the first time. I spent a whole day just discovering it via the skyway & sidewalks. I've been there many times for events, valley fair, MOA, etc, but had never really spent much time downtown. It was amazing to me being from small town ND. I can't imagine how comfy it must be in winter.
Uh ok cool share
@@docdildonica7515 Shut up dude lol
I had a girlfriend whose high school was in a building connected to the Minneapolis skyway system, which was super cool to me. I think there was literally a Target on the floor below that she would sometimes walk to for lunch. Kinda surreal but definitely had a weirdly cozy vibe.
@@CYB3RC0RP I had no idea there was a school connected to the skyway! Indeed, there is a Target downtown and I believe it is their flagship store!
The student union at the university I went to would definitely fit into interior urbanism. It had restaurants, two concert halls, a bunch of conference rooms with flexible sizes, a gift shop, a bookshop/school supplies store, and soooo much space for people to study, eat, or just lounge around. I once even took a nap there lol. Some days I was there from early morning until well past midnight.
Uiuc?
@@Nootnoot433 no, NCSU.
@@8happyperson I read your comment and immediately thought "Oh, Talley!"
Indiana University ( the IMU?) I feel like every college campus has somthing like this because I also went to IUPUI and they had somthing similar.
Student unions usually do more harm than good, because they only represent those who are interested to vote. The others who want things to not change but are too lazy to vote are now ignored
I dig the "natural grown" Indoor Cities, less sterile and seems more fun to explore. They tell a story, you did it yourself with these construction pillars and how it all winds around existing infrastructure. I also imagine it would be easier to navigate, not harder, since different areas are more distinct.
Yeah. The part showing the Hyatt Regency made me think of one of those horror video games, or nightmares, where you're stuck in a series of bland corridors and wherever you go, everything looks the same so you couldn't even tell if you'd already been somewhere.
Meanwhile in one of the Facebook shots the walkway has to have a little map to remind you which of the sections you're in
@@ReddwarfIV It looks like some Minecraft abomination
sometimes though you run into a park thats not doing too well. Where the walls are gross and all the businesses are closed. It's like you ran into a mini bad neighborhood lol
@@Hemostat I count that as a plus :D
Brings opportunities for interesting smaller businesses that can't pay rent in the fancy areas. The more run down places are the posh areas of tomorrow, because it's were the party and art people go.
I live in South Korea and they definitely have a lot of places like the pedway. The subway system in some places will inflate to be an entire underground city. They refer to them as underground malls. I'm someone who grew up in a town with non of that so it's a new and exciting thing to experience now. But sometimes you go a whole day without stepping outside and that can really mess with your head.
The first city that came to mind regarding interior urbanism was Montreal - and my it suffered from the negatives of interior urbanism but considering the temperatures - having students consumers and employers able to avoid the harsh conditions and access the subway or Amtrak from the warm underground is also a massive kindness offered to those same people.
A great international example can be found in Singapore. No city is more dedicated to its malls than Sings. Like Minneapolis, much of this interiority is dictated by the weather. Singapore is 80 degrees and 80% humidity pretty much 365 days a year so interior space is important. They are very intentional about making it completely accessible to the public but there are signifiers of which public these spaces are actually looking to court. Would a Bengali construction worker really feel comfortable or inconspicuous in one of the super high end malls in the Orchard area? Moreover, the sheer consumerism of these spaces is also troubling. There's also little coordination between malls, so you still have to pop out onto the streets to reach another destination. Nonetheless, the mall culture is fascinating. There were times where I would get drinks in one mall, go to dinner in another and then go to a club in a third mall.
The vertical interior elitism that you allude to with Portman's architecture reminds me of Dubai, which is in many ways the mirror opposite of Singapore. It also expanded in a very short time period and also exists in nearly year-round oppressive heat, but its approach to the public is quite different. Buildings there are super reflective, highly secured and each one is its own fortress of elitism. They are meant to be accessible only to those who are truly meant to use the interior space and no one else. Many of the buildings are meant to store everything one could need in one place so that the city feels relatively inconsequential to the building's value.
To me, the most important foundation of good urbanism is public/private interface. The more a private space interacts with the street, the more dynamic both of those spaces will be, the more they will pick up on their best attributes and reflect those in each other. Think restaurants with their music and seating spilling out into the sidewalk, plants hanging outside of a florist on the scaffolding of a renovated building, that sort of thing. Or conversely, graffiti art adorning the walls of a cool cafe, or a bookstore allowing people to just sit and soak up the AC and atmosphere. This is where life and culture percolate. Delineating those differences between exterior/interior make a city static and divided.
Might you have examples of Singaporean/Dubai malls that you see having been designed with Interior Urbanism and climatic factors in mind? (For those less travelled like moi hehe)
@@nicholaskihara3539 Funan Mall (quite uncommon interior architecture) just recently got connected with Adelphi Mall and Capitol Mall via underground. These are 3 distinct mall connected separately, and built in different periods. The connection allows you to hop onto 2 Metro lines as well without peeking outside.
Similar implementations happen across many malls along Orchard Road too.
Interesting bit is that you can cycle _through_ the Funan Mall (at certain hours).
There's a place in Shanghai, off Line 10 on the subway, called "WuJiaoChang" and ... with my shitty Chinese... it translates to like 5 point plaza. Every "point" is actually a MASSIVE mall all connected by one outdoor plaza. It's so crowded in this plaza - everyone is crossing from one mall to another. One of the points is the subway station that connects people to this plaza. I forget if there's a fifth mall on top of the subway or if it's just the station. It's a pretty cool place!!
@@nicholaskihara3539 Orchard Road in Singapore is essentially a collective 20+ malls (I'm exaggerating I think, but it's a lot) that all connect underground, in part due to the metro. Honestly you could walk from one building to another without totally realizing it, except maybe a change in architecture. The Changi Jewel is another huge indoor space with lots of indoor greenery, restaurants, etc-- I swear you could live in that building.
Another thing that I find interesting about Singapore is how seamless the connection between indoor & outdoor. The government build covered walkway that connect people from their condo or HDB (Singapore’s public housing) to the MRT (underground train) station. The train station then connect to the amenities (malls, hospitals, office buildings, etc). It’s possible to go out of your home without umbrella in the middle of the rain & go to the mall & not get well at all because of how interconnected everything is. I also love how different the designs of the malls & the tunnels. It made it easier for way finding.
Nothing is spookier than giant building, with hundreds of seating arrangements and dozens of shops, that is almost empty. Such as malls or airports at the start of the pandemic when everyone sheltered in place.
Or a mall in a location that has experienced severe economic downturn.
You meant to say "nothing is COOLER than..."
The world was a paradise during the pandemic. Empty spaces everywhere. Vast, empty spaces with no sign of other people for miles. Good times.
I personally feel like I need to have a loaded automatic weapon... It just sets something off in me.
Abandoned amusement parks.
@@Balthorium I wish I could visit one!
Would also make for the greatest photos...
Taipei in Taiwan has a very interesting series of underground walkways - they allow you to escape rain and heat, and they run above the subway system. They have a fairly consistent appearance but different neighbourhoods have developed within them near the stations - here is the anime shop zone, next station down is the bookshop and stationery zone... and so on. While the spaces between some of the stations might be a bit empty during the week the practice of putting mirrors on one side means that on weekends groups of young people gather to practice their dance moves. The area above at ground level is also sometimes open as city park or market space.
As noted in another comment with a densely populated city their is little danger of either the above or below ground walkways being empty of people, and it can make it more pleasant and faster to get around as the ground level pavements are already quite busy. Having both the above and below ground walkways allows more people to walk.
A few unmentioned reasons on why the hotels you showed felt like liminal space. One is indoor air. Without very good air exchange indoor air becomes stuffy, and this sense is increased by the absence of natural light.
I've seen posited on books about soil that we've evolved to live with the micro-organisms in soil and that's why forest bathing works, and perhaps why most of us feel the need to get outside even if for just a very short period of time several times a day. So the internal city might do better if it contained public areas that were more like the Flower Dome in the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, or , comparatively more modestly the typical hot house or cactus house, or at the very least a lot more air exchange.
The other notable feature of the model hotel example was the way in which plants were used almost like a green trim. So there was a lot of pothos (Epipremnum aureum). A considerable improvement on no green space. But natural eco-systems are rarely composed of one species of plant so this ends up adding to the sense of liminal space, especially since the pothos was pruned to an unnatural shape, and pothos grows naturally with a wide mix of species.
From memory this was fairly typical of the time when their was a fashion for treating plants like 'green architecture' and a bias against flowering plants. Really bad for biodiversity and pollinators. But also a caution that architects should work with horticultural experts, not just those who can create a fashionable look. An example of a good mix of plants is seen in the project trialling greening in tandem with solar panels project on Daramu House, Sydney, Australia. This is on a lower rooftop overlooked by surrounding skyscrapers, but recommended as a contrast not only for species biodiversity but also for the way that more natural appearance of mixed plantings, including flowering plants, overcomes the sense of dead space that the control area of roof has, and the liminal space effect that the way the pothos was grown in the hotel had.
I've worked and lived in 2 Hotels in Australia with John Portman style interiors, I loved these spaces they were much lusher with a lot of greenery much like an atrium and had the glass lift and walkways...truly beautiful spaces
A couple of hotels in my city were designed by him too but a disadvantage is reduced noise insulation for the guest rooms from people talking at the hotel's reception, as the noise can propagate through the atrium
To me, most architects seem to strive for "clean", which to me usually translates to "sterile and inhuman". For comparison, I own a house that's very old and has grown over the centuries. The result is a house that, while technically only two stories tall, has around 5 different levels, with nooks and crannies and an overall sense of "untidiness" - but also a very strong sense of personality. You can tell where the big bathroom was once a pig sty, where the barn was converted into living space and a garage, you see some exterior walls that suddenly became inside walls at some point. That, to me, is a home. In contrast, the apartment I currently live in is new, cold, utilitarian. It's not a home. It's a house, a place that's indifferent.
The same holds true for larger structures, "indoor cities". There is one near me that's literally built to resemble a town - indoors, under a roof. It's pleasant, it meanders, it has a few stairs (and ramps) here and there, it just feels comfortable. Compare that to the mall just down the street which is a cold, unpleasant, unwelcoming place. Yes it has indoor plants and seating areas, but it's all completely uniform, boring and industrial. You go in, you get what you want, and you very much get out fast, because the building itself doesn't seem to WANT people with its brutalist, cold concrete everywhere.
That Facebook office for example looks like a nightmarish place to work in, let alone to be in. It represents the very american notion of "worker bees", stuck in a horrible space with no privacy, no personal touches. No wonder people don't want to be in the office, if the office looks like a nightmare from a dystopian future.
I worked at Facebook from 2015 to 2017, and yes, that building is hell. You think you can just slap some noise cancelling headphones on and ignore those around you, but it just doesn't work like that. The constant feeling of being watched (even if nobody is actually watching you) is exhausting. It starts off feeling luxurious (free food that is actually good, lots of space, a nice walking path on the roof, etc.), but once the newness wears off it really does feel like a beehive or ant hill.
@@ClarkCox That kind of design is an evolution of the panopticon, which was a prison concept to induce paranoia and make prisoners fall in line.
@@DestroyedArkana exactly
I feel this comment. No apartment will ever be as comfy as the house I grew up in, and when I stay at another person's house, I get a sense of calm from being there. There really is something special about a home with history.
As much as we all vibe with that romantic idea of a living space that is alive and has its own memories - it's a lifestyle that is inefficient when it comes to ressources and selfish in the wake of a global climate crisis. Can we build things that please our aesthetic needs? sure. Should we sacrifice our childrens future for our own comfort? I don't know, seems like we decided that's okay... I personally don't mind living in a sterile place, if the tradeoff are healthy woods outside the city instead of artificial but pleasant suburbs.
Surprised you didn't mention airports and you barely mentioned malls. My mind went straight to those. There's also that mall in Las Vegas with the fake sky ceiling, and, I think Toronto has quite a big "pedway" type thing doesn't it? I found your comments about the incoherence of the pedway vs the coherence of the Portman spaces interesting. You seemed to be saying that the incoherence of the pedway was a negative thing, but when we talk about cities and normal streets, I often hear people talk about the unplanned streets of Europe and how they are "interesting" and full of "variety" vs the "boring" and "faceless" big box stores of the post war era. Seems almost like a contradiction, or that somehow uniformity is desirable inside, but undesirable outside.
I also find the pedays much more interesting and human than the empty nearly liminal Portman spaces. I don't find them cozy or interesting at all. Just plain cold.
First thing I thought of was the atlanta airport
Yep, we have a pedway in Toronto called the Path and its very similar to the one in Chicago!
Thought the same. See my comment on Japan. Didn't expand on the old Osaka pedways, which were a maze of rat runs and underground alleys filled with shops and bars etc. Sometimes claustrophobic, yet the random chaos somehow had an appeal.
Also cruise ships.
Montreal and Minneapolis are great examples of this. Montreal's system is built around their Metro. Minneapolis (also St Paul and Duluth) are pedestrian based. Montreal is, so far as I am aware, the closest we've come to what Paulo Solari had in mind with Arcosanti.
I went to montréal a couple months ago and it felt like no one else was there- the streets were pretty much fully empty, with like only a dozen people possibly in view at once- turns out its because of the underground city/Desjardins. Very weird and surreal to be down there and see a ton of people for one of the first times.
In the 1960's, Montréal was considered the prototype of the city of the future.
Montréal's notorious winters (-29° last weekend) has wrought it's famous "underground city" whose Complexe Desjardins (1975) is a good example of huge inner archiecture, only surpassed by the more recent Jacques Parizeau building atop a subway corridor that can legitimately be called a work of art, as it passes through an old bank vault whose shiny metal door has been left in place, like it was a piece of shiny abstract, stainless steel, cubist art.
This corridor also connects to the World Trade Center, which makes a big indoor space by bridging a lane (where the old city wall used to be) lined with century-old buildings with a glass roof and end walls.
And there is also the customary convention center, as well as the CN Central Station concourse, arguably the precursor of the underground city (1943), who would give rise to I. M. Pei's famous Place Ville Marie with it's bigger-than-it-looks lobby and vast, airy banking halls (1962) and that much-reviled Archigramish megastructure, the very much Brutalist Place Bonaventure (1962) whose strangest feature is it's 7th floor loading dock reached by a freestanding ramp...
Nearby was also a Hyatt Regency hotel (now turned into a student residence) but it's lobby was kinda tiny compared to other Hyatt Regencies...
But of course, you may want to read Reyner Banham's chapter "Megastructure Montréal" in his book "Megastructure" (1976) for more about Montréal...
Great comment, I thought I walked the whole underground city but still missed a few of these
-29? That's spring where I grew up in Canada.
@@Razumen It's without the wind factor... ;o)
@@vincentrousseau5413 Try -38 without wind chill, gets to -50 with.
@@Razumen not a competition man lol
Vegas was the first place I thought of. It blows my mind how much indoor space there is there. I have always been fascinated by these massive interior spaces. Could I live there and go unnoticed?
I find fascinating the overlap in the design between Vegas casinos and Disney's Magic Kingdom. It's like one was done by a single corporation, and another by multiple competing corporations, yet they both seem to have converged on extremely similar solutions: individual lands (or casinos) with superficially differing content but under the hood, the same function. At Disney, every land has an attraction or two, small eating spaces, restrooms, and possibly one large dining venue. In Vegas, every casino has a dining venue, probably a permanent show, the slot machines, and the various necessary restrooms and amenities.
yesss my first time in the casino at vegas was crazy. it was truly amazing to look at with the beers
Huge homeless population on the outskirts of Vegas. They certainly go "unnoticed". However I think were you to try that in a casino, you'd be spotted by the tens of thousands of security cameras pretty quickly. 🤷🤣
Very much describes the Canary Wharf area in London. It's a huge labyrinth. You can go from one end to another, mostly underground. It took me months to figure out how to do this. It is dystopian and weird, but when the weather is crappy outside, it comes in handy.
At least you don't _have_ to be underground or inclosed. You can walk outside and access a lot of places from the outside.
This is exactly what the Chicago pedway reminds me of. It's pretty and clean so a pleasant experience to begin with but then you can easily feel trapped an disoriented because it's not always obvious as to where the corridors are leading
My recollection on this subject is about 40 years old but I seem to recall that MIT had a pretty vast underground network of corridors that connected many of its campus buildings and formed a kind-of underground pedway. This is unusual for academic institutions and reminded me of a vast industrial complex.
One of my biggest problems with many of the Portman hotels is that much of the time you are basically looking at endless arrays of blank hotel room doors. The building "message" makes me think of visiting someone's home, entering through a grand and elaborate entry and foyer...and then your host greets you wearing a tee-shirt, shorts and a bathrobe. The unrelenting uniformity is surreal.
BTW...if you watch the movie "Interstellar" carefully you will see that Portman's Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA was used for the rocket launch silo...heavily camouflaged with launch-pad-ish paraphernalia.
Many affluent Chinese city centers, say, in Shanghai, Beijing, Qingdao, etc etc, have giant mall complexes with sprawling above-ground and under-ground layers of stores, supermarketse, restaurants, food courts, and art galleries. As someone who grew up in America and experienced the death of malls in the states, seeing these giant hyper-modern supercenter malls was quite surreal.
When I visited Shenyang in 2016, I was astounded by how large the mall was. Shenyang is not a big city so I excited what other cities have to offer.
A similar thing happens in Indonesia, which I suspect is caused by car-centric infrastructure that alienates the city inhabitants from all but the most visible commercial centers (i.e malls). For Beijing that has an excellent public transport system however, malls seem to see less success due to competing with smaller, more accessible commercial centers (i.e Gulou and other similar streets that you'd go to on Friday evenings).
Interestingly, Beijing malls (Chaoyang Joy City and Zaha Hadid's NeoSOHO comes to mind in regards to newer developments) haven't quite grasped the concept of eco-friendly designs like huge atriums with high skylights, or trendy glass facades spanning multiple stories. Having those really helps with combating the vague claustrophobia you feel when spending a whole day in a large building. And think of what the atrium can be used for, considering the Beijinger's existing park culture!
@@ChemySh Philippines has a transportation infrastructure that's heavily reliant on cars and roads as well, and the malls here just seem to get bigger and bigger. "SM Seaside", for example, may as well be a miniature city. It's interesting to see malls die off in one corner of the world while still expanding and evolving in another.
@@gracecalis5421 Aside from SEA being decades behind Europe and US in most aspects (I'm sure we'll see the death of SEA malls in a few decades too), I suspect the main cause is simply corrupt govts. It's undeniable that public transport requires more planning and coordination to actually function than car-centric upgrades. Soooo yeah, imagine our civil servants actually doing work.
One thing we have going for us is that political power is more centralized (compared to the West) around the president instead of parliament so a good leader may achieve quite a bit during his period.
@@ChemySh I'd imagine it also is more to do with the culture. SEA sees malls differently than the West. A lot of malls in America (at least all I've been to) are really nothing more than hallways and hallways of units and outlets for stores to rent out and use. Over here, they've assimilated recreational spots alongside shopping areas a lot more drastically. I'll predict that malls will continue to evolve to prioritise these recreational zones to attract the people rather than the shops, which would still exist but in lesser quantities. Eventually these malls will sell themselves not on their shopping but as places to hang-out and eat; it's already happening with SM's malls, which is the largest brand here in PH. It's only gonna get exacerbated even further with online shopping already getting more prevalent.
The Pedway looks more fun to explore and more interesting, that kind of chaotic interior underground sprawl is really cool to me. The Atrium is cool for its scale but otherwise pretty uniform and boring but would be cool to stumble upon in the middle of exploring a massive Pedway. While Facebook HQ looks like a disjointed eyesore of a mess I never want to step inside of, looks like a place you could never feel comfy in.
The large sprawling but uniform airport terminal area in the beginning of the video is the most aesthetically and spacially appealing of them all though. Reminds me of exploring Penn Station and Grand Central.
This was my reaction as well. The closest thing I’ve experienced to this type of architecture has been extremely large airports where moving between terminals built in different decades can result in seeing different design styles & materials.
I find a freedom of expression to that where each era was able to create its own stamp.
Essentially, vast interior spaces, separated from the outside, serve some purpose which can involve weather control, security, convenience, sanitation or more privacy.
Agree. The notion that different materials and designs makes the Pedway bad is utter nonsense. Imagine how bad wayfinding would be if all you had was miles and miles of the exact same environment.
The office building for the New Jersey Attorney General's office has an atrium design like the one here, with bridges and so forth. It's impressive as a space, but it's totally lifeless and very eerie. Those atrium spaces echo quite a bit, so when you're on the 8th floor, you can often hear a conversation occurring on the ground floor. Plus like a dozen or so people have thrown themselves off those bridges, adding to the "atmosphere."
I was very surprised to find out interior urbanism doesn't have a wikipedia page.
You also mentioned interior urbanism appearing a lot in dystopian stories. I could also see it working very well in a solar punk setting. Or space opera - a specialized version of the planetary opera we see in from Edgar Rice Burroughs with his Mars stories. As a writer, I can see a lot of intense and interesting applications for it in the scope of those style worlds.
Thank you for the video. That was really fascinating and now I'm thinking really hard about all the different applications of interior urbanism to world building in fiction.
It would have been interesting to include some of the wonderful indoor Arcades and Gallerias that were built in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Johann Geist provides a good overview in his classic reference "Arcades: The History of a Building Type". Also, it is important to note that some of the elevated bridges that link buildings across streets in places such as Minneapolis and Toronto are only open when the connected stores open and then welcome you into aisles lined by merchandise. Montreal's "underground city" has true public corridors that pass by stores that may be open or closed. Further, the sidewalks are much more welcoming without overhead passageways that block the view along the street.
Montreal!! Also has a cool underground tunnels network downtown, that directly links to 4 different metro stations, 2 universities, china town, a conference center, newer and older office buildings etc... It's very convenient to avoid walking 20 minutes in -20C
Plus hotels, plus the Amtrack station and the ViaRail station, so one could board a train in from New York, spend an entire week in Montreal and never set a foot outside.
The montreal underground city is actually the largest in the world interestingly
Reminds me of Cleveland State University's campus where most of the buildings were all connected to the trifecta of the student center, library and main classroom building which themselves were even more interconnected as to make them basically one continuous space. Worked very well to keep warm in Cleveland's cold dreary weather
Personally I’d love an Art Deco/Victorian/neo-classical/boroque indoor city/cities. Taking a lot of the most iconically beautiful architectural styles of our past for entire indoor cities could be considered mini triumphs, just don’t allow a bioshock situation, lol,
*holds out a frighteningly large syringe* "free plasmid for you"
I'd also love to see a baroque or renaissance architecture.
Let's model it after Gothic Cathedrals because those are 👌 even as a non Christian I just always want to go in and look at those because they're just so grand and impressive looking but also kind of intimidating, maybe one day I'll visit one.
@@jacthing1 would you kindly?
If we put a dome over an old-fashioned city, we might have an aesthetic compromise.
You should look into the train stations of Japan! Bigger stations are built to be hubs in a city, filled with and surrounded by shopping centers, restaurants, office spaces, and apartments. Shinjuku station is so big I find something new almost every time I go there.
I really enjoy your videos Stewart. I am a retired architect born and raised in the Detroit Suburbs.I have a near lifelong fascination with the RenCen in Downtown Detroit. My dad took me to see it under construction when I was 11 or 12 years old and I love exploring it's cavernous meandering spaces and riding the glass elevator to the 70th floor. Another fun experience has been arriving via the People Mover which was operating when I was in Architecture school in the 80's. Another exciting experience for me as a teenager was riding the people mover from Fairlane town Center in Dearborn to the Hyatt Regency hotel. It had a full height atrium with scenic elevators that ascended and descended absolutely quietly which completely fascinated me.
The PATH in downtown Toronto is a great example, it connects Dundas Street all the way down towards Union Station at Lakeshore Boulevard near Lake Ontario (North to South) and University Avenue to Yonge Street (West to East)... It consists of entrances to the various financial and international business offices, shopping malls, food courts, etc...
It is the largest in the world and gain the world’s Guinness book of records for largest underground shopping complex.
As a tourist who visited Toronto in February and had no idea what in the world it was; i thought it was convenient that they put a cafeteria in a train station. Now I realize that the cafeteria is just a cafeteria that happened to be completely enclosed with indoor access from train stations and other pathways. I find it more convenient than a highway. Like you can literally pick things up on the journey home instead of pulling off of an exit ramp parking and then crossing traffic to get back on the highway. Made visiting very fun. Can't wait to go again.
Its laid out fairly well too. Once you understand the colour coding system. Although I have forgotten which elevator I used to the parking area I was in as some elevators are located in dead end corridors LoL
I am bewildered the video does not cover Toronto.
That sounds awesome
I was an intern one summer at the largest building in the world-- the Boeing Everett Factory just outside of Seattle. Tens of thousands of people worked in that single building, and it definitely felt like a city with constant construction and the chaos that comes with that.
Underneath the building exists miles and miles of pedestrian tunnels (for ease of navigation-- away from the construction) laid out in a grid formation complete with underground auditoriums. Super easy to get lost.
That makes me think of Disney World.
that's not the largest building in the world
@@ijemand5672 Um... yes it is and you can verify for yourself via a 5 second Google search? Search Google for "list of largest buildings in the world" and the first result will be Wikipedia's "List of Largest Buildings," where you will find the largest building in the world by both floor area and volume is the Boeing Everett Factory.
@@airops423 you have a good point except that you're wrong
@@ijemand5672 lmao ok troll
The first thing that came to mind with interior urbanism was hospitals--like the big academic hospital complexes, that are all linked by sky bridges, tunnels, etc. They are definitely more of the unplanned type, with lots of old brick buildings linked by fancy new glass walkways. As someone who works in a hospital, the back hallways really feel like a city, with all kinds of healthcare people buzzing around to wherever they need to go. People will also appear and disappear through doors that I've never seen before. There's always multiple ways to get from point A to point B too, but the residents always know the most efficient one haha!
"People will also appear and disappear through doors that I've never seen before" lol I notice this too. I love the randomness and inconsistency. When there are century old brick buildings connected with glass walkways and skylights (the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, Canada). All the variety helps a lot of navigating it all. If it all looked the same it would be far too easy to get lost.
Oklahoma City has The Underground, which is kind of like Chicago’s Pedway. I used to take it to walk to work. It was pretty underutilized, though, and could seem a little creepy being alone in there. Not sure how much traffic it gets now after they revamped the whole thing.
Happy to see Houston's tunnels briefly mentioned. It's sad how severely underused they are since all the businesses focus on catering to those who work in downtown. By 3pm most of the places are closed, and the entire system is closed off to the public at night and on weekends. I've had numerous tourists ask me where they are only to tell them they're not open.
i got excited seeing them too! just moved from houston after living there for around 7 years and was always disappointed by how inaccessible the tunnels usually were. One of the first things I heard about Houston that interested me was it's underground tunnel system but people told me "eh it's not that cool" and unfortunately they were mostly right. When my work schedule gave me days off during the week sometimes I would go just to wander around during lunch time and people watch. I always wondered what attracted me to it since it's basically a glorified underground mall that's only open for a few hours every day but watching this video I think it was just the design and layout of it all that interested me. All the restaurants, barber shops, little bakeries and specialty shops - it always gave me some kind of feeling to just have my headphones in and wander around while it was busy.
Bro when I worked in downtown I went to the tunnels and got lost for 2 hours 🗿
Houston's downtown is so disappointing :( I really liked the tunnel when I visited but it has almost nothing. After living there for two years, I never really went there. Which is sad, bc it's so cool
@@jinxedpenguin true but I felt like it got disappointing when covid hit because a lot of cool places closed down
True
Mr. Hicks, I am an enthusiastic amateur observer of architecture as well as an engineering designer of industrial systems. In the days of my youth creating whimsical house designs (roller-skating rink in the basement) I was at the same time paying attention to the design of the constructed world around me. I appreciate the fact that you actually SEE that constructed world as I do. Thank you for this video.
Thanks for the great video. It got me thinking deeply about this again.
The strength of something like the Pedway is it’s randomness and lack of consistency. Cities - especially old ones - are full of unplanned, non-productive, useless nooks and crannies, paths that have now fallen out of favor.
A lot of planned spaces have an uncanny feeling, divorced from reality, engendering feelings ranging from unease to alienation. We can never feel “at home” in them.
This is the “suburbanization” of space, which is wholly authored from above - regardless of how much data on user flows are gathered - to reconcile perceived human material needs with corporate objectives / vision.
Campuses exist to martial Human Resources for organizational needs, so opportunities for the random or unexpected, chance, and direct user agency within their spaces, is eliminated or mitigated.
I think the same will hold true on the Moon, Mara, or conceived virtual spaces. Be interested to hear folks’ thoughts.
Thanks again. Great video.
As a kid I was obsessed with arcology. Buckminster Fuller's domed city, Whittier Alaska, and Seward's Success still fascinate me. I think climate change will lead to more indoor cities being built.
Definitely. And when humans reach certain population numbers there is no way you couldn’t do that. Because there is not enough room. Thinking about where I am from (Germany) we don’t have that much room and if we ever get many immigrants and shit we need to build skyscrapers and ultimately probably whole cities in buildings because otherwise we run out of room. And destroying our old architecture is hopefully out of the question.
I've been to Whittier a couple of times and it is an odd place.
Archologies is what you are thinking of. Climate change would have to be orders of magnitude worse than forecasted to necessitate a turn to mass self incarceration in these sort of cities in a block.
Population growth stagnates and declines with prosperity. The West and East Asia are already seeing declines in birth rates below replacement. Only really SA, Africa, and South Asia (Middle East and India) are seeing unchecked population growth.
Germany isn't very densely populated compared to their neighbors in the low countries. Just look at Google maps satalite. Vast areas aren't being used at all.
I clicked on this video because of the concept of arcology. As an urban planner, it's always on my mind.
I have always wondered if arcologies would be viable to construct in the Northern Canadian territories rather than low density towns and cities. Having one large building with most of a towns infrastructure such as schools, a hospital, housing, municipal offices and public spaces all connected to a train station or Helicopter pad for connection to the rest of Canada. I have no clue if that would work, or would even be wanted, but I am curious none the less.
I'm in Chicago for school, and I braved the Pedway for the first time a couple weeks ago! For whatever reason, I caught it at a time where it was light in foot traffic, and it was such an eerie experience. Couldn't for the life of me figure out what direction I was headed in, though, and I wound up going for the cold instead...😅
what school are you at?
Pedway system has barely had any people walking through it since 2020.
I've only been down there a few times either to get to the subway or the DMV (Yes, the downtown DMV office is in the Pedway), but I really want to explore it more. I've heard there are some cool bars, restaurants, and shops down there. There's also service tunnels and miles of creepy abandoned freight tunnels down there, but they're closed to the public.
That sounds fun.
@@LBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLB those closed tunnels sound awesome
Even as a child, when I walked to school in the rain or snow, I dreamed that the sidewalks were like long greenhouses, in which there was no bad weather and excess dampness. And I really like the idea of a prosperous version of Mega City One with quarters that are one big building, where even in winter you can move around in slippers and a T-shirt. Green areas can be placed in greenhouses on the roof. Of course, it will not be cheap, but it is easier to maintain the cleanliness and integrity of the structures indoors than in the open to all winds and precipitation.
Boston has a relatively small area that includes a convention center, a couple shopping malls, a couple office buildings, a few hotels, and a supermarket. I think it is unique among old Eastern US cities and possible only because most of the land was previously old railyards reclaimed for development in the 60s. When the city built its new Seaport District, it opted for buildings separated by a pedestrian hostile landscape.
Montreal's Underground City might be more architecturally interesting than Toronto's PATH, but the PATH seems like a more successful version of Chicago's Pedway based on its uniform wayfinding system and occupancy. When I was a student at U of T, I'd often make my way to campus from the east side of downtown through the PATH system. During the winter, I'd use it to avoid the rain and snow. During the summer, it provided respite from the humidity. No matter what time of year though, pedestrian traffic always seems to be evenly disbursed been the streets and the underground PATH. I can only imagine how much more the sidewalks would be congested if the PATH didn't exist. Working downtown Toronto, so many office workers in the towers above descend down to the PATH for lunch. And people don't just stay within the concourse level of their own tower, either. I'd often meet friends for lunch in other buildings within the system. With so many condos connected to the PATH and with so many subway stations on the PATH network, I can imagine there are people who can literally live indoors 27-7. I don't know if I'd like that. Duluth, Minnesota has a mini version of Minneapolis' Skywalk. It's a little more navigable than the one in Minneapolis, but it doesn't offer much in terms of retail. It's more of a literal pedestrian bridge system connecting the second floor of buildings than an urbanised space or indoor mall, which seems like a wasted opportunity. The retail on the street level should expand to the skywalk on the second level to keep the space active.
I lived in an apartment building at Yonge & Eglinton in Toronto's midtown area. It had an underground connection to Yonge-Eglinton mall which was connected to Eglinton subway station. We could subway to PATH downtown and in the middle of winter, leave our apartment without coats and boots, spend a day downtown shopping and come home, all without stepping outside. Of course we never actually did it, but we could have. . .😉
@@knarf_on_a_bike I would have! When I lived by the St. Lawrence Market and worked at Scotia Plaza, I'd enter the PATH at Brookfield Place and make my way up to Scotia Plaza. I always preferred walking indoors because of the a/c. I didn't like showing up to the office all hot and sweaty from the summer humidity or from being too warm from wearing a winter coat. I eventually moved out to High Park, so I got used to using the subway. But, I kind of miss the days of traversing downtown underground.
@@david_walker_esq I immediately thought of the PATH while watching this video too. Spent a lot of time walking through it to and from work too.
Just this evening I got lost in Montreal's underground. The wayfinding is pretty crap. Fun if you like mazes, a liability if you have an appointment.
In recent years, Montréal has made its underground city more "formal" with "RESO" signage that is consistent across all buildings connected. Many connections are still a maze but still better signage. There are limitations on how/where 2 buildings can be connected when the connections are done after building has been built.
I always loved the chaos of the Chicago pedway. You find unique shops and nooks and corners. It reminds me a lot of older hospital buildings where they were built ad hoc and you get changes in flooring etc. The Texas Medical Center is almost all connected above and below ground and it makes a crazy maze of architecture. Love it
I have been curiously fascinated by Toronto's PATH- very similar to the Pedway (which I have never seen)... the city above alters, buildings are demolished, new ones go up, but the PATH remains. some of the businesses change, but the layout remains. I have found that if I feel vaguely disoriented in the downtown core- I just find a PATH entryway, and I can reorient myself...
This video provided so much insight into one of my favorite places - the Hyatt Regency O'Hare! Between this, the architecture unit in my Art Appreciation class this semester, and the fact that I haven't been there since the pandemic started, next time I visit my Hyatt home I'll see the atrium with entirely new eyes!
I live in Hong Kong and since space is limited, most malls here are built to work as sort of compact, self-contained ecosystems that can be linked to residential towers (usually connected by pedestrian walkways/or sitting right above the malls) and the underground subway system. I could spend an entire day "outside" without ever directly coming into contact with the "outdoor" environment at all because of how connected everything is. (It led to me developing Vit-D deficiency/SAD while I was in university during the colder seasons lol)
I used to walk through the Crystal City underground in Arlington, VA every day. It’s like one liminal space that stretches for several city blocks.
I didn't realize there was any more to it than the section that connects to the mall.
I used to visit Crystal City every year for conventions. For those not familiar with the area, its a zone roughly one to two blocks wide sandwiched between a highway and Washington National airport. The underground was a way to add more pedestrian space to a fairly squeezed in area, linking a Metro station to what was originally a zone of of mostly offices and airport hotels. However, the city of Arlington has been redeveloping the area since 2010, choosing to focus more on the streets that the underground, especially by adding more ground floor, street-facing, retail and restaurants. A good example of people choosing to turn away from interior urbanism towards more traditional urbanism.
Oh! I mention this in a separate comment. I lived in one of the nearby apartment buildings in the late 1980s. Loved it during business hours, hated it when everythings was closed.
This video remind me of my stay in Macau. Went there for about 72h and stayed at The Venetian Macau. I didn't step a foot outside until it was time for me to go to the airport, at which point i realised where in the world i actually was with the tropical storm raging on outside. I had been completely oblivious to the weather while i had roamed around the fake Venice indoors, while having enjoyed concerts, shopping and loads of food and sweets (never did venture inside the actual casino there though, as i was 4 months shy of being 21).
I really like the indoor palaces (cities within cities) of Naples Italy, with those huge doors that close on the street.
There are some really interesting examples of interior urbanism in Shenzhen, China.
The city has a really well planned subway system with some of the stations resembling underground malls with restaurants and other amenities linking the in- and outbound boarding platforms. There is even at least one section of underground walkway adorned with shops that mirrors an above ground walking space.
That could be said for all of Asia and a quarter of Europe.
Look at Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. It's how we live more and more here in East Asia. And given our dislike of heat and humidity this won't change any time soon!
Except for the flooding, the Shenzhen metro is great
Would have been good to see some global comparisons with urban areas. Eg Japan combines pedways + skyways to make truly complex additional sprawls. Some seem claustrophobic rat runs built possibly after the great quake of 95, but they're continually redeveloped and transformed into incredible multi level spaces. From B3 to FL30. See Umeda Osaka. Also Barcelona's underground spaces felt cramped and lacking. Hardly necessary when they have such beautiful piazzas, and atrium like gardens between and inside buildings.
More on Japan. Didn't expand on the old Osaka pedways, which were a maze of rat runs and underground alleys filled with shops and bars etc. Sometimes claustrophobic, yet the random chaos somehow had an appeal.
Japan has some pretty amazing usage of space unlike anywhere else I've ever experienced. Hiroshima and Kyoto also have super neat usage of underground spaces that save so much time moving from main stations to points of interests to quickly filter people in and out of the city. It is still mind blowing every time i visit and experience it. God i wish they were open already :(
@@CarloSebastianCamposAlvarez Don't remind. Longing to return. Never visited Hiroshima, although lived nearby. Kyoto has a unique mix of old and new. Big city with small city charm.
Japan has numerous underground "mall/stations" but the king of them all is in Sapporo. Something like 5km of connected underground spaces. With the longest going from Sapporo Eki to Susukino Eki which is like more than a 15 minute walk end to end.
@@TheBaldr Hmm. Haven't been up so far. Can it top Osaka Umeda? Whity town to Hankyu and Hanshin?
@@ThePharaohsCat Definitely much longer corridors.
Metro Vancouver has always made me think about this concept. You have many malls, most notably Metrotown and Pacific Centre, all connected by SkyTrain Stations that are links to these vast interior spaces. Although recently, the SkyTrain/mall renovations have broken up some of these direct corridors between station and mall, the effect is still similar. A series of independent, yet interconnected, interior cities all functioning as microcosms of Metro Vancouver that one can travel through without ever experiencing the actual city.
As an architecture photography nerd that Hyatt building atrium is a freaking dreamland. So many interesting angles and perspectives shot opportunities. Now I need to go on my next time in the city.
I’ve actually been really happy to see the Chicago pedway evolving to be more like the massive shopping malls built around subway stations in Asian countries. The shops have an incentive to make the space bright and welcoming, while the city government seems to ignore those kinds of places until it’s time for a total renovation.
Your comment about Portman's use of compressive and expansive spaces was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright ( his words) and was also used at the entrances which were intentionally confining then open into large volumes. The Peachtree Plaza was another good example prior to an unfortunate renovation. He was an avid people watcher and loved to create spaces to facilitate that such as the plaza at Peachtree Center in Atlanta. In the 80's a now defunct magazine called Progressive Architecture ran an article on his work commenting on what they saw as the overly controlled feeling of his buildings. They ended with a story of when he was on an exterior glass elevator with two others at the then Bonaventure in LA. They didn't know who he was when one turned to the other and said " this is better than Disneyland". He commented "I rest my case"
We in Atlanta do seem to enjoy ruining our architecture, but the rest of us do try to enjoy what life is left
Two of them really come to mind for me. The Tabor Center in the 80s was a grand gallery in the middle of downtown Denver. But it was the Cinderella City mall that really was the interior urbanism in action that I remember. Made up of 4 distinct 'malls' in a massive, sprawling complex that had an underground section that connected the food-court with some of the farther reaches of the complex. Each mall had a theme and they met with each other in a glorious clash. The place felt like it went on for miles.
Long since torn down, it was quite the product of the 80s.
There was this really cool mall in Bucharest that felt like a bunch of disjointed shops stacked together which was so fun to explore!
do you know the name? I'm visting Bucharest in a few weeks!
@@tortellinifettuccine unirea shopping center! It looks like a big amorphous box which is rad :) it's also right near the big ugly communist palace building
@jglaab yup I found it, well definitely check it out now! I actually think the parliament building is quite beautiful despite the ugliness of how it was built. Despite it all, the parliament building definitely gives bucharest a unique skyline.
this reminded me of Calgary's +15 system, one of the most extensive pedestrian walkway systems in the world covering 18km (11 miles) it's amazing to walk through, but very uncanny for sure, especially since it's central focus is shopping centres
Sounds cool to me
It's actually pretty diverse. Sure there are sections that connect to the mall levels in the center, but it also connects to food courts and building atriums and lobbies. A section used to go through the devonian gardans, there are also sections that are essentially building hallways with offices off of them. There are parts that split and span multiple floors which is pretty odd.
Cruise ships are an extreme example. “Residences”, restaurants, lounges, theaters and a variety of entertainment options all in a Very compact space. The layout of the newest Royal Caribbean ships is particularly innovative.
You should check out the areas around Shinjuku station or Tokyo station or Shibuya station in Tokyo. The tunnels cover huge areas of land and connect tons of different buildings.
I kept thinking about Shinjuku station while watching this video. It's absolutely massive and so interconnected
@@whoevenknows762 You can actually walk all the way from Nihonbashi to Shimbashi underground
And Kyoto’s is large too, with a major store and many restaurants, a hotel and the Kyoto tower all within the complex!!
🗾🇯🇵🚅💴
I've never been able to navigate either the Pedway in Chicago or the Skywalks in Minneapolis. Sort of a hamster in a tube situation I think! It's amazing what a little foresight can do when planning large indoor spaces.
I have done both the skywalks in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN. It is very nice when the weather is brutally cold, but as he said not all parts of it open and close at the same time.
Also the underground in Montreal.
When I first entered the system in Minneapolis I called it a “human Habitrail”. Now I know how a hamster feels. 🤣
My dad used to set up the christmas decorations at the Renaissance center thru the 80s amd 90s. He would take me with him and i was always amazed at that buliding and how much was inside. Everything you needed without leaving the site. Its kinda funny a few years after that he got a job going back and forth from Chicago to Detroit and thats when i learned about the pedway. Great video!
It’s so crazy because I’ve been in the pedway, the sky way, and the Renaissance center and they all gave me a very similar feeling but not until I watch this did I realize they where all connected by architecture. So cool
In Montreal we have a countless amount of tunnels to go around that link metro stations, universities, malls, hotels, the train station and so much more! It is much appreciated in the winter for sure.
Obviously a bit much for this video, but I’d be intensely interested in your take on Soja and/or Jameson who I think would draw a parallel between Portman’s spaces- specifically their simultaneous efforts to be inclusive and coherent, while defying cognitive mapping and making entrance and exit difficult- with systems like the Chicago pedway creating the same effects seemingly organically. This maybe isn’t so apparent at O’hare (though there is something about looking down at those walkways with their op-art carpeting), but is overwhelming at the Bonaventure and Peachtree.
In my travels through Japan, i came across some of the most impressive interior urban spaces , Korea also had some similarly impressive spaces, with vast interiors connecting subways, buildings, and malls. At one point i got off a subway, walked through what felt like a mile of shopping complex then to only exit out of the 4th floor of a building onto an escalator down to the street. How or at which point i went from underground to above ground baffled me and left an everlasting impression.
Think of how much material is used to build it.
@@1mol831 An absolute boat load to say the least
i actually love and appreciate all these,, i think it's nice to have the variety for lots of reasons
I've never seen anything like what was shown in this video and had no clue places like this existed in the states. I'm a bit in awe because I really like the concept despite the downsides of it. I think the closest I have seen that was actually shown in your video appears to be Fremont St in Las Vegas Nevada though I personally would not call that an indoor city.
Crystal City, in Arlington VA was the first indoor/underground city I experienced. I found it pretty interesting to have a whole 'world' under the feet of the city.
I just stayed there last month for the first time... I didn't get to explore much (I was at a conference all day for 5 days), but hope to get back soon and check out more of it.
Great boardgame group meets there on Fridays
They seem awesome at first, then I remember the story on Mr. Ballen channel about the poor old dude who got lost in the basement hallways of some mall and literally died because he couldn't find his way out and no one happened to check that area. I was in the hospital for a month after a car wreck, and once when they were transporting me to another area, we passed close enough to an entrance that I could smell "fresh air" - in quotes, because downtown Memphis air is hardly fresh lol. It was so amazing, like suddenly waking up refreshed. Had no idea I was missing the outside until that moment or how much breathing only inside air could drag you down.
As a longtime resident of St. Paul and Minneapolis, I went to Des Moines, Iowa for a work trip a few years ago (before COVID). I was not too surprised to find that they had a smaller "Skyway" system in downtown Des Moines than St. Paul or Minneapolis, and I did also find it's a hodge-podge of buildings like you experienced on the Pedway (and I experience in the Minnesota "Skyway" systems). But I was impressed with a few small details. They did better at signage than any interior walkway system than I've been to, including at least a few maps of the system mounted on very visible walls throughout each building. Also, the entire Skyway system was apparently also open 24/7, and when I was walking through the Skyways, I did some Police presence, so it seemed pretty safe.
Also, your video's large interior buildings reminded me of the Westin Bonaventure hotel I stayed at in downtown Los Angeles one time. Yep, that's a John Portman building too. Thanks for the fun videos!
The Barbican, in London, was one of my favourite places to have lunch over the 15 years I worked in the City. On cold, wet days I would sit in the lower-ground theatre area in one of many but somehow intimate loitering areas. On a summer day, I'd park up next to a fountain outside, watching the birds and insects. I'd also use its passageways on my mile-long walking commute from Mansion House tube station. They were always practically deserted and I could avoid some of the chaos of commuting London. It's a magical place.
Compared to the outside world, these kind of indoor cities have lesser capability to change and adapt over time. One great example of such "stuck" monument is the central bus station in Tel Aviv.
Excellent point. When I looked up the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, which Stewart briefly mentioned, I saw that it was demolished in the 1930s. Some things just can't last if they can't adapt.
@@uptown3636 To be fair, The Crystal Palace was highly adaptable, being moved across London to a new venue, and having a wide variety of uses, from its original use as exhibition space, to a sports venue, to a pleasure park, to an early TV transmission site. It was only demolished after it burnt down, and couldn't be repaired.
@@euanduthie2333 Thanks for correcting me in a polite and informative way. The internet would be a better place if there were more people like you on it.
@@uptown3636 - Thanks! And the same back to you.
This is the most mature internet thread I've seen.
I commuted to work walking through the Toronto PATH (TO's equivalent to the Pedway) and I resonated very strongly with the way you described the ad-hoc surreallness of walking through these spaces
I grew up in Houston. As a kid in the 1970s, I’d sometimes go downtown with my dad, where he worked in one of the skyscrapers. We’d go exploring in the tunnels, only emerging to go grab hot dogs at James Coney Island or visit my grandmother at her job. I thought those tunnels were the coolest thing I’d ever seen! Summer or winter, rain or heat, you were always comfortable. This must have really impacted my sense of interior urbanism, because I grew up fascinated by it.
In the later 1970s and early 1980s, I was part of the generation that practically lived in shopping malls. They were our social outlet, our safe place to develop independence. Houston’s Galleria was the ultimate mall - vast, modern, active, and chic - with all sorts of food options, an ice-skating rink, bunches of bookstores…my idea of a perfect place to spend a day, all in air-conditioned comfort.
In college, I moved to Austin where there were fewer large indoor facilities. There were a few shopping malls back then, but nothing near the University. We’d hang out on the Drag - a stretch of street along the west side of campus that was home to bookstores, record stores, restaurants, arcades, bars, clothing stores. An outdoor mall. While I was still drawn to indoor ‘cities’ and their self-contained simplicity, I didn’t have the option to spend as much time in those spaces.
As an adult, I’ve long wished to be able to live in an interior urban space. Somewhere where groceries, entertainment, work, and life in general are all right there. Somewhere where the weather doesn’t negatively impact my day. Somewhere where everyone isn’t a stranger. I’m on the autism spectrum and I have extreme difficulty dealing with strangers, so being in a small-ish, controlled, contained environment is very appealing to me. I’ve never had that, though, so I can’t say that I’d do any better in that environment; I just like the idea of it.
If I won a billion dollars in the lottery, I’d probably build myself a little community along those principles. Not necessarily all indoors, but like a little town square surrounded by houses, with a restaurant, a general store, a library, a barbershop, etc. I’d populate it with friends and family. Everyone could eat at the restaurant, pick up whatever they needed at the store, get a haircut, see a movie, all in a walkable space. Architecturally, it would probably more closely resemble an old European city than a small American city, but it would be an idealized representation of the small-town atmosphere. It’s just something I dream about, probably going back to my childhood fascination with these interior urban spaces.
I first visited Montreal (in Canada) in the late 1970s by train. The Montreal train station and the city subway system all converge in the same location. From the train and subway stantion, underground pedways connect you to hotels, shopping complexes and hotels all over the city. The subway connects you to even more office towers, apartment buildings and shopping centres which, in turn, are connected to more buildings using underground and above ground pedways. You could literally live your whole life in the city without ever going outside. On a much smaller scale, the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, also has a system of mainly above ground pedways that connect you to the major buildings of the downtown. There are a few underground pedways as well.
I'm from Calgary Alberta. We have a system in our downtown core called the +15.
It's a series of elevated walkways (15ft above ground) that interconnect most of the buildings downtown.
132 buildings interconnected by 62 bridges that span approximately 18 km.
Essentially turning our entire downtown core into an indoor city.
Did you ever watch Waydowntown?
Filmed in Calgary and about a group of people who make a bet not to go outside.
Badass
@@nadinegriffin5252 I have not but I'll be sure to check it out.
I'm moving to Calgary in a couple of months and I swear I learn new cool stuff about the city every day. Can't wait to check it out!
@@punchdrunkassassin Well in that case welcome to Calgary.
There was an apartment building in Bogota Colombia that i absolutely adored because of that interior design that the Hyatt has, so glad to see it has a word for it, I always wanted to live in a space like that.
edit: The vertical atrium space extended all the way to the cieling however, so the whole building was capped with a glass roof, letting in tons of sunlight and reflecting off the white granite floors of the lobby 10 stories below.
Philadelphia has an underground concourse in the area around City Hall that connects to the subways, two train stations ( Suburban Station and Jefferson Station formerly Market East) and an assortment of small underground shops. If I'm reading the floorplans correctly, the "Fashion District" which seems to be a mall replacing an older mall that was demolished a few years ago also connects to the concourse via the subway and Jefferson Station. There's also a connection to the Municipal Services Building across from City Hall.
In Boston, the area around the Hynes Convention Center includes two malls, a hotel, at least one condo building, and a supermarket that are all interconnected. The convention center connects directly to the hotel and one of the malls. The condo connects directly to the same mall as the convention center. The second mall connects to the first mall by a skybridge and the supermarket is connected via a parking garage.
It's how the interior spaces meets natural light and use of greens which makes it lively and a good connect with the outside makes all the difference!!
Reminds me of the Arcology, a self sufficient city contained in one massive structure. I appreciate the points you made about these structures sucking people away from the older and more eclectic spots in a city, good to keep in mind
An improved space "sucking people away" from unimproved spaces is how progress works. That's the price you pay for not improving.
The Ascent
Montreal also has "underground city" which is like a series of interconnected malls and metro stations because of the harsh winters.
I like the Barbie doll installation
I''m from Saint John, New Brunswick, and we have our own version of these big interior spaces. There's a series of walkways that connect the historic city market, to a nearby interior mall/office building, through city hall, and ends at another interior mall with a famous set of bars/pubs along the waterfront of the city. At one point the path also plits off to connect and indoor pool, eventually leading across some train tracks to the nearby large hockey arena. Despite the cluster of buildings and interior styles I've always found the place strangely comforting, like there's always some less-used corned of the system one could nestle themselves in for whatever reason, and that there's always something to find. Despite it falling on harder times due to the pandemic, I always found it a cool indoor space.
Tokyo’s understand urban planning is so vast and amazing. You can get lost in Shinjuku station along. You just keep finding lower levels with cool little 3-4 person restaurants. It’s amazing
The Tokyo indoor/underground subway/train station complex in Japan is a vital, yet dizzying experience, even after having used it for more than a year of my life. Much of it is connected by extensive pedestrian pathways, creating an almost endless labyrinth of an indoor city.
I've seen some amazing interior urbanism in Tokyo, especially in and around the big train stations. In fact, every point made in this video is fully represented in each of the many large Tokyo hubs..
That was super interesting! I also grew up in MI and now live in Chicago. When I was younger, I do remember thinking that the Ren Cen felt like a mini city because I’d never seen something like that before. I’ve only been in the pedway once and I think got lost 😅 Anyhow, great video!!
Honestly relating to both this topic and the concept of liminal spaces I would STRONGLY recommend the game NaissanceE. It's a free game on Steam, a bit of a buggy mess but it's easy to get over that given it's a free art experience with lots of care put into it. NaissanceE is a game explicitly about navigating uncanny liminal architecture and hostile constructed environments, and every minute of that game is absolutely incredible for how well it creates the experience of navigating a colossal, seemingly endless indoor urban construct that is not, and never was, designed for you. There are parts in that game where the halls get so tight they're claustrophobic, only to open up into indoor spaces so mind bogglingly enormous it's hard to comprehend. The lighting in that game is a stroke of genius, it's fine tuned to always appear entirely deliberate in the design of light source placement, but so alien to the way we normally design such things to create inhabitable spaces that it makes you uncomfortable no matter if the scene is pitch black, blindingly bright, chopped up by obstructive shadows, or dim and unreal like sodium-vapor road lights. Anyone with a passion for liminal spaces or architecture and design NEEDS to play NaissanceE
Edmonton AB has / had a plus 15 - it’s been years since I’ve been (last century) but I seem to remember there was even access to the most incredible indoor public garden - an entire floor of a downtown high rise - I loved ending up there after spending the morning in the central library - open and sunny with the smells of green growing things after being tucked away in dull closed in cubicles surrounded with shelves upon shelves of books - most importantly leaving the layers of outdoor winter clothing in the car somehow left in a car park also connected to the plus 15 - West Edmonton Mall I seem to remember was an indoor town all onto itself - it enclosed a full size IKEA along with a water park an amusement park plus so many restaurants that they were grouped by kind - I never did eat anywhere else once I discovered pubs with BBQ 🇨🇦🙏😷 thnx for a really interesting video
The ones I know are in Japan...because space is limited, they need to make use vertical space...including down.
But when entered they feel like 1 piece...not some mismash of connected random undergrounds.
The main atmosphere that changes, is the purpose of the space...like you reach a point to board a train...more spacious.
Food courts have more warm colors.....and beause they are huge, plenty of signs against the ceiling telling you where to go (+ maps on walls).