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what to see in....Cleveland

Its that time again archinect...could some help advise on what to see in Cleveland. Is there anything of architectural value aside Gehry's Lewis Building?

Come on help me out

 
Jun 29, 08 2:34 pm
evilplatypus

Great Lakes Brewery

Jun 29, 08 2:50 pm  · 
 · 
rascuache

I agree on the Great Lakes Brewery! But as for architecture, I.M. Pei's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (a good stop if you like music anyways!), Breuer's Cleveland Museum of Art, and Breuer's Cleveland Trust building (or whatever they are calling it these days), Terminal Tower and the Federal Reserve Bank are good visits as well. Have fun, Cleveland is full of good times, just a little harder to find than in most cities!

Jun 29, 08 6:41 pm  · 
 · 
ksArcher

30minutes south is Coop Himmelblau's only building in the States- the Akron Art Museum completed last year...

http://z.about.com/d/cleveland/1/0/R/Q/-/-/akron2.jpg

Be sure to check out University circle and the art museum (mentioned above). There are a few interesting buildings that are part of the University Hospitals in that area as well. The Gehry building is in that same area.

Pei's Galleria Mall and Office tower complex is interesting, its the large black box downtown. Also check out Playhouse Square, which is not far from the ballparks, etc. downtown..

Jun 30, 08 5:21 am  · 
 · 
theodore

Long time lurker, first time poster

I'm a grad student at Kent State's Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, I've been in Cleveland for about a year and 1/2 now...

It is very true with Cleveland, you have to look a little harder then most places to find things, but that seems to make it more worthwhile.

First thing, go to Great Lakes Brewing, If you're interested in neighborhoods as much as architecture, the neighborhood Great Lakes is in (disclosure: my neighborhood) Ohio City is one of the more up and coming areas of Cleveland, with a decent selection of bars and restaurants, almost all locally owned.

Tremont, which can be a pain to get to, has a lot of bars and restaurants as well. Recent Iron Chef winner Michael Symon has one of this two restaurants in Tremont, Lolita. His other, Lola is downtown on E. 4th St. The East 4th St. area is worth checking out too.Not sure how many nights you'll be in town, but I would recommend trying to get in at one of his restaurants. Lolita will probably be easier to get a reservation at. Its also very reasonably priced for the quality of the food.

The Christmas Story House (from the movie) is also in Tremont and worth a visit if you like the movie. Portions of Deerhunter was filmed in Tremont too.

As far as architecture, downtown has Ceasar Pelli's Key Tower, Terminal Tower (for quite awhile the tallest building between NYC and Chicago, for what that's worth), and Marcel Breuer's Amritrust Tower, along with the Rock Hall. IM Pei's Erieview Tower is just up the street from the Rock Hall.

@ksArcher: I want to say someone else designed the Galleria, which sits in front of Erieview. Its also mostly empty at the moment and kind of torn up as some bank is moving there HQ into it, too.

As a warning, one of the main streets in the city, Euclid Ave., is going under a complete re-buidling. They have literally torn the whole street out and are slowly rebuilding it. The RTA is turning Euclid into a BRT line (It's like trains, but with buses), which has turned a good chunk of downtown into a nightmare to get around by car in, if you're going to be driving. Euclid cuts through Playhouse Square, so its a bit of mess at the moment, but kind of nice because there very few cars are able to get through.

University Circle is a must. A portion of the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is undergoing a huge renovation and addition by Rafael Vinoly just re-opened over this past weekend. Marcel Breuer did a wing of the museum in 1971, too. Admission is free as well. Gehry's Weatherhead is just a couple blocks away as well.

Unfortunately you are a couple years early for a lot of things happening in Clevleand, Winy Maas is designing an addition to the Cleveland Institute of Art, while Stanely Saitowitz and Office DA are working on an adjacent housing/mixed use project. FOA's new MOCA Cleveland is supposed to anchor the side of the development opposite the Maas building. Hopefully all those projects happen (if you go to UC, its all going to be at the intersection of Mayfield and Euclid). There have been a lot of rumors around town, particularly with the Maas project that some, if not all of those proposals may not happen at all. Nothing has broke ground yet.

There have also been some very large developments proposed for various seas of parking downtown, but its nothing of note. The East Bank of the Flats (party central in the 80s and 90s) is getting rebuilt too. A local office, Forum has done the master planning. I think NBBJ is designing a couple of the larger buildings, with Forum doing most of the background stuff. That's still in site demo though.

Charles Young, a NYC architect, recently completed a very nice addition to the Cleveland Institute of Music in UC too.

If you have time and a car, there is a Erich Mendelsohn synagogue in Cleveland Heights and a little known Walter Gropius office tower, Tower East, in nearby Shaker Heights, too.

Depending on your taste, you might like some of the buildings on the Cleveland Clinic campus, which is kind of adjacent to University Circle. If you're in UC, you're probably better off checking out nearby Little Italy then exploring the fortress of bland corporate architecture that the Cleveland Clinic is.

Hope that helps more then it confuses.

Jun 30, 08 3:48 pm  · 
 · 
Renewable

How about the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame?:
http://www.clevelandstyle.com/

Jun 30, 08 5:53 pm  · 
 · 
theodore

It's better then the Rock Hall...

Jun 30, 08 7:44 pm  · 
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theodore you rock - thanks. That's a very extensive list - and I'm sure to check out Lola.

Jun 30, 08 8:24 pm  · 
 · 
theodore

no problem.

oh, forget to mention the west side market in ohio city. main day it is open is saturday's.

http://www.westsidemarket.com/

its a european style food market... actually better then a lot of markets I have been to in Europe (have lived in Florence, Italy for a year total).

hope you enjoy the beast that is the cleve'.

Jun 30, 08 8:32 pm  · 
 · 
dedubs

theodore, last time I heard, MVRDV was fired from the CIA job and I believe some local firm was hired to come up with a new design. Maas paid for so many price estimates and it came out over by only about a few million, but CIA apparently had enough and kicked em out.. sad day for Cleveland..

Jul 1, 08 8:38 am  · 
 · 
ted ferringer

Danny-

Yea... that hasn't been officially announced yet, but that is the word around town. I don't think anyone wants to talk about it because no one wants to admit it that it went south.

I'm really bummed about it, because after getting to have Winy involved with our MArch studio last summer, I was really impressed with him, not just as a designer, but as a genuine person, which is seems rare for 'famous architects'. At the least some of us at CUDC can say they spent a July 4th with Winy watching fireworks.

Of course this is just another chance for the defeatist Cleveland attitude to come out!

I've heard way too many rumors about the project from all sides, so I'll just keep things to this, since nothing has been officially announced beyond the fact its way over budget:

http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2008/05/_the_cleveland_institute_of.html

I'm still holding out hope that it can get saved, but it doesn't look/sound good.

Jul 1, 08 10:00 am  · 
 · 
theodore

wtf?

'ted ferringer' is also me. some reason archinect somehow signed me in with a username/password that i forget i had.

weird.

Jul 1, 08 10:12 am  · 
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WOW there's also this. Oberlin College by William McDonough

Jul 8, 08 11:03 am  · 
 · 

botched up that image

Jul 8, 08 11:10 am  · 
 · 
quizzical

Take a few minutes to visit the Lake View Cemetary and see the Wade Chapel - Louis Comfort Tiffany designed the interior and it's quite spectacular. The cemetary's also got quite a lot to see, also.

---------------------------------------

---------------------------------------
The Garfield Memorial in the cemetary (below) is an ungainly pile of stone, but the interior's also worth a visit:

Jul 8, 08 11:42 am  · 
 · 
theodore

Looks like Maas is still on board with the CIA project

http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2008/07/winy_maas_the_globally_famous.html

Jul 9, 08 1:48 pm  · 
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theodore - I fly in a couple of weeks next Saturday...I'll drop you an e

Sep 13, 08 2:52 am  · 
 · 
holz.box

i'd suggest grabbing a car and checking out SANAA's Glass Pavilion, Museum of Art in Toledo

Sep 13, 08 3:00 am  · 
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holz.box

Erich Mendelsohn's Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights (suburb)

and centerbrook architect's park east synagogue

Sep 13, 08 3:24 am  · 
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great trip | a photoset

Dec 6, 08 10:23 pm  · 
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