The urban changes that Philadelphia experienced in the first years of the 21st century were gentler and more likely to enhance the city’s existing 20th-century form. The tech-induced trends from the last 10 years have challenged that physical form by radically reconfiguring the way we move through, and interact with, the city. — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Inga Saffron, architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer provides a tech-focused decade-in-review highlighting the impact of smartphone technologies on the city’s urbanism.
Highlighting the proliferation of “fast-casual” food, buildings, and development approaches, Saffron writes: “once millennials (and their parents) got those smartphones in their hands, they promptly began moving into cities, buying fixer-uppers in working-class neighborhoods like Point Breeze and Fishtown, and transforming them into upscale enclaves.”
In particular, Saffron highlights the Foster + Partners-designed Comcast Technology Center, which some have likened to a giant middle finger; Weiss/Manfredi’s Singh Center for Nanotechnology from 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania; and Snøhetta‘s new Charles Library at Temple University as some of the decade’s best architectural works in the city.
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