 |
|
The Best Products showrooms were Post-Modern icons, giving the suburbs their own landmark architecture. An admirer asks, "Where are they now?"
By James McCown
April 2003
 |
 |
 |
Constructed in a wooded area of Richmond, the 1980 Forest Building (above and below)
allowed existing trees to bisect the design. It's now home to West End Presbyterian Church.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
The Indeterminate Facade building in Houston blends prototypical big-box
features with a brick facade that appears to be simultaneously
undergoing construction and demolition. It is currently empty.
Top: Prakash Patel. All others: courtesy SITE Projects Inc.
|
|
|
Offsite:
SITE Environmental Design, www.siteenvirodesign.com
|
Before big-box retailing even had a name, James Wines was taking the box
and turning it on its side, extruding its facade, even making it appear
to crumble. The New York-based architectural designer and sculptor
was cofounder with Alison Sky of SITE, a design firm that changed forever
how we think about suburban retail with its series of Best Products showrooms,
built between 1972 and 1984. The buildings drew interest far and wide: to
locals they were curiosities, visual points of reference in suburban wastelands
seemingly desperate for any sense of place; to the artistic elite they were
Dadaist works worthy of Duchamp, winking comments on everything from consumer
culture to the increasingly fractured nature of American life.
But these buildings-as-sculpture in Wal-Mart country were not to last. Best
Products Company, an appliance and housewares catalog retailer, folded in
the mid-1990s. Of the nine showrooms SITE built, all but two have either
been torn down or stripped of their architectural witticisms. What's left
of the Peeling Project in Richmond, Virginia, its front elevation now just
a blank wall, houses a weekend flea market and pawn shop heralding
"Top $ for Your Gold." The Tilt Building in Towson, Maryland,
an engineering marvel whose 450-ton masonry-block facade seemed to balance
precariously on one corner, was razed completely and the site redeveloped.
Buildings in Miami and Milwaukee were retrofitted into a Sears and
a Wal-Mart, respectively. The Notch Project in Sacramento and Water Showroom
in Hialeah, Florida, also lost their absurdist touches to become traditional
big-box venues.
One of the exceptions is the Indeterminate Facade showroom in Houston, which
features a crumbling white-brick wall. Evoking images of an apocalyptic
remnant of war, it still stands in its original configuration but is
in want of a tenant. "The building's preservation has depended on its
function as a big-box store," says Stephen Fox, adjunct lecturer in
architecture at Rice University. "The facade has not figured in
at all. It will probably need maintenance soon, and they may just tear it
down. There's not much sentiment here for preserving suburban landmarks."
|
|
|
BACK TO TOP
