Mini Review and Mini Panorama - Atlanta's New International Terminal

On Saturday I dropped off a loved one at the new $1.4B terminal. I visited the road, the parking lot, and the departures level. I'll have to buy a ticket to see the International Atrium.

It's like a small city airport with BIG design. The domestic side of the airport is huge, busy, important, lived-in. The new terminal is tiny and so easy to manage. It's a world apart.

As you approach by car, flanked by giant hangers you see the dead end ahead and wonder, is that it? Is that all?

It's so easy that you should consider a visit just for architecture tourist fun. You can take it in less than an hour and parking will cost you about 2 bucks.

This is as far as I got, the departures area, where you check you bags and go through security. See the reflections on the floor?

It's a mighty big room, about 2/3's as long and a bit wider than Delta's south terminal check-in and baggage claim in the old airport. Floor to ceiling windows north and south and the high swooping ceilings, make it a big feeling room, big like an airplane hanger with windows.

It's hard to get lost or out of visual contact here: You can see everything. Kids and parents seemed comfortable.


It seemed "democratic" to me. I felt important there. The place had an equalizing effect. Everyone is free to go everywhere, no corridors or passageways, no upper level. Everyone and everything is in an atrium.

Visually it's borderline migraine for me. It's simple but visually busy. The blue neon and pencil thin florescents in the swooping ceiling, and the window frame grid reflect on the polished diagonal gridded floor. The diagonal check-in desks have filigree cornices. I felt good there but it could cause me trouble on migraine prone days.

The best thing is the view of the planes. The planes are right there, RIGHT THERE. As you'll see in the video below.

Here a a little panorama.



Here is the floor-plan and map.

Eclectic 21 hours around Atlanta

We do get around when we can. On Thursday night I saw gloATL perform "Physical Suites on a Theme of Non Fiction" at ACAC. They danced the museum space inside and out and even the rafters. They let me watch for free. I felt like I was steeling. It's kind of crazy, there is no stage, they dance everywhere, the audience can go anywhere.


This is the beginning of a pax de deux. "Relaxed hands and feet with tension in the body."


Sometimes you need eyes in the back of your head to take it all in.

Here is a slide show of the whole event if you have a couple of minutes. It will give you a pretty good idea, turn up your speakers a little.

Next to Astolfi Art for Cynthia Knapp's opening reception. Alessandra told me that the artists came, a show of respect for the art and the artist.


It's no wonder. Catch these when you are at White Provision.


Here is Cynthia with artist (and fellow Grady dad) Tom Ferguson. She knows everybody, has worked with everybody, has helped everybody in Atlanta's art community. Here they are demonstrating the sartorial range and good humor of Atlanta artists.

Here are a few more pictures of Cynthia Knapp's opening at Astolfi Art.

On Friday I did my errands with included the airport.

Columbia Theological Seminary is building the Vernon S.Broyles Leadership Center. It a modern building somewhat sympathetic to "university Gothic" style already there.


It's got a tower which is nearly always cool.


I'm not sure this picture will make you fall in love but in person, I think this will be OK. You can't see the side that faces the older campus, which works pretty well.


On the way home I was cruising a tear-down and found the Village People in a backyard, appropriate for this Atlanta Pride Festival weekend. Folks in the know in my neighborhood will know just where to find this. Attn: Pecanne Log.

We avoid the interstate on the way home from the airport if we can.


Hapeville has trains and churches.


Central Avenue from Hapeville to East Point is major industrial. Men and boys will love it. Hard, dirty work gets done there. This is where you imagine artist colonies. It's the home of Pottery Land


And they got 'em.


East Point still has an active town center and some handsome buildings.


Hapeville is 100% real town.

Hapeville's Main Street is Highway 29. I headed north towards Fort Mac and flipped to Murphy on the east side of the tracks.


Murphy Avenue if a seriously funky street. I was looking for the 10-foot-Sharon at 920 Murphy by Ola Bad & Howdy Nater. It's legal.


So how did my fellow soccer mom come to be immortalized on Murphy? Hard work on behalf of Atlanta's artist community, for Eyedrum, Art on the Beltline and Living Walls. We love you Sharon.


The Krog Street Tunnel is too easy, but there it is.

Wow, two of my fellow soccer sideline companions in one Architecture Tourist post, how does that happen?

My 4th Stop: South-View Cemetery - APC Sacred Spaces Tour

I wasn't expecting this to be the highlight of the tour. Prominent Atlantans led us to graves of several extraordinary folks resting there.


Rev. Dr. Michael N. Harris pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church.

South-View Cemetery was my next stop for the Atlanta Preservation Center's first "Sacred Spaces" tour. South-View was the first resting place of Martin Luther King Jr., here:

'The oldest African-American “non eleemosynary” corporation in the country (1886), South-View Cemetery is the final resting place for over 70,000 African Americans. Many of whom have made significant contributions to American history and the struggle for freedom and peace. Among the many notables are men and women who were scholars, business owners, pastors, professors, military heroes, musicians, athletes, and civil rights activists.'

It's on quiet rolling hilltops on Jonesboro Road, about 4 miles north of Scott's Antique Market. You've probably never been in the neighborhood just east of Lakewood.

Atlanta's Oakland and Westview Cemeteries have many extraordinary monuments. The wealth of South-View in the legacy of those interred there.


We gathered at the angel for an introduction by Dr. D.L. Henderson, a board member of Historic South-View Preservation Foundation, and of Oakland Foundation.


We hiked the hills.


We stopping at balloon marked graves.


We heard the histories.


We headed the the next one.


It was and impossibly beautiful late afternoon but warm enough that we sought the shade.


Our procession stretched out as the tour continued.


I was so fortunate to be there.

The Monument on Metropolitan Parkway

I can't think of a single reason you'd drive this way for fun, unless you are an Architecture Tourist or think the Interstates are the most boring roads on earth.

The Capital View Masonic Lodge (1921) has new missions now.

And I doubt these are the original windows.


But on this road, in this part of the city, it's like an ancient lost temple. The former Capitol View Baptist Church, now abandoned, provides a nice balance. When you see these, you know you are at Dill Street.

Metropolitan Parkway is Highway 19/41 from Whitehall Street downtown to Hapeville. It's a dreary stretch road made drearier by the economy, a highway from Lake Superior through Chicago to Miami. Atlantan's know it as Cobb Parkway, Northside Drive, Dogwood Drive, Old Dixie Highway, Tara Boulevard.

Metropolitan Parkway was renamed to improve it's reputation after a sordid murder. It used to be Stewart Avenue and I wish it still was.


Imagine the confidence that produced this building and inspired by it. It's grand statement for the the Capital View Neighborhood begun in 1912.

The Capital View Manor Neighborhood east of Metropolitan was built out a bit later by the same developer who did Virginia Highlands and Morningside. There is a a strong resemblance.


There is a sewing machine shop.




There is a barber shop.


There is a union hall.



This building would look great anywhere in town.


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There is more to see in Metropolitan Parkway including the beautiful Evangeline Booth College.

The little one that moved twice.

I think preserving beautiful things in public places ennobles us all.

Christ Church (c. 1895) in Hapeville looks brand new after it's second move.


It's just the building. There's no longer a congregation. The city owns it. You can get married there or have a meeting.


When I took these photos, folks were cleaning it for a wedding the next day, cleaning every single pew with Windex.

They moved it the first time in 1986 due to an airport expansion.



It's second home was next to the depot right on the railroad tracks.


It was right here on the gravel next to the 1890 depot.

That wasn't such a good idea. Train vibrations shook it up pretty good.


So on July 10, 2010 they moved it again a bit further from the tracks to Jess Lucas Park, the former site of the Georgia Baptist Children's Home.


You'd think new foundation, new roof, new paint would make it a bit inauthentic.


It's been restored several times based on early pictures.




From the Narthex.


Anyone know the name of this trussing system? Are they scissor trusses?


The windows are so elegant...


...inside and out.

So what do you do? What if you have a beautiful little church on your hands?


I say, put it out there where we can all enjoy it.

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North Avenue School (1929) Hentz, Adler and Shutze in Hapeville

Two Shutze's in Hapeville? Who knew? Both are modest compared to their downtown and Buckhead cousins. Neither are in original condition but both are still in service. I've already blogged Hapeville's First Methodist Church.

Here is North Avenue School in Hapeville, Georgia.


The original windows didn't survive 80 years on a school board's budget.


Still looks like a school though. The 3-part plan, chunky quoins, blind arches, and comfortable sheltering doorways have that "Shutze" look.





What did it look like in it's heyday? Get a hanky ready and have a look at a 1954 picture from the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center.


Original or not, I'd still be happy go to work though this door.


The kids now go to Hapeville Elementary School on North Fulton. It's pretty handsome too. The old school soldiers on and I think that's a good thing.


Here is the business end. These sturdy school houses take a beating yet they continue to perform.


North Avenue School is part of Cofield Park, a modest neighborhood with impossibly quiet green streets.

If you've got the notion to take the slow route back from the airport give me a call and I'll help you plan a route.


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The little blonde El Nazareno Presbyterian Church, formerly Hapeville Presbyterian, is an unexpected delight. It's just south the school on Whitney Avenue.