That’s right – Fort Worthology recently spent the day in Big D, with the goal of taking a look at various parts of the city’s urban core, to compare and contrast urbanity in our two cities. We’re not especially big fans of Dallas here, but we’ve tried to be fair. While we’re not going to be above taking a few jabs at the city to the east, we’d also like to point out the good that Dallas has done in their quest for urban rejuvenation, in addition to the challenges still ahead of them. So, let’s smash straight into it, shall we?

We began in the logical place: Downtown Dallas.

Downtown Dallas is big. It’s fairly large in terms of surface area, and it’s tall. Downtown Fort Worth’s tallest building, that depressing slab known as Burnett Plaza, barely challenges Reunion Tower (for the unfamiliar, that’s the Ball on a Stick) in terms of height. It has a big and flashy skyline.

In fact, that’s one thing that always gets talked about when the discussion comes to Downtown Dallas – that skyline. Putting aside my tastes in architectural style, it’s undeniable that the Dallas skyline has a strong presence.

Thing is though, I’ve never been too keen on skylines. Skylines just look pretty, or they look bad. They don’t say anything about what the city actually feels like. Downtown Fort Worth doesn’t have the tallest and most imposing skyline, but it has a wonderful (for the most part) street-level feel. The same can be said of Portland, Oregon, which if anything has even less of a skyline than Fort Worth, but which has an even better streetscape. The skyline might matter to you if you spend your life on the fringe of town looking in. If you’re living in the city, though, what the buildings look like from Loop 12 or I-30 is of little consequence. You’re going to care about what they’re like up close.

And in the case of Dallas…well, let’s take a look.

Most everything in that photo above is old. It’s part of the Main Street district, which is probably the most “alive” part of Downtown Dallas. Main Street has some of the nicest and most intact pre-World War II urban fabric in Downtown.

The problem comes when one takes a look outside of Main Street. Downtown Dallas had a huge boom in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s before the crash. Unfortunately, that boom coincided with an era of architecture and urbanism that was pretty but sterile at best, and disastrous at worst. You often hear about how “dead” Downtown Dallas is compared to, say, Downtown Fort Worth – and the reason is perfectly obvious when you visit.

All those pretty, shiny towers that look so cool from the edge of town have something else in common – they are almost all horrible from an urbanism perspective.

The term “fortress office tower” describes the situation pretty well. Nearly all of Dallas’ most prominent towers are designed the same way as a 9-to-5 suburban office park, just stacked vertically. They have ground floors which are bleak, lifeless, and sometimes outright hostile to pedestrians. Most have no ground floor retail of any kind, and several are set behind large, barren modernist-style plazas away from the street. What little retail was built with these towers was built underground in the famously wrongheaded Downtown Dallas tunnel system, which allowed office workers to work, eat, and move about without ever encountering the streetscape above. At the end of the day, they get in their cars and drive home, and Downtown became a ghost town.

These towers and the sort of planning & design that went with them exemplify virtually everything that was ever done to decimate American downtowns. Everywhere you go are towers and smaller buildings designed to do anything except encourage pedestrian activity, as seen in this series of photos.

Just an office entrance and acres of polished granite and glass. If there are shops, they are almost universally hidden. This plaintive little McDonald’s sign at the Plaza of the Americas is a good example. If it weren’t for the little shopping mall kiosk out front, you’d never have a clue there was a McDonald’s in this building. (I also find it a bit interesting that the statuary is facing the building, not the street.)

Virtually all the buildings are prettied up with what James Kunstler calls “nature band-aids” – pointless little planter boxes of small flowers and shrubs that further separate the buildings from the street, but because they add “nature” they are safe from criticism. They’re a way to dress up otherwise failed urbanism and architecture. It’s an interesting contrast to genuinely masterful urbanism – take a look at the plaza in front of the Pantheon in Rome, and you’ll find very little-to-no greenery, but it’s a far more pleasant and alive space than the greenery around these fortress office towers. It’s because the architecture and urbanism does its own job of being wonderful – there’s no need to dress it up.

The end result of all these fortress towers is the same in Dallas as in every other big post-war American city – lifeless, vacant streets without much activity or energy. It’s what Downtown Fort Worth would be like today if we demolished half to three-quarters of our remaining historic buildings to put up ten or twentyfold more buildings like Burnett Plaza, Carter + Burgess Plaza, and the Bass Towers. And what’s especially sad is that despite all the genuine progress that’s being made in Downtown Dallas to make things more alive, it’s always going to be an uphill battle against these bad fortress towers, because there are so many of them and they’re not going anywhere. They’ll always be a smothering influence on the street barring costly retrofitting.

The building in the two photos above (the tower in the first one, and its base on the right in the second one) reminds me of what Fort Worth’s Federal Building would look like stretched to fifty stories (but equally as bleak from an urbanism perspective).

What I find especially baffling is that in some parts of Downtown Dallas, they’re still building new buildings that think it’s the ’80s. Take the building above, Hunt Tower. It’s brand new, a headquarters for Hunt Petroleum. I gather that a lot of Dallas architecture enthusiasts like Hunt Tower because it’s got cool swoopy curved parts and because it’s got some ridiculously elaborate night lighting scheme. I also understand that it cost an absurd amount of money, and to be fair it definitely seems to be built with very expensive materials. What struck me about it was its ground level – It’s set back from the street on one side behind this rather pointless little park/plaza that is mainly designed to be looked at – I’m guessing if you decided to hang out in it, security would shoo you away. On this side, it contributes nothing to the streetwall and the public realm – there’s no retail, and it’s set so far back that it feels more like you’re walking in a suburban office park. In fact, all of Hunt Tower feels very suburban. The other side of the building is a blank wall. Did somebody not tell Hunt that we’re generally not building things this way in downtowns anymore?

That little park-thing is just a nature band-aid. I’m sure Kunstler would also get a kick out of the flags – he’d call them “patriotic totems” designed to shield the building from criticism because hey, they love America! I’m not quite so cynical about displaying pride in one’s country, but I do find it a bit funny that so many of these anti-urban towers come equipped with flagpoles.

Above, you see the masterful way that Hunt Tower’s parking garage integrates with the urban fabric…just kidding. Above, you see how Hunt Tower’s parking garage greets the street with a blank wall and zigzagging metal mesh, all of which is then covered in some more nature band-aids. Again, I thought a city as cosmopolitan as Dallas would have moved beyond this. And can I just point out the trees real quick? They’re on the wrong. Side. Of. The. Sidewalk. Street trees in urban environments work when they’re on the outer edge of the sidewalk, shielding pedestrians from cars. Street trees up against buildings aren’t doing anything but trying to pretty up the building, while street trees on the outer edge do that as well as protecting pedestrians. Small thing, but hey, it needs to be mentioned (this is also something we still sometimes get wrong here in Fort Worth, to be fair).

I said I was going to set aside my own architectural taste for a bit, but it’s time to let it come back. There are some impressively ugly skyscrapers in Downtown Dallas. On the right, there’s the obligatory Segram Building wannabe that every big-time American city got post-war. On the left, a sliver of the dreary Sheraton Hotel, formerly the Adam’s Mark.

From what I understand, the Sheraton buildings used to be more colorful, back in their office tower days, but still…yeesh. I particularly like how the ground floor looks like a giant set of concrete fangs that might want to eat you if you get too close – not that you would, because the ground floor seems to mainly consist of black granite with nothing to see or do.

Actually, the photo above is a good illustration of what a lot of post-war Downtown Dallas is comprised of – concrete, and brown granite. So much brown granite.

Can I also say I’m not a fan of the big post-modern keyhole building up there? I know it’s pretty popular, but buildings with holes through them just don’t do it for me.

You’ll also see a lot of vacant buildings, which is a shame. Some of them are gorgeous old pre-war buildings like the high school above (as well as a gorgeous Art Deco tower I saw that’s vacant and dirty, but I hear it might be turned into a hotel), and some are immediate post-war buildings that still knew how to be properly urban.

That little building with the turquoise panels at lower right is vacant. I think that’s a shame. I actually kinda like that building. It’s got lots of ground-floor retail spaces (most of which are vacant except for what appears to be a rather disreputable convenience store), it doesn’t try to do anything weird – it’s just a cute little ’50s tower. I hope it gets saved and redeveloped.

Actually, the amount of good ’50s architecture in Downtown Dallas is one thing I wish we had in Fort Worth. The ’50s still saw people who knew to bring their buildings up to the street and put retail in the ground floor, and some ’50s urban buildings are quite cool. That’s another advantage Dallas has, though I hope their preservationists understand the resource they have and don’t let it slip further away.

Apparently, the ’50s era Republic Tower above is now apartments. Not my particular cup of tea, but I can’t hate that building. It’s got decent ground floor retail and it has a rocket-thing on top, and hey – ’50s rocket things are nifty. Dallas has some interesting ’50s architecture that’s not without merit. I hope more of it gets saved like this.

Spotted in a bizarre-looking ’60s building – those chairs and that table have got to be original. Somebody might have watched the moon landing in those.

Another interesting building is this office tower turned lofts called the Mosaic. Whoever was involved in this had a very appropriate sense of style, and they used a great neon sign and other post-war details to finish out the loft conversion. Well done.

While we’re at the Mosaic, let’s try Opening Bell Coffee, in one of the building’s ground-floor retail spaces. Opening Bell is an indie coffee shop (though the decor is somewhat reminiscent of a Starbucks), which serves up their coffee, food, and live music alongside a large stock ticker. While it’s somewhat depressing these days, it’s kind of a neat gimmick and adds some visual spark to things. I tried a scone and a caramel latte, and both were very tasty. If you find yourself in Downtown Dallas and want a coffee shop fix, I’d say go give Opening Bell a try. They seem like quality people.

This ’70s office tower has gone residential, much like our own Tower, though I have to say – keeping the ’70s brown glass? Really? Wouldn’t have been my first choice. Apparently, it will soon be joined by a park in front of the building, but for now the site of that park is one of the many surface parking lots in Downtown Dallas.

Yeah, there are still a lot of surface parking lots in downtown. Rather than demolishing their stock of historic buildings further, I hope that new development in Downtown Dallas will start to gradually reclaim those lots.

I’m a little tired of talking about the bad for now, so here’s some good. What historic buildings remain in Downtown Dallas are often very lovely. This church, for example, is great.

Adjoining the church itself is another great old building.

Back in the Main Street district, there’s plenty of beauty to see. The Gulf States Building is lofts now. Classy old tower.

This building across the street (sorry, Dallas fans, I’m not up on all my building names) is quite stunning with its Gothic detailing. I understand that it is now lofts as well.

The Adolphus is a stunner. That detail work is gorgeous.

The Magnolia is also beautiful, and kudos for the restoration of the Pegasus sign on the roof. Such a cool touch – rooftop signs like that are something I wish we had more of in Fort Worth.

There are some beautiful little small-scaled buildings on Main as well, such as this building near the Neiman Marcus.

Quite a lot of the old buildings could stand a good, stiff power washing.

Main Street streetscape. Dallas has longer blocks than Fort Worth, which aren’t quite as good from a walkability standpoint (and let the modernists and post-modernists go nuts with overscaled junk in the ’60s, ’70s, and into the ’80s), so at a couple of points along Main there are mid-block crosswalks to help pedestrians navigate. Drivers don’t always seem to yield, though.

This little church on Main is…interesting, to say the least. And I believe in the background is the Praetorian Building, which is actually a lovely pre-war building under all that blank metal paneling. Would love to see it restored one of these days.

This building is called the Wilson Building, and it’s one of my favorites in Dallas. It’s just beautiful. I understand that it is now apartments as well.

Across the street from the Wilson is the Mercantile Tower, which is also now apartments (though apparently pretty pricey ones). I like the Merc (and its clock), though it’s a little more plain than I like my ’40s towers. Still very glad to see that it is back in action and fully restored. The ground-floor spaces of the Merc are still vacant – didn’t see any signs of anything new going in there.

Actually, this is a good point to talk about that building to the left of the Merc in this photo – the Comerica Tower, one of Philip Johnson’s buildings.

I’ll just say it now: Comerica Tower is the only big ’70s/’80s tower in Downtown Dallas that I like. The only one. All of the rest of them that contribute to the much-praised Dallas skyline are pretty overrated at best, IMHO, but Johnson’s building is different. I really do think this is a beauty. It’s easily the most elegant and attractive big tower in Dallas and one of the best in the entire state. Yes, it’s a “fortress” as well, with no ground-floor retail – though apparently, Johnson wanted to put retail in, but his clients didn’t want “common people” coming to the building, something along those lines, so Johnson removed the retail. With Comerica’s purchase of the building, though, I understand that they are now putting ground-floor retail in. What used to be a typically unfortunate ’80s business plaza on one side of the building is being torn up for a restaurant space. Good for Comerica and good for the building. Philip Johnson, you did well.

Actually, this might be heretical to say, but I think a lot of Johnson’s best work was during his post-modern period. It’s when he did this, and when he did the Crescent (which we’ll get to later), and several other interesting buildings. I prefer post-modern Philip Johnson over any other iteration.

Also nearby is the flagship Neiman Marcus store. I’d love to have a department store back in Downtown Fort Worth, and I’m glad Neiman’s has kept the store open all this time. It’s also a lovely building…on the outside. Inside, it’s rather disappointing. It looks like any other Neiman Marcus you might find in a mall. There’s no sense of it being special, really. A bit of a disappointment for the “flagship” store and pretty much the last downtown department stores you’ll find anywhere around here.

After ragging on Hunt Tower so much, I have to give genuine credit to this new loft building on Main. This, Dallas – this is how you do urban buildings. It’s sleek and modern without being cold and sterile, it hides its parking well, and it’s got great street interaction and plenty of retail space. It’s a building I’d be honored to have in Downtown Fort Worth. This is a great addition to Dallas and I’m glad to see it.

Now, we’re going to head to the starchitect-fueled madness of the Arts District, and to do it, we’re taking a DART light rail train. This is another place where I will happily admit that Dallas has it all over Fort Worth. If there is one thing I would say that Dallas genuinely does better than Fort Worth, this is absolutely it. DART’s trains are smooth, pleasant, efficient, and are a driving force behind a lot of the life in urban Dallas. Lots of new development has occurred along them. Dallas, hear me now, because Mr. Fort Worth here is freely admitting it: you are kicking our tails in terms of transit. Very, very well done.

It’s a taste of what is to come with Fort Worth’s modern streetcar system, though in terms of development and encouraging real urban living booms I think our streetcar will be even bigger if similar systems like Portland and Seattle are any indication. The streetcars will be able to get right into the heart of things more than the DART trains (with their dedicated right-of-way, bigger stations, and longer trains). It’s not really all that fair to compare the two, though – DART’s trains and our streetcar aren’t intended for the same purposes. DART light rail fills many of the same functions that our own Southwest-to-Northeast will fill in a slightly different form. In fact, Dallas is looking at building its own modern streetcar system. Streetcars and light rail are compliments of each other, not competitors.

Getting off at Pearl, let’s head to the Arts District.

Approaching the Arts District, one gets a view of this gorgeous church. I think this is one of my favorite buildings in Downtown Dallas, and I’m a bit amazed it survived. What’s even more impressive is that the bell tower there is new – it was built just a few years ago using the original plans which were never built when the church first opened. It’s very nearly seamless. All in all a very impressive project.

Even the dreary Trammel Crow tower can’t hold down that church. Such a beauty.

Then, you hit…

…the infamous Lone Star Tower site.

What you’re seeing are the remains of an ’80s fortress tower that got underway just before the great bust in real estate. After getting the underground garage built and starting to rise on the tower portion of the building, the developer gave up and the site has been sitting like this ever since, a dreary concrete Stonehenge and a full-block dead space in the Arts District. The garage is used for parking, but the site is so ugly and depressing that it’s hard to see how it has remained this way for so long. Word is that the current owner wants to build an office tower on the site, but I gather it’s one of those “I’ll believe it when I see it” sort of things.

Enough of that. I described the Arts District earlier as a “starchitect-fueled madness,” and here’s our first example. It’s I. M. Pei’s Meyerson Symphony Center. Now, I consider Pei to be one of the most overrated architects of all time, and the Meyerson’s not doing anything to change that opinion. I’m sure it is wonderful as a concert hall, very functional, but egads. It’s confused and alienating on the outside. I don’t even want to start any comparisons with Bass Hall, because Dallas architecture critics are almost violent about David Schwarz, so I’ll just say this: the Meyerson is cold and too impersonal.

I’ve never quite understood the value Dallas places on being “progressive” and “cutting edge” in architecture, but that feeling seeps out of nearly every corner of the city’s urban areas. Fashion is rarely timeless. The Meyerson just comes across to me as Pei getting another chance to play with his beloved geometric solids. There’s little about the building that seems interested in people, from its blank walls to its oversized plaza to its random swooshes to the vague sculptures in the plaza (which I want to think are just exhaust pipes for an underground garage given a couple of geegaws to make them into sculpture).

I’m sure the vast, empty lobby and glass walls around it make the building a blast to cool when the setting Texas sun beams in. Pei’s office has cranked out some of the worst examples of inhumane architecture, though I will say that the Meyerson is probably the best thing he did in Dallas.

From every angle, I can’t help but think the Meyerson is spectacularly ugly. I’m sure it looks great in the pages of D when the beautiful people come to visit it. I also find its presence in what Dallas architecture folks say they are trying to make a vibrant urban setting to be rather unfortunate, because the Meyerson is one of the most anti-urban buildings in the district.

From one approach, the Meyerson is set back behind a far too large plaza filled with some of the most unappealing and uncomfortable-looking furniture I’ve ever seen. This windswept space, which makes little sense because there’s nothing else in the Arts District that has yet made any sort of urban form for the plaza to relate to, just makes the building seem all the more impersonal. From virtually every other side, though, the Meyerson presents these to the street:

(The antenna’s a nice touch, I think.)

The Meyerson would work nicely in a vacuum. As a cornerstone of an urban district, it’s terrible.

A brief diversion before the rest of the Arts District – I just have to prod the works of Pei a bit more. He also did Dallas City Hall, seen above. Dallas City Hall is…well, I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve got to say that’s one of the worst buildings I have ever seen. Nothing about it works – it’s brutally ugly, it’s completely anti-urban, and it doesn’t even make much sense from a functionality perspective. And it’s sited behind what has to be one of the largest and most horribly barren plazas in the United States. Crossing that plaza (which I couldn’t even hope to get in one photo with the equipment I had) just to get to that building seems cruel. I find it incredibly appropriate that the makers of “RoboCop,” when they wanted a depressing distopyian office building, took Dallas City Hall and matte-painted dozens of more floors on top.

Pei also did this…

Fountain Place, which skyscraper enthusiasts hail as a masterpiece but which I’ve always found pretty pointless. And it’s another blank-ground floor building that also has the benefit of being up on stilts.

Anyway, back to the Arts District.

One would hope that the new stuff going up in the Arts District would help turn the tide, but one would be disappointed. That’s because the two biggest new developments in the Arts District are 100% pure starchitect showoffs.

Look upon the face of madness. That is the Wyly Theater, under construction now and designed by the much-praised starchitect/insane person Rem Koolhaas. When complete, it’s not going to look that much different – it’s a giant cube covered in pipes and wire up on stilts above the Arts District. From the renderings, it also appears that it will have a sunken plaza (because those have worked out so well in the history of urban design) on one side. Or something. Sometimes, figuring out Koolhaas designs only leads to mental breakdowns. (If you’re familiar with the Seattle Public Library, the slanted glass behemoth destroying all sense of place around it in downtown Seattle, looking like some sort of Star Wars droid carrier made out of slanted Gillette razor blades, that’s a Koolhaas as well.)

I should probably just move on. I try to be nice, I really do, but I absolutely hate that building. I’m sure it will be innovative in a million ways and win all sorts of architectural awards, but egads – it’s awful, in so many ways. Inhuman, mechanical, cold, sterile, alienating…it makes the Meyerson seem positively cuddly by comparison.

I’m out. Let’s take a look at the Winspear across the street.

Sigh. Actually, to be fair, I think the Winspear will probably be the best of the big starchitecty things in the Arts District. It’s still lacking in a lot of ways, but it seems from what I’ve seen to be a lot more inviting than the Meyerson or the Wyly. The sun shield extending out over its plaza space (another plaza? That strikes me as rather pointless when there’s no urban form at all in the Arts District) is an interesting touch. Norman Foster, congrats. I’d probably hate this thing if it were going up in a coherent urban setting, but next to the madness of the Wyly this thing is positively lovely. The fact that you are not a tenth as crazy as Koolhaas has worked in your favor.

At one end of the Arts District is One Arts, the home of 7-Eleven. I wanted to go check it out, but time dictated that we move along. It was also tough to get to with all the construction going on. From what I’ve seen on other visits, though, One Arts strikes me as a decent building. I don’t think it’s a particularly attractive building, but it’s nothing too offensive and it has ground-level retail space. It also apparently has another plaza, but in this setting it actually makes sense. It’s a terminus of the street and a significantly sized & place structure, and a plaza there would probably work pretty well. It would work even better if every single other building in this part of the district didn’t have its own plaza and instead actually maintained some sort of coherent urban form for the One Arts plaza to play off of, but that’s not going to happen. Starchitects don’t do coherent urbanity – they do big set pieces which behave as though they’re in a vacuum.

Heading west in the Arts District, I couldn’t help but notice this…object. I assume this is meant as some sort of park, maybe, but it’s one of the least appealing parks I’ve ever seen. It’s just this thing, sitting in the middle of an unlandscaped, ratty-looking patch of grass between one of the Meyerson’s blank walls and a sunken freeway. When modern planners specify “open space,” this is the sort of pointless exercise that often results.

This is Renzo Piano’s Nasher Sculpture Center. Probably my favorite cultural building in the Arts Distrct. It’s intimate, open, and friendly (though even it has a few too many blank walls). And it comes right up to the street instead of sitting behind another pointless plaza! By far the most engaging structure in the Arts District, IMHO.

Hopefully, this bodes well for Piano’s Kimbell expansion here in Fort Worth. He seems markedly less insane than his fellow starchitects.

At the other end of the street is the Dallas Museum of Art, a depressing concrete thing that reminds me of what pharaohs would be buried in if the ancient Egyptians were Brutalists. Which makes the King Tut exhibit all the more appropriate, I suppose. Naturally, to get to the door one must cross this empty space, though it’s not all plaza…

…it’s also valet parking! Classy.

Depressed yet?

This space particularly puzzled me. It looks like it was designed to let you wander in and get to the museum through a sculpture garden, but it’s all fenced off now. Weird mixed messages, and not particularly inviting.

Across the street, another fortress office tower.

Now we’re going to catch the McKinney Avenue vintage streetcar into Uptown. While waiting, one must stand between what you see above, and this:

There are parts of Downtown Dallas that are cool and interesting. There are other parts (too many parts) where you feel everybody was intentionally trying to make you feel depressed. The current Downtown terminus of the M-Line streetcar is one of the latter kind.

Here it comes! The streetcar is free to ride, though donations are accepted.

I totally get the appeal of the M-Line’s vintage cars, especially for tourists. I do think that getting modern streetcars on the line would make people think of it more as a serious transportation tool than as a tourist shuttle. The vintage cars are loud & rattly, and not especially smooth. They are cool and fun for what they are, but at times I think the area cries out for modern rolling stock.

We decided to start with the West Village and work our way through the rest of Uptown.

West Village has a lot of negative connotations for Dallas architecture critics, because the heart of it (but far from its entirety) is a development designed by David Schwarz, prolific traditionalist and New Urbanist planner. I can hear the cries now: Too traditional! (Ooh, scary!) Not “of our time!” (Who made you the arbiter of history?) Pastiche! (As though that’s an insult.) Disneyland! (Hardly.) Fake urbanism! (Not the case.) Too clean! (Heaven forbid!) Etc. etc. etc.

Folks, I’ve never made a secret about my fondness for Mr. Schwarz’s work. I’m a traditionalist. I’m weary of hearing the same played-out criticisms used again and again, especially in the face of one indisputable fact: West Village works. From a perspective of urbanism – not even counting architectural style – this is perhaps one of the most successful places in the entire city of Dallas. The spaces and streetscapes of West Village are completely successful. The play between Schwarz’s more traditional designs and some of the more contemporary styles employed by other developers around the neighborhood are fun. The uses are mixed. There’s ground-floor retail aplenty. The sidewalks are comfortable. There’s a streetcar running right through it and a DART station at one end. There’s nothing “fake” about the urbanism here – this is successful placemaking and it should be celebrated as an example of how to do things right.

It’s not perfect – no place really is – but it’s remarkably vibrant and attractive. The building shown above is one of my favorites – it’s a Schwarz building. It’s classy and has a great presence, and the brick & stone giving it a solid air that helps hold the corner. It’s got great presence without calling attention to itself – a great urban “background” building.

Even on this cold & breezy day West Village was buzzing. One gets the feeling that while this didn’t start out as a “genuine” neighborhood (whatever that means), it has definitely become one, with thousands of residences giving the neighborhood a lively feel.

Retail tenants are an interesting mix of national and local. And there’s actual retail, too – it’s not just restaurants. There’s even groceries down the street, albeit in an old suburban-style Albertson’s, a relic of the area’s pre-West Village days.

Perhaps the biggest gap in the neighborhood is the golf range in the middle of everything, but I understand that it will be closing at some point to be replaced with more mixed-use buildings.

Some of the residential units are rental, and some are for purchase, which ensures an interesting mix of life. The units on the second floor of this building are for purchase. I liked the tilework on this building.

The central block is divided up by narrow interior streets with wide sidewalks. While there is a lot of car traffic in the West Village, it never feels uncomfortable.

I also liked the Mondrian tower (seen in a previous photo) and its accompanying low-rise section. The variety of architecture in West Village makes for an eclectic feel, but it’s all very urban and pedestrian-focused.

Every great urban neighborhood ought to have a bike shop, and the West Village’s is seen at lower right.

It was a bit chilly for outdoor dining, but inside, this place (Village Burger Bar) was absolutely packed.

This little building was left in the development and added further eclecticism.

West Village is also home to one of Dallas’ arthouse theaters, the Magnolia. It’s a lovely building and a great anchor for the neighborhood – as Downtown Fort Worth’s Palace adds life to the street, so does the Magnolia, but the Magnolia has the added benefit of bringing a little more culture as well with its art films. The building also has ground-floor retail so the streetscape is not disturbed.

The Mondrian behind one of the smaller loft buildings.

The neighborhood has a great sense of enclosure.

We had paninis at Village Burger Bar for lunch. The place was crammed full of people, and the food was quite good. Sitting at the bar had the added benefit of watching the bartender mixing drinks – Long Island Ice Tea was popular that day, it seemed.

We hopped back on the M-Line and went back down a little on McKinney. I wanted to take a trip through the State-Thomas neighborhood.

We wandered around on McKinney a while before heading into State-Thomas. McKinney reminds me of Magnolia here in Fort Worth, but with more infill and a streetcar. It’s an interesting place and has a cool feel.

This apartment building with the curved corner, I thought, was particularly cool. Across the street was this:

A condo building with a curved corner. The two complimentary buildings gave the intersection an interesting look.

Into State-Thomas. From what I gather, this neighborhood was originally mostly classic old early 20th century homes, before a huge section of it was replaced with four-to-six story infill apartments & condos.

I love the density and most of the streetscapes in State-Thomas, but some of the buildings are head-scratchers. There’s a bit too much blank ground floor action in places, and some of the actual designs are just bad:

I mean, really? What especially irks me about that building is that that sort of crap is what Modernists want people to think actual traditional-minded architects like David Schwarz and others do. It isn’t, though – what you see above is what happens when people who don’t get genuine traditional architecture and urbanism try to do something “traditional.” You get weird brick and giant owls. That’s the kind of cartoonish half-hearted crap I don’t like. Compare to Schwarz’s well-proportioned, elegant, and tasteful work in the West Village and the differences are obvious.

Most of the buildings in State-Thomas are all residential, but some have ground-floor retail, mainly those in the center of the neighborhood. There’s dry cleaners and barber shops in addition to a couple of restaurant/bar type places.

A handful of old commercial buildings remain.

As you move through the neighborhood you also stumble into parts that haven’t been razed for new infill, and the old homes are much like what you’d find in, say, Fairmount.

Moving back to McKinney to catch the streetcar again, here’s Jake’s – they’re going into the Shamrock Building in Downtown Fort Worth.

I thought this little triangular building was cute. One wonders how long it will remain.

Next, we took a trip to the Crescent, the huge and lavish ’80s development by Philip Johnson, deep in the heart of his post-modern period. The Crescent is comprised of three structures – an office tower, a shorter hotel, and an even shorter retail building.

The Crescent’s not perfect – it still has that ’80s-ness about it, and some of its street interaction is lacking – but I do find it a fascinating and, yes, even attractive development in many ways. It’s always interested me how Johnson slipped into such a strong post-modernist style for a part of his career, and the Crescent is definitely one of the more unique developments that came out of it.

Across the street from the Crescent is Rosewood Court, a brand-new office building…and it’s also built like an ’80s fortress tower. What the heck, Dallas? It’s sited out behind a big barren plaza that I think also doubles as a car turn-around, and it’s ringed by lame little suburban-style ribbon sidewalks. The only retail is a restaurant space located at the back of the building down a side street in what looks to be the parking structure.

Also across the street is the Ashton, a luxury apartment building that has better street interaction and more retail space.

Also across from the Crescent are these two buildings…

This is the Ritz hotel & condos, designed by Robert A. M. Stern. I love these two buildings. Stern is great at these classic-style towers and I love the way they’re turning out. I’m also a bit jealous – Dallas gets these towers, which have such a neat “New York 1920s” vibe to them, and the only thing Stern’s office has done in Fort Worth is the comparatively lacking GrandMarc at TCU.

Also across the street from the Crescent and the Ritz, bafflingly, is Uptown Plaza. Your eyes are not deceiving you – that is a suburban strip mall, across the street from two of Uptown’s biggest landmarks. W. T. F? And no, that’s not old and a remnant of Uptown’s pre-infill days – that thing is just a few years old. This is the Dallas version of the strip mall behind Montgomery Plaza. What a weird and unfortunate thing to go on one of the most prominent corners in Uptown.

Finally, we headed for Victory Park.

I’d been hearing how Victory wasn’t doing so hot lately, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality. Victory is indeed pretty dead-feeling these days.

Above is the W Hotel. I’ve never cared for the W. From its weird little baseball-cap helipad to its odd massing, I’ve always found it rather awkward. Getting a good look at it up close, I like it even less now. Its HUGE SMOTHERING GARAGE deadens the building, even with the ground-floor retail. And this is its good side. On the other side is…

…that. Thanks, W.

In the middle of the development are these mid-rise buildings. I actually like these buildings quite a bit. They’re made primarily of brick, which gives them more warmth and texture than all the concrete & glass of the rest of Victory and make them more relatable. They’re more attractive in scale, and above the ground-floor retail are actual apartments and condos, rather than the cold hand of a parking garage. Apart from the AAC, I’d say these are the two best buildings in Victory from the perspective of urbanity and placemaking. I like them a great deal.

Of course, one gets the impression that Victory’s handlers are more concerned about being hip and posh than about making a great place.

As one walks around Victory, one sense that the “posh” attitude might have worked against things. There are a lot of vacant spots in Victory, where hip luxury shops & restaurants once were.

Note the “Wine Bar” signage listed as “coming soon.” One almost gets the impression that “Wine Bar” is just something the developer put up to make it appear as though there is more interest in the development than there actually is – it’s one of those “just vague enough to be true” sort of signs.

Apart from the two midrises and the AAC, the architecture in Victory is pretty sterile. While the expensive nature of their tenants didn’t help, I think it would be a mistake not to see that the sterility of the development is not helping things.

This is The House, a new condo tower featuring interiors by trendy French designer Philippe Starck. I hope the interiors are amazing, because frankly, the exterior looks like somebody cross-bred the W and a ’70s public housing tower.

The House conceals its parking better than the W, though there’s still obviously something going on there.

One bedrooms start at $399,900, two bedrooms at $794,900, and 3 bedrooms at $1,576,900. It must be said, it looks better – and much less concrete-y – on the Web site’s rendering than the finished product does.

This office tower just opened. It also strikes me as rather cold and sterile.

I have to say something about this, which I gather is the “Park” in Victory Park. It’s a small patch of green between one of the midrises and the office tower. What’s weird about it is that it has a wall around one side, so that you cannot enter the park except from the side that faces the midrise. That’s a weird, and rather dumb, design choice, and not particularly urban.

This is the Cirque, an apartment building that recently opened. It does a better job concealing its parking than either the W or the House, and of the parade of sterile glass & concrete towers in Victory, I think this one is the best. It has a little bit of flair to it that the others are missing. It actually looks its best here – if you’re farther away and looking into Victory, it actually comes across as a bit dull. Still not a bad building, and it does have a fairly large ground-floor retail space.

Finally, we come to the romantically named AT&T Plaza in front of the AAC. The plaza buildings are kind of blah – the sides of them facing the plaza basically exist just as a delivery system those giant screens and don’t ever really make much of an impression. The plaza’s also maybe just a touch too big. It’s not a bad space, though.

The American Airlines Center, meanwhile, seems to be saying, “don’t look at me, folks. I tried my best. People like me. I can’t help what they built around me.” I know it’s a big surprise (that’s sarcasm), but I like the AAC. It’s a pretty building and it’s quite urban considering what it is, and it’s the only building in Victory that has any sort of stylistic connection with the old industrial structures that used to be on the site. Modernist critics like to deride Schwarz’s work for being “fake,” but frankly, the entirety of the rest of Victory comes across as much more fake to me than the AAC does. If the development was more like the AAC and those two midrise buildings, I think it would be more successful – not to mention getting some retail tenants that gave some variety in terms of pricing.

It’s all about the street. Yes, even I admit that a good modernist building on an otherwise traditional street can be exciting and interesting. Thing is, once you keep banging the modernism gong over…and over…and over again, you get the boring deadness you see in Victory. If you stand somewhere that keeps you from seeing the AAC, Victory is basically “graygraygraygraygraygrayBLUEBLUEgraygraygraygrayBLUEgraygraygraygrayBLUEBLUEgraygrayBLUEBLUEBLUEgraygraygray.” Would it have been so bad if Hillwood had pulled their heads out of their copies of Dwell long enough to let Schwarz, Stern, or…anybody…design something that would add a little more life to this place?

I also understand that there aren’t nearly as many residences built by this point as what retailers were promised. That’s undoubtedly not helping the tenant situation. Perhaps less of a focus on “signature towers” (and frankly, in Victory, the only thing that needed to be “signature” was the AAC – the rest would have been better served by “background buildings” like the midrises) and more of a focus on density-increasing (and faster/cheaper to build) midrises might have been a good idea.

Another thing that would have made the development more interesting was if the nearby DART station had bee placed in the middle of the development, rather than on the periphery separated by parking lots. I understand that DART wanted it to run through the development, but Hillwood put the kibosh on that plan, perhaps in fear of allowing the “wrong people” to come through. I don’t know, but what’s done is done. Opening the DART station for more than just special events would help as well.

Before we head back to Fort Worth, there is just one more thing.

I took the opportunity to check out the Oak Cliff Spiral Diner before heading home. I must admit to a certain satisfaction that Fort Worth gave Dallas something cool, rather than something from Dallas coming over to Fort Worth.

Spiral Dallas is very good on its own, though for a long-time patron of the original here in Fort Worth, it’s a little weird. Spiral here on Magnolia feels like a second living room to most of us dedicated fans, and everybody knows your name. At Spiral Dallas, everything was just a little “off,” like it was Bizarro Spiral Diner, and since we’d never been before nobody knew us. It’s not our world, though – this is Oak Cliff’s Spiral. We have our own.

So, what did we learn on this trip? For all the ragging I’ve done on Dallas today, I want to stress that they are doing a lot of things right as well. DART’s light rail is fantastic, and they’re working on a modern streetcar system as well. The M-Line is great, even if it is a bit less effective than a modern system would be. Uptown in general seems to be doing very well, especially along McKinney into West Village. Around the Crescent could be more urban – there’s still symptoms of a quasi-suburban/fortress tower mindset in that part of Uptown, which is unfortunate. And the sooner somebody plows down that ridiculous Uptown Plaza strip mall for something worthwhile, the better. McKinney Avenue has a quirky kind of charm that I enjoyed, and the West Village is an obvious wild success, both in terms of activity and in terms of urbanism and placemaking.

Downtown Dallas has come a long way, though it still has a ways to go. The smothering effect of so many of those fortress towers is a tough hill to climb, but in places – primarily the Main Street district – you see the potential that downtown has. If all new Dallas infill was as well-done as the new loft building we saw on Main, it will have a better future ahead. Stop trying to impress architecture critics and start worrying about making a great place. Make strong efforts to preserve and reuse historic buildings (including those from the ’50s).

Of everything we saw in Dallas, Victory is perhaps my least favorite. It’s gone down this one-note path of super-pricey tenants, signature towers over bigger density, and sterile modernism, and it’s become an unpleasant and boring place because of it. The best things about Victory aren’t the parade of concrete & glass skyscrapers – they’re the AAC and those midrises, the buildings with texture and better scale that come across as actual buildings rather than towers standing on parking garages. Somewhere in Victory is the seed of a great place, but it’s smothered by the need to try to get on the covers of both design magazines and celebrity gossip rags.

Fact of the matter is, I’ve never been a Dallas person. That being said, I’m encouraged by the positive steps Dallas takes towards becoming more urban. We can learn from them, and they can learn from us (even though a lot of them don’t want to admit that). It’s important that both Fort Worth and Dallas become better places as the Metroplex barrels forward into the future, and we should celebrate their progress.

Though next time, I might bring a sack lunch. It’s what Amon Carter would have wanted.