Beautification Edition - 1736 Magazine, Summer 2019

event seemed to reflect the community’s
yearning for action:
“The delight expressed by Augusta
citizens at the public showing of
the Broad Street revamp plans
Wednesday was tinged with a
moody pessimism that these
plans would wind up like so many
others – moldering on a shelf.”
But Pei’s plans didn’t molder;
the Augusta City Council unanimously
approved the $4 million
revitalization concepts – $20.8
million in today’s dollars – just a
week after the public unveiling.
Meanwhile, Pei’s firm plowed
ahead with the modernization plan
for Holley’s building – a pyramidshaped
rooftop penthouse whose
abundant use of glass panes were
in sharp contrast to the building’s
Beaux Arts-style architecture.
Holley exaggerated the incongruent
structure, completed in 1976,
even more by placing a large illuminated
cross at the top that could
be seen for miles.
Pei’s cubist design for the city’s
civic center – which relied on an
internal steel skeleton called a
“space frame” – also raised eyebrows.
Bids for the project came
in at $15 million because contractors
said the unorthodox design
couldn’t be built under its $12
million budget.
The renowned architect’s ambitious
urban creations must have
seemed like a cruel joke when the
near-simultaneous opening of
Augusta’s two suburban shopping
malls in 1978 virtually ground
downtown commerce to a halt for
most of the next two decades.
Broad Street’s unique parking
bays went largely unused, as did
the new L-shaped parking deck at
Ninth and Ellis streets. The deck
today primarily serves as a parking
lot for employees of the Richmond
County Board of Education –
which moved downtown in
2003 – but the submerged bays are
slated for removal under an
I.M. Pei [FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE]
I.M. PEI — AT A GLANCE
Born: April 26, 1917, Guangzhou,
Republic of China
Died: May 16, 2019, New York City
Education:
University of Pennsylvania
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Harvard University
Firms:
I.M. Pei & Associates 1955–2019
I.M. Pei & Partners 1966–2019
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners 1989–2019
Family: Wife, Eileen Woo; four children
Notable Buildings:
• John F. Kennedy Library, Boston
• National Gallery of Art East
Building, Washington, D.C.
• Louvre Pyramid, Paris
• Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong
• Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar
• Hancock Tower, Boston
• Jacob K. Javits Convention Center,
New York City
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Cleveland
• Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas
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