Public Events :: Watefront Symposium

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Symposium Puts Cleveland's Waterfront in Global Perspective
CUDC Quarterly, 1:4 (Summer, 2001)

The Urban Design Center’s Symposium on Waterfront Design was the culmination of a busy two-day visit by an international trio of designers. They were invited to share their expertise on the problems of urban waterfronts with students, professionals and policy makers in Cleveland. Rinio Bruttomesso, David Gordon and Richard Marshall arrived in time to catch a few winks before touring the Cleveland waterfront on the morning of May 4. They spent the afternoon looking at the designs for Cleveland’s downtown waterfront produced in Maurizio Sabini’s first year graduate studio, and they were then kept up much too late in a lively dinner conversation about, among other things, the merits of Daniel Burnham and the City Beautiful Movement.

The symposium itself was held Saturday at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. The morning session featured lectures by Professors Bruttomesso, Gordon and Marshall.

Rinio Bruttomesso, Director of the Venice-based International Centre for Cities on Water, presented a series of European examples. David Gordon, Professor at Queen’s University in Ontario, spoke primarily about North American cases. While their points of departure were very different, there were some instructive points in common. It turns out that Cleveland’s case is not at all unique. Many cities–even very old ones–have waterfronts shaped by industrial uses that, becoming obsolete in the last few decades, have left behind a confused and often inaccessible environment at water’s edge.

David Gordon gave a blow-by-blow account of just how difficult it can be to remedy this situation. Discussing Battery Park City in New York and the redevelopment of Toronto’s waterfront, with which he was directly involved, he demonstrated the importance of finding the right mix of planning strategies, public authority and design smarts to get waterfront development started. In many ways it was a sobering story, as both New York and Toronto had a key ingredient Cleveland conspicuously lacks, a robust real estate market.

Richard Marshall, who teaches at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, added a different perspective, suggesting that successful urban waterfront design needs to think through the aesthetics of leftover and "in-between" places. Pointing to the successful efforts of Bilbao and Barcelona, among others, he stressed the importance of site-specific strategies that celebrate the unique qualities created by the interaction of geography and industrial development.

For the afternoon session, the speakers and moderator Maurizio Sabini were joined by a panel of local respondents: Genevieve Ray, President of the Cleveland Waterfront Coalition, City Planning Director Hunter Morrison, County Planning Director Paul Alsenas, and David Goss of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association. The discussion ranged too widely to summarize, but returned frequently to two points: What pieces of the waterfront development puzzle is Cleveland still lacking, and what should be the scope of waterfront planning? Is it just the downtown waterfront, or is some more regional approach needed?

It’s difficult to draw too many conclusions from such a wide-ranging dialogue, but at least one good lesson comes to mind. Looking at urban waterfronts in a wider perspective, it’s apparent that Cleveland is not as unique or as negligent as we often think. The masochistic habit of comparing Cleveland’s waterfront only with Chicago’s isn’t especially productive, because Chicago’s is a unique case that can’t be replicated. On the other hand, examples from around the world suggest that Cleveland’s situation affords the possibility of achieving public access to a waterfront that could have a variety and excitement lacking in the passive greenery of Chicago’s City Beautiful solution.

(from left) Rinio Bruttomesso, Maurizio Sabini, David Gordon and Richard Marshall.

Respondents Genevieve Ray and Hunter Morrison in one of the symposium’s lighter moments.