Architecture students have been given the opportunity to transform a 1960s landmark into a modern icon for Philadelphia.
The Ed Bacon Foundation, a Philadelphia-based non-profit devoted to urban planning, announced a competition last week that asks students nationwide to redesign the Penn Center. The center is a complex near City Hall that contains offices, shops and public plazas.
Penn Architecture professor Harris Steinberg will serve as one of three judges. The winner will receive $2,000.
Though the winning plan will not necessarily become reality, the competition will hopefully "start a dialogue" about what the site could become, said Gregory Heller, president of the Ed Bacon Foundation.
Steinberg said that the Penn Center was of national significance when first built, and he hopes to see students move the space into the 21st century "without completely losing what is there now."
Heller added that other sites, such as the Delaware waterfront, were considered for the competition, but that the Penn Center was chosen because it wasn't getting the attention it deserved.
He said he hopes the competition will bring attention to Philadelphia as a whole.
Because the competition involves Philadelphia, Steinberg said he expects Penn School of Design students will enter, along with those from architecture programs at Temple, Drexel and Philadelphia universities.
Entries for the competition are not due until September, but Harris said he anticipates that most students will work on their entries over the summer. Winners will be announced in October.
He added that he hopes to see student designs that capitalize on the work of Ed Bacon, who conceived of the Penn Center in the 1960s.
Bacon, who died last year, was a professor at Penn for part of his career and is responsible for many other Philadelphia landmarks, such as Penn's Landing, Society Hill and Independence Mall.
The city and Penn have always been "inextricably linked," Steinberg said, adding that the University's planning programs affect those of the city at large.
He said he hopes the competition will "infuse new ideas" into government organizations that don't usually place projects of this sort high on their agendas.
Though this is the foundation's first student competition, Heller said he hopes to make it an annual tradition.
Eric Zaddock, president of the American Institute of Architecture Students, a nationwide association of architecture students and teachers, said competitions of this sort can lead to breakthroughs for those studying the field.
The institute runs multiple design competitions yearly and may assist the foundation on this one.
Zaddock added that such competitions' benefits are twofold: The cash prizes help students pay for their educations, and the work involved gives them valuable experiences outside of what he called "rigid" school curricula.
