Metro Man: Piazza Needs Pizazz

Atlanta has a magnificent piazza to enjoy, thanks to world-renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano, the High Museum of Art and the Woodruff Arts Center, along with their benefactors. Still, I have a few thoughts that might add a little pizazz.

"Piazza" is Italian for an open space where a community passes through each day keeping tabs on each other and on what is going on. Piano is emphatic that his piazza is not a plaza. A "plaza" is a commercial space like Phipps.

To Piano, a piazza is an empty space with no function that allows visitors to be "in the moment" and to counter what he sees as a major flaw in modern life – the habit of interpreting all experience in the light of achievement, as a means to an end.

Piano thinks we should lighten up; empty, purposeless spaces might encourage that. "You don’t have to struggle to give function to every single corner," he says. "You can just wait and see and enjoy." The piazza is Piano’s favorite part of the $110 million Arts Center renovation and expansion.

Our piazza is more than an open expanse of concrete. Table 1280 restaurant is on one side, with tables and chairs under a grove of elm trees from which hang candle-lit lanterns. Outside the Wieland Pavilion across the way is additional seating under more trees with access to a cafÈ serving beverages and sweets. There are two small ponds, as well.

Next to the concrete piazza is an expansive green lawn that slopes toward Peachtree Street, where a giant gingko tree has reigned for years, dropping its bright yellow leaves each fall as if on cue from the Great Conductor. There is Roy Lichtenstein’s House III that magically moves with you as you walk by. And there is Rodin’s The Shade, cast from the original and given to Atlanta by the French in memory of the 106 Atlantans and 16 others who died at Orly Field in a 1962 plane crash.

I looked forward to the piazza opening last fall, when I would be able to gain inspiration from the beauty and activity, on my way to and from the Arts Center MARTA station.

On opening weekend, I rode my Italian scooter onto the piazza, parked it and had a coffee at an outdoor seat. I expected to be run off by security, and was pleasantly surprised to be encouraged by High Museum Director Michael Shapiro, sitting there with a guest.

Sadly, in the six months since then, the piazza has lacked the steady stream of pedestrians I expected. Maybe a little more pizazz would attract larger crowds.

The first thing I’d do is paint a wide pedestrian crosswalk on the street behind and below the piazza leading from the MARTA station. There are two new stairwells and an elevator across from the station, but pedestrians are not drawn to them and tend to walk around the Arts Center to find Peachtree Street. The piazza would be the most direct route and encourage people to experience the wonder of it.

Then I would move Robert Woodruff back to the green lawn where he resided before Piano’s addition. The Woodruff Arts Center is named for the deceased Coca-Cola philanthropist responsible for its founding. The slightly larger-than-life statue of Woodruff was moved during the renovation, and is tucked away in the shrubs and obscured by parked cars. He deserves a more prominent place of honor.

Then I’d install a giant flat-screen monitor that could be seen from the piazza. On it, I would show images from a video camera mounted atop the Arts Center, rotating to show pictures of the Atlanta skyline and the 1,000 light scoops that are the most fascinating feature of Piano’s work.

Piano designed the scoops atop the building to filter northern light so the museum’s artwork could be seen in natural light as the artists intended and would be protected from our grueling summer sun. But no one sees this artistic architectural feature. What’s more, Atlanta’s breathtaking panoramic skyline cannot be seen from the piazza.

In the meantime, I hope I see you there. 

 jerryattkisson@mindspring.com