Creating Places: A Citizen Observer's Look at Nashville's Built Environment


Writer's Note: William Williams' interest in the manmade environment dates to 1970, at which point the then-young Williams started a collection of postcards of city skylines. The collection now numbers 1,000-plus cards. Among the writer's specific interests are exterior building design, city district planning, demographics, signage, mixed-use development, mass transit and green/sustainable construction and living. Williams began his Creating Places column with The City Paper in February 2005. The column in its original form was discontinued in September 2008 and reinvented via this blog in November 2008. Creating Places can be found on the home page of the website of The City Paper, at which Williams has worked in various capacities since October 2000.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Pinnacle Cap Creates Visual Pop

With the exterior work almost finished for The Pinnacle at Symphony Place SoBro office tower, a key element is worth noting: the decorative cap illuminated at night. 

Most Nashville highrises offer modest (if that) tops. This design characteristic simply adds to the glaringly bland linear form of the city's skyline. Hypothetically, the AT&T Tower ("sunken" as it is on its site) rising from the lot at the southwestern corner of the Fifth Avenue and Church Street intersection would mitigate this "flatness" (as would, for that matter, Signature Tower). 

With the addition of Pinnacle, the skyline now boasts of a building with a eye-catching crowning element (either day or night), thus helping soften the visual monotony of the aforementioned skyline flatness.   

I have noticed that the Pinnacle crown is lit only on occasion. Check it out if you can. 

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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 1, 2009 at 4:54 PM

    I look forward to gazing upon its splendor during my next visit from Antwerp.

    ReplyDelete
  2. William WilliamsAugust 5, 2009 at 2:25 PM

    Anon.,

    I like the use of the word "splendor."

    WW

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 5, 2009 at 4:48 PM

    I'm sure your Pinnacle's beauty rivals that of Het Steen, the building from which we in Antwerp take great pride. Yet as the Belgian proverb states so poignantly, "The horse must graze where it is tethered." Tot kijk, my friend.

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