Winston-Salem has a sense of the importance of good design, said an urban planner from Raleigh, but the city needs to continue to look at the big picture when charting its future.
Mitchell Silver, the director of the department of city planning in Raleigh, talked about "The Value of Good Design and Appearance" yesterday at the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Community Appearance Commission awards ceremony.
The ceremony, which was held at the Old Salem Visitor Center, recognized businesses, people and community groups that have helped to enhance the appearance of the city and county.
Restoring a sense of art to architecture and landscaping can help communities steer a course, Silver said, as neighborhoods become more diverse, with more single households and more people with different ideas about what is attractive.
Cities such as Winston-Salem need to recognize that attractive streets attract good architecture and that you can't cover up bad buildings with trees and landscaping, he said.
Silver showed a series of slides of Washington and Savannah as examples of cities with character, and then inserted a slide of Winston-Salem's Fourth Street with its trees and sidewalk dining and pointed out that the city holds up well next to those other cities for its sense of character.
Anne Tambling, a member of the community appearance commission, said attractive communities are about more than looking pretty or striking.
"It's about creating places that are inspiring," she said.
Among the winners of the 2009 awards were:
□ Bib's Downtown restaurant
□ BB&T Building landscaping
□ The Gallery lofts
□ The Bennett Giovanelli residence in the Sunnyside neighborhood
□ West Salem Garden Club
□ Trader's Row condominiums in the Downtown Arts District
□ Deacon Tower at Wake Forest University
□ Comer residence, in the northern part of Winston-Salem
□ North Main Street Project in Kernersville
□ Rural Hall "Garden Spot of the World" Club
□ Harold Day, a second generation painter with David E. Day Inc.
□ Ron Propst, an artist
□ Miksch & Triebel Gardens at Old Salem
□ God's Acre, Bethania
□ Trade Street
□ Winston-Salem Fire Department
□ The Gateway YWCA
mgiunca@wsjournal.com
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