Penn’s Landing Square

This article is part of Never Modern, a series curated by Hidden Architecture where we explore the conditions of several urban projects from 1950s onwards that, starting from the hypothesis of the Modern Movement, they surpassed its orthodoxy to adapt the urban features to local conditions. Este articulo es parte de Never Modern (Nuca Modernos), una serie comisariada por Hidden Architecture donde exploramos las condiciones de varios proyectos urbanos de 1950 en adelante en los que partiendo de las hipótesis del Movimiento Moderno, se superaron la ortodoxia de varios postulados para adaptar sus características urbanas a las condiciones locales. The challenge to rebuild a part of a historical city center with a modern or contemporary language appears trying to combine the infinite layers that city creates for a long time in a single urban intervention. Penn's Landing square, located in the neighborhood of Society Hill in Philadelphia, is paradigmatic project because of the respectful adaptation to existing fabric, but also for the creation of a complex spatial organization of the exterior semi-public areas between the different residential typologies. La dificultad de reconstruir parte de un centro histórico con un lenguaje moderno aparece al tratar de combinar la infinidad de capas que la ciudad va creando a lo largo del tiempo en una sola intervención urbana. El caso de Penn's Landing Square, situado en el barrio de Society Hill en Filadelfia, es paradigmático, no solo por una adaptación respetuosa a la fábrica existente, sino por la creación de una organización espacial compleja de áreas exteriores semipúblicas entre las distintas tipologías residenciales. Map of Society Hill in 1886 by McFetridge Society Hill is a historic neighborhood of Philadelphia. located between the Delaware river, South St, the Carpenter City Hall and Washington Square.