Inga Saffron

Inga Saffron is the Architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Read Inga's blog Skyline Online
Latest post: Local Community College Bests Big-Name Schools - 12/04/2008
Email Inga at isaffron@phillynews.com

Rendering of the sixth-floor public plaza and outdoor garden of the proposed American Commerce Center, with a view to the Arch Street Presbyterian Church and the city skyline.

Changing Skyline: Arch St.'s a bad place for ultra-tall and dense tower

By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic

Posted 2:29am

tly, fans swarmed the meeting room, hoisting printed signs as if they were rally towels.

Local Community College Bests Big-Name Schools

Changing Skyline: Cuts weren't in Carnegie's library plans - 11/21/2008: By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

Sure, Andrew Carnegie was a robber baron who built the formidable business empire that became U.S. Steel. But most Americans probably know him as the guy who went from town to town, scattering public libraries the way Johnny Appleseed planted trees.
Changing Skyline: A lovely city park is threatened, for no good reason - 11/14/2008: By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

What would people say if Mayor Nutter announced one day that he was allowing Thomas Jefferson University Hospital to expand its burgeoning medical campus by building in Washington Square Park?
Changing Skyline: A disconcerting cover-up of a swinging '60s folly - 11/07/2008: By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

NEW YORK - If Brad Cloepfil's new Museum of Arts and Design were simply another white box for art, it would be just plain mean not to give it a decent grade. It's humanly scaled, nicely detailed, and allows light to flutter into the galleries through strategically placed horizontal and vertical slits. Visitors get intimate bird's-eye views of Central Park and Columbus Circle, along with congenial spaces to contemplate art. It's a conscientious if unspectacular effort.
Changing Skyline: Foxwoods needs right scale - 10/31/2008: Gallery casino plans must take the neighborhood into account.

By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

It's been widely accepted that Foxwoods' casino would bring havoc to South Philadelphia, swamping Columbus Boulevard with traffic jams and cutting off its rowhouse neighborhoods from the Delaware River. So doesn't it follow that relocating Foxwoods to the Gallery would do similar harm to the residents of Chinatown?
Changing Skyline: Taking liberties with design - 10/24/2008: Improvising architect creates vibrant rowhouse condos.

By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

It's easy to imagine a painter or musician improvising during the artistic process. If their ramblings take them down a creative dead end, they can always try something else. But it's not so simple for architects. Most design decisions need to be locked up far in advance, if only to ensure that buildings stand up and construction budgets don't break the bank. There's a reason that blueprints are legal documents.
Changing Skyline: Penn got a trophy, not a triumph, in hospital design - 10/17/2008: By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

The University of Pennsylvania has just produced a splashy new hospital building that can zap a cancer tumor with a single proton beam and mix drug cocktails tailored to a patient's DNA. So why is it so hard for the university to create architecture that feels as if it belongs on a Philadelphia street?
Marcella Hazan's essential Italian memories - 10/16/2008: In her new memoir, the feisty Hazan, who taught America to cook Italian, tells how simple homey cooking changed her life.

By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Staff Writer

The celebrated Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan may mince onions, but she certainly does not mince words. "American supermarkets," she nearly spat during a recent visit to Philadelphia, "are like a big cemetery." As for the chicken produced by this country, well, she's "never seen anything so dead." The pasta is either mushy or underdone. Our basil "tastes like mint." And please, do not get her started on this silly fad called "organic."
Changing Skyline: The city needs to get creative on bike parking - 10/10/2008: By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

Philadelphia's parking shortage is approaching critical proportions. You see people circling the streets of Center City in an anxious quest for an available space. It's unexpectedly hard to park at institutions such as La Salle University and the Art Museum's Perelman Building. But you really know things have reached a dire state when you have to go blocks to find a pole or parking meter that doesn't already have someone's bicycle hitched to it.
Changing Skyline: Bank has perfect bones for science museum - 10/03/2008: Chemistry is the subject of the new institution in the former First National Bank.

By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

Banks will fail, as we've been reminded a little too often lately. But their buildings can still go on to lead long and productive lives, especially when they're constructed to weather more than a passing financial storm.
Changing Skyline: Food for thought on supermarkets - 09/26/2008: By Inga Saffron , Inquirer Architecture Critic

If we are what we eat, then it follows that our cities are shaped by the buildings that sell what we eat. In that case, we're heading for trouble.