One wonders if when surveyor Alexander Ralston was platting the original square mile of Indianapolis, he had any particular vision for the triangular pieces of land inherent to the diagonal avenues he created in Kentucky, Indiana, Massachusetts and Virginia Avenues? Flatiron buildings have come and gone, and there are plenty of yet-to-be-adorned (or re-done) 3-sided lots still to be found.
Local architecture firm, Blackline Studio, themselves housed in one of the beloved triangle properties of Virginia Avenue (in the ‘Murphy’ Building) has taken on the daunting task of creating a building within these confines. Tonight is the groundbreaking of said new building, Hinge– 6pm at 719 Virginia Avenue, if you want to break up your various “First Friday” stops with some new building, history-making.
And what brought all the triangle talk to mind? Check out this contest from a May 1916 Countryside Magazine–an open competition to landscape a lot in Kenilworth, Illinois–north of Chicago, and even a little north of Evanston. Wonder if this plan was ever implemented? Or was it, as so many dreamt up projects these days, a creative exercise that never came to fruition?
Do you have any all time favorite triangle buildings, lots or spaces? Any visions for the future of one of them? The vintage magazine showed the winner and runner up- what do you think?
