It’s that time of year again when we get to bring you bite-sized portions of your favorite design stories! Closing out 2019 we have a story about haunted architecture, a case of mistaken identity that made its way into the built environment, a trip to the Hollywood sign, and a cartoon that wreaked ecological havoc on an entire country.
Jack Purcell Park by Emmett FitzGerald
There’s a small park in the Centretown neighborhood of Ottawa, Canada called Jack Purcell Park. The park was named for a local man (Jack Purcell), who was known around town for generously and skillfully repairing the hockey sticks of children. Purcell was even nicknamed the “stick doctor.”
In 2014, the city wanted to give the park a makeover, and they hired an architectural firm to design various new elements, including some lighting fixtures. And the architects designed these strange lights that look a little like lollipops, or quidditch goals, or badminton rackets.
Why not hockey stick lights to honor the stick doctor you ask? We don’t know exactly what happened, but a simple Google search of the name “Jack Purcell” is pretty revealing. It turns out there is another, much more famous, Canadian named Jack Purcell—Jack Purcell the Canadian badminton champion of 1929! By some accounts, Purcell was the greatest badminton player in the world. To this day he has a popular Converse shoe named after him. He also has a lengthy Wikipedia page, and so the theory is that the architects googled the name and assumed (not unreasonably) that the park was named for this Canadian sporting legend.
It looks as though the city spent thousands of dollars on a tribute to the wrong Jack Purcell. There has been some talk of replacing the lights, but the park stands in strange tribute to Canada’s two great Jack Purcells, the badminton champ and the stick doctor.
Special thanks to listener Nancy Norton for tipping us off to that story!
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The hsbc hq in HK was designed and constructed (1983) before the Bank of China building was constructed in 1985. It’s true that Foster and Partners consulted fung shui experts, but that was a matter of course because they were constructing in HK and it was going to be an important landmark.
To clarify: the construction of the two buildings actually overlapped (one was completed in late 1985, the other started earlier that year). That said, it is true that the HSBC building was started before the Bank of China building, though the cranes mentioned were added to the HSBC indeed were (as far as I can tell from my research) designed to address the poor feng shui of the BoC building – I am not sure if they were added later or during the overlapping construction period. Source: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/fodors/top/features/travel/destinations/asia/china/hongkong/fdrs_feat_74_10.html?n=Top%25252 -= Kurt
I love this show. I love this episode, I appreciate all of you that work on it: Please don’t use the word spirit animal if you are not a member of an indigenous community. If you are I’m sorry for butting in but heads up.
This is the same thing I came over here to comment on. Great show, lovely intent. However, it’s about time we abolished “spirit animal” from the general lexicon. There are other options for inferring the same intended meaning without intruding on or mocking marginalized people.
There is no mocking or intruding context here.
I believe the television program mentioned in the Raccoon story was a 2012 episode of the PBS program, Nature, called “Raccoon Nation.” It’s online at: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/raccoon-nation-introduction/7518/
It mentions the problems Japanese temples have had with Raccoons along with lots of other fascinating information about these amazing creatures.
at the top of beechwood canyon, below the hollywood sign, there is also a high fence with a gate. above the gate is a camera surrounded by a ring of red lights. it is terrifying. it looks straight of some orwellian police state. the gate has a proximity sensor and makes a very aggressive sounding tone (not a beep but a sustained tone) as you approach it
Hi!
Thank you for all the beautiful episodes.
Here is one more example of such architecture inspired by Rudolph Steiner and anthroposophy (even though I’m not a fan of that esotericism):
https://www.designboom.com/architecture/rudolf-steiners-goetheanum-anthroposophical-expressionist-concrete-architecture-gesamtkunstwerk-06-21-2019/
You might remember the tanooki suit from Super Mario 3 video game.
https://www.mariowiki.com/Tanooki_Suit
About the Hollywood Sign Access. I think I’m with the residents on this. At least it sounds like that while the sign is public, there isn’t (good) public infrastructure to hike to it. As part of that public going through the neighborhood isn’t treating the neighborhood nice nor does they city police/clean/maintain the neighborhood. I’d do my best to keep my property nice.
I live in Centretown and have a correction to make to the Jack Purcell story. They aren’t lamp posts at all, they’re just sculptures. After some research I found a rendering that shows the light coming through the holes that would’ve held the string, which would be post-redesign but pre-implementation. I think this was an attempt to make the ‘trees’ a little more exciting, but wasn’t feasible since they were never designed to be lights. Now we have brutalist quidditch rings and a story.
Hey I did the hike! Didn’t even know there’s instructions. I came on a bus to the eara near (not even the park, but the other side!) by and just started walking not knowing it’ll be such a winding complex walk throgh all these houses. Ended up walking about an hour on a very hot day and feeling sorry for the residents having tons of people like me come by.
Two comments about the rampaging raccoons: First, are there reasons TNR (trap, neuter & release) wouldn’t work to control the population? That would take away the Buddhists having to kill a living creature issue. Second & on a happier note: did you notice that the theme song for “Araiguma Rascal” is the first tune in the classic arcade game Frogger? :D
I live in Boston and use mass transit to get everywhere. I don’t even own an automobile. I used Apple Maps and typed in The Hollywood Sign for directions using transit. Amtrak to San Bernardino, Metrolink SB line to Union Station, then choice of AV Line or Red Line to two different bus lines that get you within 25-35 minute walk to the sign. The walk is likely through the neighborhood mentioned in the story. I used to date a woman from LA and would go out ther for Christmas. The first time I was told the only way to get to the family house in an east of LA suburb near Corona was by airport limo/van. Very expensive and took forever. After that I figured out a way to get within a 20 minute drive of the house using bus and Metrolink. Easy!
I find the story about raccoon particularly fascinating. The effect of animated series “Rascal Raccoon” on the population surge of Alien Raccoon has apparently been acknowledged in a study:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228486361_Present_status_of_invasive_alien_raccoon_and_its_impact_in_Japan
Also somewhat related to the topic:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0106565
I love your show, keep up the great work!
Just listening to the witch window story and you solved the blue paint in chefchawan Morocco. Our guide did say the paint was a mosquito repellent:)
The most obvious superstitious influence on architecture that I see is the omission of the 13th floor. My ER doesn’t have a room 13.
So interestingly in the United States the European Starling and the House Sparrow are exotic invasives because of a persons love of literature namely Shakespeare.
Pikachu is based of the Northern pika (Ochotona hyperborea) though I kinda think it looks more like the American pika (Ochotona prince’s)
Thanks for the mini-stories, I love them (and you guys)! The raccoon story reminded me of another one by Radiolab (Stranger in Paradise), about how raccoons came to Guadeloupe.
Also when I was a kid in Hawaii in the 60s, there was a popular song about raccoons. This cartoon is how I remember it – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeMaFJsvm9w. I did a little searching and discovered this song is about the native Japanese raccoon dog, not the interloper – Shojoji no tanuki bayashi (Raccoon Dogs Dancing at Shojoji Temple.
I had Mickey Mouse Club LP album from the 1950s, when I was a kid, with a Japanese song and an English verse translation. I thought of digging it out to record that to share with you, but I found a close version online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxDVcI4HHRk
The English verse on the album I have is
Sho, sho, sho jo ji; Sho jo ji is a raccoon
He is always hungry, so he sings of koi koi koi
We used to sing along, as closely as we could hear it. My sister sang it for a Japanese friend at college, and he said we had most of it right.
According to the intro on the 45 in the video, the song went with a kids’ circle dance.
So there was already some interest in raccoons, among Japanese children, in or before the mid-1950s.