Consistent Small Town Character Helpful

Small town character should repeat a theme often, but with many variations. If you took a basic music appreciation course highlighting how music enunciates a theme and then delights us with many variations (before the 20th century, at least), apply that principle to making a great small town.

You need to strive for an intriguing mixture of the town's historical remnants, some new buildings in sympathy with the original architecture, and a few surprising buildings.

These might include a few very handsome contemporary buildings that whisper "quality" in the same way as classic vintage construction details do.

We built this page around the outstanding example of New Harmony, Indiana, a town of under 1,000 population with an important heritage of utopian experiments and some enlightened historic preservation and arts patronage, all of which intertwines with ordinary agricultural and small river town living.

New Harmony presents several lessons in small town character:

1. The repetition of particular elements makes the town seem cohesive. In this case, watch for interesting doors and apertures, trees and gardens, a vigorous religious or spiritual emphasis, blending of the public and private spheres almost to the point of being very unsure of where one ends and the other begins.

2. Historic buildings from the 1820s are preserved, but startling new architectural statements from two world-renowned 20th century architects add a huge amount of interest to what would be in the town otherwise. (Some people disagree.)

3. As surprising as it is to see some large-scale buildings in a small town, it all fits together because there are several really old buildings, several modern pieces that would seem out of place otherwise, and a core commercial street and residential district that are archetypal for small Midwestern towns.

Very visible to tourist and resident alike, public art and interpretive signage everywhere, contribute greatly to the ambiance. These vary from tributes to friends to sayings of well-known figures.

We often think that the lesson to be learned from New Harmony is that a small town doesn't have to be what many people would think of as consistent, it doesn't have to be boring and predictable, and it also doesn't have to be perfect.

(If you're wondering, this applies even more to a large town, but the larger cities have a harder time establishing those few visual motifs. It's no accident that we refer to the theme and variations idea on our pages about neighborhood character in general and urban design principles also.)

Now here's the slideshow, the visual proof, that small towns can make themselves into tourist attractions and living museums.

> > Small Town Character

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