I LOVE PHILADELPHIA because, as a Design Psychologist, I’m drawn to its walkable streets and its personality of gracious old buildings and colorful, exciting new ones.  This is not a cookie-cutter place.  

Let’s hop a train to Philly and arrive at 30th St Station circa 1933, a National Historic Landmark with soaring windows and spectacular indoor light.  Hey pilots, forget about ditching in the Hudson or Delaware. Did you know that the station’s reinforced roof has space to allow the landing of small aircraft? 

The zippy new Amtrack building next door seems to “do the twist” in it’s disco dancing steel body which flashes a lightshow at night. (‘Big red heart on Valentine’s Day) 

Nearby, the historic rotunda of Philly’s archeology museum sits stately near its modern neighbor, the world-famous Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).  Walk into CHOP’s huge atrium and SEE A COLOR WONDERLAND!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s enter the atrium’s super-sized primary colored spaces. Sit down on the wooden, purple, snaking bench and get mesmerized by the ‘forever-moving-parts’ sculpture.   

Grab your camera and we’re off to Independence Hall, the Georgian “neo-natal unit” where our constitution was born. Next door, Congress Hall’s deep green and red décor is an elegant backdrop for antique mahogany desks and leather chairs. Next stops: Liberty Bell, Constitution Center, Old City galleries.

Exhausted?  Let’s pop back to retro-modern POD Restaurant for dinner.  Be seated in our own sci-fi-type, circular ‘pod’ where WE CONTROL COLOR by flooding our booth using colored lighting of our choice.

TIPS:

• Combine deep, intense historic colors with antique furniture to create a feeling of tradition and stability.

• Take photos of Colors in the City thereby creating your own, personalized color library but . . . DON'T lose your camera like I did in Philly’s Old City.  Anyone find it out there?

Credit: Karlsberger, FKP Architects; Photo Credit: Gary Knight

Copyright Toby Israel, 2009.