Design demands creativity

CHRISTOPHER Hawthorne too quickly denigrates infill construction as the cause of so many architectural disappointments [“Just Keep Your Distance,” Oct. 3]. The depressing truth of the matter is that it is not infill construction that is producing a nation of forgettable mixed-use developments, it is the lack of inspiration and creativity with which we practice it.

A contemplative walk through any city fortunate enough to develop before the widespread use of the automobile -- Boston and San Francisco leap immediately to mind -- will illustrate that small spaces of land can be put to many varied uses without sacrificing architectural beauty or functionality. Boston’s Back Bay, for example, built without the benefit of computer design programs or modern materials, stands more than a century after its construction as a model of an attractive, versatile and welcoming civic space that facilitates interaction between citizens and their environment.

The lesson that has been lost on us living today is that the distress we experience when inhabiting our frequently sterile and impenetrable contemporary public spaces arises not from their uniformity, but from their uniform ugliness.

David M. Marquez

Providence, R.I.