Flowers in the Courtyard

There’s a lovely fountain in the courtyard at Kings Contrivance Village Center.

And there are flowers. Lots of flowers.

If I were a better photographer I’d be able to give you the feeling I had of being surrounded by a riotous explosion of flowers. I’ve been to all of the Columbia village centers at one time or another and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such horticultural enthusiasm.

It is someone’s job to plan out those beds, plant them, and keep tabs on how they are coming along. I would guess that whichever company that owns the village center hires a service for that. But why? Why go to all this trouble for something which is essentially a shopping center?

I’m not saying they shouldn’t. It’s beautiful. I’m simply amazed at the extravagance of it. How often have you been in a commercial public space and thought: extravagance? More often than not it’s the bare minimum. I really like this courtyard.

It’s my understanding that most, if not all, of the original village centers were courtyard-based. Few have remained so. Behind the luxurious blooms in Kings Contrivance are a few empty storefronts. But you’d hardly notice them as you sit and enjoy your end of summer icy treats from Rita’s. All the time we were there people were coming and going and enjoying the courtyard: grandparents with a young child on her bike. A group of young people sporting laminated ID tags. My guess was that they were camp counselors just getting off of work for the day.

What exactly am I saying here?

I love to see village centers being used and enjoyed as public spaces. I don’t want them to languish commercially, either. But we have plenty of examples of village center updates where the human aspect - - the enjoyable public space component- - is lost. Can’t we have both? I don’t know. Commercial models of success change.

What’s ironic is that the Howard Hughes Corporation is spending a lot of money in the Merriweather District to create an enormous commercial project where people can enjoy hanging out. Is it just the next generation of Village Center? Instead of beautiful flower beds you get splashpads and live music. It’s entertaining, surely, but hardly intimate.

The scale is different. As a friend quipped, “They’re building Baltimore, but for rich people.”

We had ice cream for dinner last night. It’s a family tradition. It usually means that summer is very nearly over and new things are hovering on the horizon. For most people that’s where the story would end. For me? I looked at all the flowers and wanted to know why.

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