Why the big tower proposed in middle of Druid Park is a sad capitulation

Druid Park, with 746 acres, a national historic treasure and the third largest urban park in the country is suffering from traffic strangulation and lately also from a misguided and gone array lake and reservoir reconfiguration, is in for a new treat. The new idea is explained in a letter to Baltimore's Historic District Commission (CHAP) for consideration in their upcoming meeting: A 180' tall communication tower placed at a high point inside the Baltimore Zoo, which is part of the historic park. No, it isn't suggested because it would make the park better, nor because the location is optimal the "Stealth Tower Telecommunications Project Haymaker – “DCYH060" (optimal is the nearby TV hill) but because it saves the City money.

From the proposed options for Druid Park (AEC)

The proposed tower facility will allow the City to move their public safety infrastructure onto a city-owned structure, which will save approximately $1,000,000 in rent by within three years, and almost $3,500,000 by 2033. Incentivized by the need to reduce the City’s expenses when possible; the above-referenced location was selected. (From the application letter  to CHAP written by Advantage Environmental Consultants on behalf of Baltimore City, dated 2/15/19)

Who wouldn't want to save money, even if it is only $269,000 per year, especially if that money would be used to keep the park up to snuff. A tower in a park isn't a new or necessarily bad idea either; many parks are crowned by observation towers, pagodas and other architectural landmarks providing a unique marker. Baltimore's 60' pagoda in Patterson Park is a case in point.

Proposed location in historic Druid Park (AEC, from application)

But the application doesn't think in those terms, it talks about communication and safety for the City and for the zoo. It talks about antennas, WSPs, repeaters, creating a fenced "compound" for four equipment shelters and a 200' access road. Battle hardened from fights about the esthetics of those ubiquitous cellphone towers nationwide, the application  comes armed with four options for design taken from the grab bag of past tower fights: A 180-foot monopine (Option 1); a 180-foot marquee tower (Option 2); a 130-foot monopine, with a 50-foot slimline mirror extension (Option 3); and a 180-foot traditional monopole (Option 4).

The fake tree tower From the proposed options for Druid Park (AEC)

Yes, "pine" means pine, as in tree. A monopine is, indeed, a 180' tower disguised as a pine! And a mirror pole is, indeed, clad in mirror foils. And the "traditional" monopole? Don't ask!

The applicant happily calls the first three options "stealthing techniques". Making a 180 poles with an assortment of antennas invisible is the ultimate capitulation of design and technology. Kind of the opposite from the course that Apple took.

As if design challenged architects would appear in front of the City's design review committee and argue that their bad building design would hardly be visible because it is "stealth". Here is the surrender language that goes with this approach, taken from the application letter:

The single antenna at the top of the tower would have a simple 6-foot standoff bracket. All components would be wrapped in the mirror film. The four, 3-foot antennas would be placed within the slimline tower RFtransparent canisters, and the four, 14-foot City antenna would be mounted off the side of the tower (also wrapped in the mirror film). The mirror film would reflect the sky around the
tower. On clear blue days and overcast cloudy days, the tower would be difficult to distinguish from the sky without closely looking for it. On days where the sky’s color is less uniform (stormy and partly-cloudy days), the visibility of the tower would vary as the clouds and sky change around it. However, the overall scale of the tower would be minimized against the horizon based on the type of structure (slimline tower).

Fake tree details

Making ugly stuff "stealth" is an approach with almost unlimited applications, given the ubiquity of ugliness in the man-made environment. Alas, the magic has its limits. In the applicant's prose:

A slimline tower will not work for WSP use. Current site designs require three to four sectors with approximately three antennas per sector. A slimline tower would require each future WSP to have its antennas stacked on top of one another, resulting in much lower rad centers or fewer potential WSPs using the structure. Therefore, because the lower 130 feet of the tower would still be visible above the tree line, this portion of the tower would be stealthed as a monopine.

Confused? One can only assume that confusion is part of the stealth strategy. But do not despair, where it matters, the application is crystal clear:

The City’s engineering team (Motorola) has definitively determined that the proposed design meets the radio frequency (RF) objectives to deliver reliable public safety communication coverage and capacity service to this area.

Stuttgart TV tower, 750'

The application is the reflection of the usual current day configuration in which a consulting firm (AEC)writes the application on the City's behalf and the reference is written by another private company which stands to make a profit (Motorola). The poor historic district commission (CHAP) remains as the only safeguard for the public interest. The commission has to bite itself through this technical stuff because Druid Hill Park happens to be a significant historic asset over which the Commission has jurisdiction. (However, the commission isn't overly strong, if one considers that CHAP is only advisory to the Planning Director, and ultimately, the Mayor). Besides, it has no jurisdiction on anything but the impact on a historic asset.

Of course, the application assures that the proposed location is the only workable one. 

An examination of the area surrounding Druid Hill Park was conducted in an effort to identify other locations which may be viable for a new tower. However, the proposed location is the only location which meets the necessary elevation requirement, the structure limitation (keeping the height below 200 feet), and the location requirement (sited in a location with a receptive land owner).

The engineering firm which wrote application letter quotes extensively from the CHAP Design Guidelines and from the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, established as part of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, relating them helpfully to their proposed design options.
This is as if the zoo was getting suggestions about animal husbandry from a butcher. Or a chef his recipes from Jiffy Lube. Naturally, proving that these "designs" comply with the standards can only go astray. Putting a 180' artificial tree among natural trees of maybe 50' height is the opposite of what the historic preservation standards recommend, except that the guidelines don't mention trees. The  spirit of historic guidelines is this: If you build a modern highrise, don't put it among three story Victorians and don't make it look Victorian.

Czech observation tower: 180'

Those small misunderstandings aside, the design help section of the tower application ends with a hopeful and optimistic summary which, once again has to be quoted verbatim, because one couldn't make this stuff up:

The definition of “Structure” is “any creation of humans or nature,” and thus captures the land within Druid Hill Park on which the tower is proposed. However, the proposed tower can in no way be considered a detriment to the function of the park for municipal functions, as the proposed tower will not impact any existing space accessible to the public. To the contrary, the proposed tower will enhance the ability of Druid Hill Park to serve as a location for municipal functions through the enhanced wireless coverage (for public safety, cellular coverage, and the Zoo’s safety communications) and will encourage an increase in community use and safety. [..]While the City understands that the proposed installation adds a new, non-historic feature to Druid Hill Park, we believe that the proposed design solutions effectively demonstrate that such a proposal is able to meet CHAP’s Design Guidelines.

Clearly, CHAP wouldn't need to convene at all, AEC Consultants have it all figured out. (" AEC is able to provide value-oriented solutions to the diverse environmental issues faced by its clients, which include real estate developers, commercial lenders, property managers, and industrial and commercial enterprises throughout the United States and Canada")  

Stuttgart park tower: 144' but no antennas

One has to wonder why there aren't any community meetings planned around this project. Even putting aside crackpot arguments about how 5G power on the pole could cook nearby residents or how the power would be just another tool of community surveillance, surrounding communities should have a say in the tower issue.

For example, the design question: Wouldn't it be an interesting task to create a landmark tower which expresses this century's civic pride in Baltimore's famous park and solves the  communications tasks at the same time? 
If the radiation emitted from the tower is as safe as the companies always assure, a communications tower that also serves as a observation tower shouldn't pose an insurmountable problem. Some of the world's most recognizable towers have certainly done that. 

For example the Eiffel Tower: It "held the very first radiographic experiments in France and in 1898 the very first telegraph link went from the Pantheon to the Eiffel Tower covering a distance of 4km". (source). Or the Stuttgart and Moscow TV towers which have observation towers on top and like Seattle's Space Needle (520'), are icons of modern engineering ingenuity. Of course, these examples are of a much bigger scale, the Stuttgart TV tower is 717' tall. But there is also a tower near Prague with three observation platforms (190') and, of course our own Washington Monument which is with 178.5' just shy of the 180' height of the proposed tower in Druid Park.

Wouldn't it be lovely to see how today's architects would design a monument  of this size, with observation deck? A quite modern structural extravagance of 132' sits on the highest point of Stuttgart's most popular park. Problem: It is so slender and transparent, it doesn't have any antennas. What is needed here is public input and the courage to face a design challenge instead of design capitulation.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA