Given the dearth of major architectural commissions getting under way in Maryland because of the lingering recession, it's not surprising that the highlight of 1994 was a project that brought new life to an old building.
The removal of the disfiguring "mn" letters from atop the former Maryland National Bank building at 10 Light St., and the regilding of its five-story-tall bonnet by R. Wayne Reynolds and Michael Kramer, provided a year-long spectacle that almost made up for the fact that no new skyscrapers rose in downtown Baltimore this year.
The lights that now shine on the city's only art deco skyscraper have transformed it by night as well as by day. "It's like a giant candle" on the skyline, marvels Donald Duncan, chief of urban design for Baltimore's planning department. "As dusk turns to dark, it really starts to glow."
Gold-leafing the 34-story landmark certainly proved to be a public relations gold mine for NationsBank, the lending institution that took control of Maryland National Bank earlier this year. But it also provides a timely reminder of what a magnificent stock of older buildings Baltimore has, and how readily many of them can be adapted for new uses.
* Architectural themes. Restoration, reuse and renewal were guiding themes for many other of the local architectural projects completed during 1994:
* A nondescript office building at 701 St. Paul St. was turned into an attractive headquarters for the Annie E. Casey Foundation by Cho, Wilks and Benn Architects.
* By converting the old Garrett Mansion into a $6 million Humanities Center, Frank Gant Architects created a new focal point for the Loyola College campus.
* The $90 million Homer Gudelsky Building was cleverly grafted onto the 1933 patient tower of the University of Maryland Medical System by the Zeidler Roberts Partnership.
* In Baltimore County, Ziger Snead Inc. strengthened the 35-year-old campus of Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church by adding a soaring new sanctuary.
* Under the direction of architect Michael Trostel and others, St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Baltimore completed a $750,000 interior restoration.
* A plan to light up more than three dozen buildings on Baltimore's skyline was devised by Grenald Waldron Associates Philadelphia.
* The BMA's new wing. In some cases, efforts to expand or refurbish local landmarks yielded mixed results. At the Baltimore Museum of Art, Bower Lewis and Thrower's New Wing for Modern Art accommodates the works inside very well, but the metal-clad exterior clashes with the neoclassical monument to which it is attached.
* Mixed results at airport. The $30 million make-over of the Baltimore/Washington International Airport's 1979 terminal, by Greiner Inc., Cambridge Seven Associates, and Graham Landscape Architecture, produced an attractive garden and a soaring observation lounge. But it also added a layer of carpet that takes away from the interior's crispness, and it led to the dismantlement of the airport's innovative graphic frieze of airline logos.
* Planning new projects. One of the best things about construction lulls is that they are good times to plan new initiatives.
That was certainly the case on local campuses, where administrators engaged some of the best minds in the country to design key additions. The University of Maryland at College Park selected Moore Ruble Yudell of Santa Monica, Calif., and Ayers Saint Gross of Baltimore to design a $99 million performing arts center. The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions hired Odell Associates of Charlotte, N.C., to plan a $130 million cancer center.
Off campus, the Walters Art Gallery commissioned Hyman Myers of the Vitetta Group in Philadelphia to guide a $6 million restoration of its 1974 wing. The Maryland Historical Society hired Grieves Worrall Wright and O'Hatnick to design an addition inside the former Greyhound bus service terminal at Park Avenue and Centre Street.
The Grieves office is working with exhibit designer Miles, Fridberg and Molinaroli Inc. of Washington on the Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry at 31 S. Greene St. And Maryland acquired Clocker's Fancy, one of the oldest wood-frame structures in the state, for display as part of Historic St. Mary's City.
* Provocative planning in Baltimore. Some of the most provocative efforts involved projects for which the city of Baltimore served as a client.
The Baltimore Development Corp. started the year by holding a design competition to generate ideas for improving the Inner Harbor shoreline. By year's end, the winning team of Martha Schwartz Inc. and Design Collective was firming up its ideas, which may include a park on Rash Field featuring mounds of earth sculpted in the form of a giant crab.
For a competition to design a $60 million performing arts center for Howard Street, Rafael Vinoly Architects took top honors by proposing a three-building complex that would spread activity around the Mount Royal cultural district.
A team headed by landscape architect Diana Balmori and environmental sculptor Meg Webster won a competition to design the Gwynns Falls Trail, a 14-mile recreational greenway that will link the Middle Branch with Leakin Park.
Finally, the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects held town meetings throughout the year to let everyday citizens have their say on the way the city is taking shape.
What made both the town meetings and competition review sessions such positive experiences is that they were open to the general public. That's by far the best way to build a constituency for good design and generate the widest range of ideas to keep the region moving ahead.
* Passings. The design community lost a great friend when former Baltimore planning director Larry Reich died in September at the age of 75. Preservationists lost an ally when Deborah Goodman, two-term chairwoman of Baltimore's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, died at And the death of nationally prominent architect Pietro Belluschi in February saddened many local architects, for whom he was a mentor.