Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Bilbao, Spain

Great Public Spaces

These are the places we remember most vividly, the places where serendipitous things happen, the places we tell stories about.

Browse through over 600 public spaces to see what makes places great--and why each one is unique. While you're here, you can nominate your own favorites or add to the Hall of Shame.

New Great Places

City Plaza
Raleigh, NC, USA
by: Jonathan Hawkins

from the HALL of SHAME:

Toronto Waterfront
Toronto, ON, Canada
by: Andrea Winkler

Lake Street:

(04/20/10 by Ray Johnson)

Lake Street and nearby Marion Street just keep getting better and better! With the award winning streetscape of Marion Street, which was also recently reopened to Lake Street, we've seen significant retail/commercial vitality and investment. In the 5 years prior to Marion St. reopening, there was $500,000 in capital investment made to the exterior of buildings. In the 3 years since the streetscape was done, we've seen over $3M in capital investment. The wonderful mix of independent, franchise and national commercial uses is serving the Central Business District well."

Schouwburgplein:

(04/13/10 by Thomas Rainer)

Good design has alway prompted contempt from institutions dedicated to protecting the neo-traditional. PPS unfairly blames the design of the square for problems of the fragmented and under-utilized urban context. Of course, the PPS has always been a bit critical of anything built after the Victorian era. "

Ortaköy Square:

(04/10/10 by derya oktay)

In additon to other comments (that I fully share), one can feel a very strong sense of place in Ortakoy Square, and feels very comfortable... All my foreign friends (including Jon Lang, a prominent name in the theory of Urban Design) loved the place as a "place with great diversity"! Derya Oktay, April 2010."

Tompkins Square Park:

(03/30/10 by Fanni Gabor)

I think that Tompkins Square Park definitely worth a visit and the definition of a "park" today became too controversial-why wouldn't this be a park?! Securing public spaces is a necessary task for the city today and it is therefore possible to make them safe and accessible for a wide range of people. I appreciate that people are able to go to the grass, even if they will be surrounded by fences; people can walk their dogs- separated from those who'd like to take their children to the playgrounds or chill on the benches. At the same time, I do agree that something is missing from Tompkins Park that is present in Madison Square Park- it might just be the very different vibrance of the neighborhoods and people they attract. In fact, some great and new public art (that can also represent the East Village's hippie lifestyle) and more design would definitely help the somewhat present "Tree Zoo" experience and would make the park a lot nicer and more interesting! Just a short comment, but it is opened 6AM-12AM (not PM) I think."

Paris Plage:

(03/29/10 by Tapas Kulkarni)

I can imagine paris plage even without really visiting it. It spells wow and i wish to have witnessed it during my visit to paris a few years ago. It should remain so for at least all the warmer months of the year."

Parc André Citröen:

(03/24/10 by michelle anderson)

I visited this park last year in April on a Sunday and my experience of it was a thoroughly enjoyable one. All the areas in the park were being used and the main lawn area was packed with families picnicking and enjoying the sunshine. The water feature was entertaining about 20 kids who were placing footballs on the water spouts and watching them rise up. I would agree that the peripheral gardens were not busy but there were still couples and the odd other person wandering through them.The only negative I found was that one of the liners seemed to be leaking in one of the canal ffeatures hence there was no water in it. I certainly would recommend it for a visit."

Las Vegas Boulevard/The Strip:

(03/23/10 by Priscilla O'Donnell)

I agree in general with all the comments about the Las Vegas Strip not being pedestrian-friendly with one exception. Where there is access to cross the strip on foot, it includes escalators. Particularly valuable to handicapped travelers."

Louisville Waterfront Park:

(03/14/10 by Stuart Noland)

Could be a great place but riverfront I-64 ruins this park. The eleveted freeway is ugly and loud as it runs through the park. The current plan to redesign the waterfront expressway will widen this section by over 70 ft and do nothing to improve the hideously ugly section of I-64 west of the great lawn. Louisville's leaders consider the great lawn at waterfront park to be the front lawn for the city. This front lawn has a very ugly and loud waterfront expressway that is sheduled to become the only elevated waterfront expressway to be expanded in the 21st century. I personnaly will not live in this city if the planned expansion occurs. PPS, please consider doing an updated list of worst waterfronts in the country with Louisville listed as #1."

Pershing Square:

(03/10/10 by David Sargent)

The surrounding buildings and the life of the place are indeed coming back. We have recently opened a new office in the Pershing Square Building on the northeast corner of the square, in which the owner is investing heavily, including a new restaurant/bar on the roof overlooking the square. He is not alone. Previous commenters have correctly identified the principal deficiencies of the parking structure in the square: the swirl of cars on the ramps that cut it off from the City on every side, and the enclosing walls of the square itself, evidently generated by a lack of understanding - or lack of belief - that the surrounding building fabric could in fact do that job just fine. Ironically, access to the parking structure below - both pedestrian and automobile - is just as disorienting as the access to the square on the lid. Squares raised above pedestrian eye-level are very difficult to design, but can be made to work, e.g. Union Square, where they were working with a steeper site. Cutting Pershing off from pedestrian access and views with walls and cars and suburban landscaping is just an inexcusable error of urban design. I'm sure that it looked cool in aerial perspective and as a model on the table - it even looks interesting from our roof terrace - but urban design must always be experienced and judged by the person on foot. Pershing Square fails that test entirely, leading directly to all the operational problems. It can be fixed, but it will require a lot more than enhanced event programming, as helpful as that is."

Pershing Square:

(02/21/10 by julie talbott)

We live in a repurposed Deco building that faces Pershing Square. It is interesting to read the thread of comments posted about this locale because they are targeting a specific issue pertinent to the moment written. Downtown has made a one-eighyt for those of you that haven't been here recently; had someone told me even a year ago that I would be living in the heart of the place, I would have laughed. Some things actually change for the better. Unfortunately the 2000 design by Legoreta is not one of them. How and why he won the competition for this (yes, there was a competition in which a dozen or so submitted their vision for the square.) is baffling. We look at the square every day and attempt to put ourselves in the mind of this designer and are baffled. There is no flow whatsoever to the grid. It is uninviting and stagnant. An obnoxious unused yellow outbuilding in the north quadrant needs to go. The tower is the biggest headache. It is a pointless monolith that serves no apparant purpose, aesthetically or functionally. The place needs to be rethought and redone. But to those of you that feel the place is nothing but a magnet for the homeless, this has changed. There are now concerts at the park on a regular basis, ice skating in the winter, a weekly farmer's market on Wednesday and many, many local residents walking their four-legged family members through the trees and lawn continuously. So there is new life coming into the square. When you look at the old photos of the place from the teens, it was an actual urban gathering spot. Sure, it will always be used as a "shortcut" but walking under trees past the beautiful Biltmore hotel is an evocative step into another era that should be cherished. "