Bank designs

The City Paper made an interesting point about the design of three nearby bank branches in yesterday's edition.

Comparing the fairly conservative Fifth-Third bank branch on Murphy Road with the two new First Tennessee bank branches on West End Avenue and White Bridge Road, reporter William Williams prefers the latter two:

"A cookie cutter design approach — which can be exacerbated by the reality that free-standing banks often are accompanied by excessive surface parking (note the Fifth Third facility on Murphy Road) — simply enforces the notion that industry officials are unwilling to think outside the bank vault, er, box...

But hold your checkbooks.

Following the recommendation of LRK architects (who likely were seeking some creative stimulation that the prototype designs fail to offer), First Tennessee officials opted for a very different appearance for two recently finished financial centers, one on West End Avenue and the other on White Bridge Road.

Good move.

In particular, the West End center, which rises about 30 feet at its highest point, offers a striking contemporary flavor with its green-tinted glass, deep chocolate brick and clear anodized aluminum window frames/canopy/trim.

Even more eye-catching is how the bank’s crisp and clean design renders as cartoonish a neighboring Stoney River Legendary Steaks building — the poor architects for which were required to incorporate a faux mountain lodge theme."

I tend to agree about Stoney River, which seems out of place in terms of design on West End. I think the Fifth-Third location looks nice, but I do like the more engaging designs of the First Tennessee locations better, though they took a little while to grow on me. I completely agree about the excess parking at Fifth-Third, and I miss Mr. Gatti's. ;)