Nashville Music City Center - There are many different ways to create great public spaces. Sometimes they are paved with stone, or grass, or a combination of both—sometimes they feature<br />trees, fountains, sculpture, all of the above, or none of the above. What they all have in common, however, is a quite simple set of design principles: a sense of<br />enclosure, edges activated by a mixture of retail and restaurant uses, and an open middle that is accessible to human beings. Dresden's Baroque Zwinger is no<br />exception to this. Let us hope that the Music City Center, as a holistically designed convention center that can and should provide a new sense of civic gravity to<br />downtown Nashville, will also provide public plazas worthy of the long and prestigious record of civic space.

There are many different ways to create great public spaces. Sometimes they are paved with stone, or grass, or a combination of both—sometimes they feature
trees, fountains, sculpture, all of the above, or none of the above. What they all have in common, however, is a quite simple set of design principles: a sense of
enclosure, edges activated by a mixture of retail and restaurant uses, and an open middle that is accessible to human beings. Dresden's Baroque Zwinger is no
exception to this. Let us hope that the Music City Center, as a holistically designed convention center that can and should provide a new sense of civic gravity to
downtown Nashville, will also provide public plazas worthy of the long and prestigious record of civic space.