10.19.18
Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 90: The Container for the Story


Season 3 of Serial is set in the Cleveland Justice Center, which Serial host Sarah Koenig calls “hideous but practical.”

Michael describes it as a
giant tower over a big base which is just big, ungainly, nasty-looking

And Jessica talks about the Brutalist courts tower, which was designed by Prindle, Patrick and Associates and opened in 1976, as
a container for the story — which is, maybe in its own way, a kind of brutalist story. I mean, there's nothing I'm soft and fuzzy and pretty about what's going on in the criminal court system in Cleveland.

Prindle, Patrick specialized in designing jails — and at least one Ohio hotel:
if you want to know what what kind of hotel prison architects would design if given the opportunity, just book your next vacation in Columbus and stay at the Hyatt Regency.

Also mentioned this week: Subscribe to The Observatory on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Spotify or Soundcloud.



Posted in: Media, The Observatory




Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

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