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Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont » Northern Virginia » Fairfax and Prince William Counties » Reston Town Center

Reston Town Center

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1986–1990, RTKL and Sasaki Associates. Reston Pkwy. (VA 602), Reston
  • (By Payton Chung from DCA, USA [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
  • (By Payton Chung from DCA, USA [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

Graphically evident is the contrast between 1960s ideals in the Lake Anne Village and 1980s consumerism in this suburban town center built by the Reston Land Corporation. Here a re-created main street is a pedestrian mall and community plaza located in the center of a large-scale shopping, restaurant, entertainment, and hotel development. Cars are excluded from the center; drivers must park either in large lots on several sides or in one of the various garages. Stylistically, the architecture is the Disneyesque postmodernist variety, a sort of theme park with vague elements of Art Deco and classicism. The movie theater has pylons topped by large globes. A substantial addition with supposedly “softer, more American town squares,” by the Sasaki firm, is in the planning stages.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Reston–Lake Anne Village Center
Herndon Historic District
Frying Pan Meetinghouse
Center for Innovative Technology (CIT)
Colvin Run Mill

Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Reston Town Center", [Reston, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-NV30.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 59-59.

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