Up the Interstate 77 to Charlotte

27 January 2023

The sun shines on the accumulation of tower-blocks that is Uptown Charlotte as I drive up the freeway – the Interstate 77. Charlotte is a banking boom-town – steadily growing through aggressive gentrification over the last 20 to 30 to 70 years. Almost everyone I meet has arrived as an incomer from somewhere else in the States. I have heard a couple times from proud locals that Charlotte is the second biggest banking centre in the US to New York. I’m heading in to town for a meeting with donuts to discuss programming with Robert Krumbine and Tim Scott, Robert’s ‘main music guy’. 

We're building America's first Pianodrome in this unlikely skyscraper - this place is obsessed with newness and gentrification, and the city has a history of essentially clear felling old parts of town to make space for big new developments. Hopefully we can create a living example of what can be achieved by taking a different kind of attitude towards materials and people, one where we acknowledge how much we already have, and where we work with what is already around us.