Changing Skyline: An elegant redesign for Ben Franklin - and Venturi

Ben Franklin was a great and fearless tinkerer, but even he might have been reluctant to mess with the Old City architectural icon that honors his life and work. The deceptively modest Franklin Court complex was designed by world-famous Robert Venturi for the 1976 Bicentennial, and it changed the way we think about memorials. No wonder the decision by the National Park Service to alter the garden wall and gut the underground museum produced a flood of protest from architectural scholars.