Architect Working To Encourage Community Awareness Of Fox River

A nationally renowned architect is touring the Fox Valley this week to give area residents a new appreciation of what’s in their own backyard and specifically to get communities to embrace the Fox River.

The river is undergoing a transformation, with the removal of PCBs and the restoration of a locks system that’s more than 100 years old.

Architect and designer Alex Krieger said some communities in the Fox Cities haven’t yet created the sense that the river is even there.

“That seems hard to achieve in some cases because so much of the area is seemingly in private hands,” said Krieger.

Krieger met with several area mayors, whom he said seem receptive to the idea of creating more public access to the river.

Krieger also teaches at Harvard University and has studied cities like Pittsburgh and Providence, R.I., that have embraced their rivers while preserving vestiges of their industrial pasts. He said the same can be done with the Fox Valley.