Meredith Arms Bzdak: We Should Preserve Recent Buildings Before It's Too Late
[Meredith Arms Bzdak is an architectural historian and director of business development for Farewell Mills Gatsch Architects, in Princeton, N.J.]
The preservation of buildings from the recent past — broadly defined as the period from around 1945 to 1975 — is a popular subject, even if it is still widely debated in scholarly circles. We've seen the incredible revival of places that emerged in that era, like Palm Springs, Calif., where it seems as if each month a fabulous new hotel or motel opens to a thrilled audience of Hollywood hipsters and design mavens from near and far. At the same time, however, we've watched great buildings of midcentury genesis or significance — like Richard Neutra's Maslon House in Rancho Mirage, Calif., or the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles — be demolished, sometimes overnight.
Similarly, the regard for and treatment of midcentury buildings on campuses has been, and continues to be, widely divergent. Some say that such history is too recent to be evaluated, that we can have no perspective without greater distance.
Part of the problem lies with preservationists themselves, who have only begun to take leadership roles in disseminating information and educating practitioners about the special design qualities, terminology, and conservation issues that characterize buildings from that era. While the international organization Docomomo has become an established advocate for those structures, the National Trust for Historic Preservation — the nation's principal ambassador for the larger preservation movement — remains focused on buildings from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, giving over a limited portion of the sessions at its annual meetings to the discussion of those from later periods.
Our collective inability or unwillingness to appreciate buildings of the recent past as historic or of value is not a new phenomenon. Mainstream acceptance of Victorian-era structures took several decades, and the Art Deco icons of the 1930s were dismissed as superficial until the late 1970s. The National Register of Historic Places stipulates that only buildings of exceptional significance are eligible for listing on the register if they are less than 50 years old, thus providing a framework for waiting. The pace of life, however, has quickened considerably, as has the rate at which we develop and redevelop our cities, neighborhoods, and institutions. Our preservation philosophy must evolve just as swiftly....
Read entire article at Chronicle of Higher Education
The preservation of buildings from the recent past — broadly defined as the period from around 1945 to 1975 — is a popular subject, even if it is still widely debated in scholarly circles. We've seen the incredible revival of places that emerged in that era, like Palm Springs, Calif., where it seems as if each month a fabulous new hotel or motel opens to a thrilled audience of Hollywood hipsters and design mavens from near and far. At the same time, however, we've watched great buildings of midcentury genesis or significance — like Richard Neutra's Maslon House in Rancho Mirage, Calif., or the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles — be demolished, sometimes overnight.
Similarly, the regard for and treatment of midcentury buildings on campuses has been, and continues to be, widely divergent. Some say that such history is too recent to be evaluated, that we can have no perspective without greater distance.
Part of the problem lies with preservationists themselves, who have only begun to take leadership roles in disseminating information and educating practitioners about the special design qualities, terminology, and conservation issues that characterize buildings from that era. While the international organization Docomomo has become an established advocate for those structures, the National Trust for Historic Preservation — the nation's principal ambassador for the larger preservation movement — remains focused on buildings from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, giving over a limited portion of the sessions at its annual meetings to the discussion of those from later periods.
Our collective inability or unwillingness to appreciate buildings of the recent past as historic or of value is not a new phenomenon. Mainstream acceptance of Victorian-era structures took several decades, and the Art Deco icons of the 1930s were dismissed as superficial until the late 1970s. The National Register of Historic Places stipulates that only buildings of exceptional significance are eligible for listing on the register if they are less than 50 years old, thus providing a framework for waiting. The pace of life, however, has quickened considerably, as has the rate at which we develop and redevelop our cities, neighborhoods, and institutions. Our preservation philosophy must evolve just as swiftly....