April 6, 2010
by Bill Millard

(Continued from above)

Miami’s Marine Stadium, whose attractions included speedboat racing and concerts, offers a happier story. Closed since Hurricane Andrew in 1992 but structurally sound, this origami-like design by Cuban architect Hilario Candela of the local firm Pancoast, Ferendino, Grafton, Skeels, and Burnham brings the forms of Pier Luigi Nervi, Max and Enrique Borges, Oscar Niemeyer, and others to Biscayne Bay on a vast scale. Amid conflicting estimates of renovation costs and an attempt at demolition using Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, Jorge Hernandez reported, the community has rallied along with the WMF, Docomomo, and others to oppose a “heavy-handed…. ridiculous” retail-oriented plan that would remove the stadium, then a second plan preserving only the grandstand. The inseparable grandstand-basin combination attained local historic designation without the approval of the city as owner; further engineering studies, charrettes, and the election of a preservation-minded mayor all point to eventual success in preserving this icon of borderless hemispheric culture.

In Holmdel, NJ, Eero Saarinen’s elliptical Bell Labs research complex strikes a deliberately lower profile — original occupant AT&T preferred to hunker down out of public view — but helped set the standards for sleek corporate campuses in its day. AT&T’s successor Alcatel-Lucent moved out in 2007, and potential developer Preferred Unlimited planned to raze the buildings in favor of high-end residential, a corporate park, or other profitable uses. Maximized ratables outweigh historic and architectural considerations for township officials, commented Michael Calafati, AIA, and NJ’s higher-level governance is weak, but the restoration question at least remains open. New developer Somerset has welcomed a preservation charrette; Calafati describes the firm as “not perfect, but one we can have a conversation with.”

The afternoon panel, “Sustaining Operations in a Modern Building,” struck more confident notes, discussing the ongoing experiments with roof-panel materials and successive structural renovations at Scottsdale’s Taliesin West and the robust inverted ziggurat of Atlanta’s Marcel Breuer library. Ahead of its time in anticipating the broadened functions of a post-Carnegie-era library as well as defying local preferences for columns and coziness, the building provides essential community space at a transit-accessible downtown location. It is a flak magnet over issues unrelated to its operations (e.g., gatherings of the homeless), and Fulton County voters passed a 2008 bond referendum calling for an alternate central site along with branch expansions, but the amount has been reduced, says director John Szabo, who believes finances ensure any replacement is “a long way from happening.” Even if it does, Breuer’s building will be a candidate for conversion to an academic facility or museum, though vigilance and stepped-up public relations are critical.

Much of the day’s discussion analyzed why some preservation efforts capture the public’s imagination, and why Chicago’s never quite did. Panelists agreed that popular enthusiasm is essential to save a building. The Olympic bid had many Chicagoans wearing “rose-painted” glasses; hospitals in general can inspire more fear than affection; Chicago development invokes the tendencies for clout to outweigh reason and accountability. Despite Chicagoans’ famous knowledgeability about their architectural local heroes, many were unaware of Gropius’s involvement. Others simply “hate Modernism.”

One recurring theme was whether Modernist buildings are, as one questioner put it, “cuddly.” To part of the population, they never will be, and their other attributes (being breathtaking, structurally honest, well-programmed, or provocative) won’t matter. The difficult yet essential task, said Carl Stein, is educating citizens to distinguish between truly Modernist buildings — serious in intention, purposeful in advancing ideas, active in social contexts — and mere object-buildings in a modern style. Particularly as mid-century and later works approach the 50-year standard for landmark eligibility (a standard that many found open to rethinking), Stein emphasized a frank awareness that “one reason Modernism has been under heavy attack is… the idea we can solve things by conscious action.” What these buildings are up against is often not just an antipathy to bèton brut but a deeper antipathy to rationality itself.

Bill Millard is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in OCULUS, Icon, Content, The Architect’s Newspaper, and other publications.