ForumJournal summer 2010 | Vol. 24 No. 4

Modernism + the Recent Past The National Trust for Historic Preservation (www.PreservationNation.org) is a non-profit membership organization bringing people together to protect, enhance and enjoy the places that matter to them. By saving the places where great moments from history—and the important moments of everyday life—took place, the National Trust for Historic Preservation helps revitalize neighborhoods and communities, spark economic development and promote environmental sustainability. With headquarters in Washington, DC, eight regional and field offices, 29 historic sites, and partner organizations in 50 states, territories, and the District of Columbia, the National Trust for Historic Preservation provides leadership, education, advocacy and resources to a national network of people, organizations and local communities committed to saving places, connecting us to our history and collectively shaping the future of America’s stories. Contents summer 2010 | Vol. 24 No. 4

Introduction Christine Madrid French ...... 5

The “Modern” Challenge to Preservation Theodore h .M . Prudon ...... 9

50 Years Reconsidered Elaine Stiles ...... 15

Coming to Terms with the Sixties Alan Hess ...... 23

When in Rome Paul Goldberger ...... 31

Preserving the Birthplace of Hip-Hop David Gest...... 35

Preservation Is Child’s Play: Saving a Mid-century City Park Senya Lubisich ...... 42

Earthworks: Art and Landscape in Washington’s Green River Valley Cheryl dos Remédios ...... 49 2 summer 2010 ForumJournal ForumJournal

National Trust Forum VALECIA CRISAFULLI Acting Vice President, Programs Elizabeth Byrd Wood Editor Kerri Rubman Assistant Editor christine madrid french Guest Editor nicole vann Associate Director, Forum

National Trust For Historic Preservation stephanie meeks President Tabitha Almquist Chief of Staff and Executive Director of Communications David J. Brown Executive Vice President Greg A. Coble Vice President, Business and Finance David Cooper Vice President, Development VALECIA CRISAFULLI Acting Vice President, Programs Paul Edmondson Vice President and General Counsel Lauri Michel Vice President for Community Revitalization Dolores McDonagh Vice President, Membership James Vaughan Vice President, Stewardship of Historic Sites Emily Wadhams Vice President, Public Policy

National Trust Forum Advisory Board Paul Bruhn Preservation Trust of Vermont Pratt W. Cassity University of Georgia Alan Downer National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers E. Renee Ingram African American Heritage Preservation Foundation, Inc. Bruce D. Judd, FAIA Architectural Resources Group Ann Mcglone National Alliance of Preservation Commissions David Mertz National Council for Preservation Education David Morgan Former Kentucky State Historic Preservation Officer Marcel Quimby National Trust Board of Advisors Nancy Miller Schamu National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers Donna J. Seifert Society for Historical Archaeology John Simone Connecticut Main Street Center de Teel Patterson Tiller Goucher College

Forum Journal, a Journal of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, (ISSN 1536-1012) (USPS Publication Number 001-715) is published quarterly by the Center for Preservation Leadership at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 as a benefit of National Trust Forum membership. Forum members also receive 12 issues of Forum News, and six issues of Preservation magazine. Annual dues are $115. Periodicals paid at Washington, D.C. Postmaster: Send address changes to National Trust Forum, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Copyright ©2010 National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. Printed in the United States. Of the total amount of base dues, $6.00 is for a subscription for Preservation magazine for one year. Support for the National Trust is provided by membership dues; endowment funds; individual, corporate, and foundation contributions; and grants from state and federal agencies. National Trust Forum Journal is a forum in which to express opinions, encourage debate, and convey information of importance and of general interest to Forum members of the National Trust. Inclusion of material or product references does not constitute an endorsement by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is concerned about the responsible stewardship of the environment and has published this journal on Chorus Art Silk paper which is 50% recycled with 25% post consumer fiber. It is manufactured with non-polluting, wind generated energy and is FSC certified and supported by the Rainforest Alliance.

Norwalk County Building in Norwalk, Calif., Kistner, Wright and Wright, Architects, 1968.

photo by John Eng

Introduction

Christine madrid french

Over the past several years, preservationists have finally begun to devote serious attention to the immense challenge of documenting, evaluating, and conserving cultural resources from the twentieth century. This attention occurs not a moment too soon: it is clear that these are the issues that preservation professionals will be grappling with for the remainder of this century and well into the next millennia. H. Ward Jandl, 1995

n 1995 the National Trust for Historic and the recent past, the National Trust has Preservation published its firstForum followed up with two more journals dedi- Journal dedicated solely to the issue cated to the same topic, in 2000 and 2005. In of “Preserving the Recent Past.” In his that tradition, the National Trust is honored Iintroduction, Jandl, deputy chief of the Pres- to produce the fourth journal exploring this ervation Assistance Division at the National concern. It expands upon the work featured Park Service, made the prescient observation previously while focusing on new ideas that inscribed above. Indeed, as he predicted, will influence preservation policy today and preservationists continue to debate the in the upcoming years. All told, the four merits of saving buildings and landscapes journals include the writings of nearly 40 less than 50 years old, and argue over the prominent scholars, activists, architects, and historic significance of modernist designs, practitioners, in essays discussing strategy, some dating from as early as the late 1920s. evaluation, and preservation of a diverse mix Yet Jandl also noted that “the serious of American resources whose historical asso- study of the recent past is a relatively new ciations range from the Cold War to hip-hop phenomenon; there have been few scholarly culture to the internet age. books on the subject, and articles in profes- sional journals are few and far between.” The Challenges Today That, fortunately, is no longer the case. A In theory, saving modern and recent past proliferation of articles, in popular news resources should be no different than pre- outlets such as USA Today and profes- serving architecture from an older era, but sional journals from organizations such persistent challenges exist. As architect Theo as the Society of Architectural Historians, Prudon asserts in his essay, the critical markers have provided both the scholarly informa- and baseline information that preservationists tion that is needed to prove significance have used for decades are losing relevance for and the public exposure required for suc- our time. He notes that “shifting environmen- cessful historic preservation efforts. tal, technical, and economic expectations,” In the 15 years since that firstForum are rapidly compressing the cycle of design, Journal focusing on preserving modernism construction, and demolition. The end result is

ForumJournal summer 2010 5 a marked loss of our modern architectural the wonderfully diverse architectural and heritage and a chronological imbalance in social legacy of the U.S. Her essay ends the cultural landscape that we present to with a challenge to preservationists: We succeeding generations. must “confront controversy” and question The first hurdle to accurately docu- the validity of these restrictions. Doing so menting and preserving architecture of the will realign current guidelines to ensure recent past is a proliferation of temporal the equitability of eligibility standards guidelines (at federal, state, and local throughout the country. levels) that hinder the designation and A persistent public reluctance to protection of buildings and landscapes less acknowledge buildings, landscapes, and than a certain age. These time-sensitive structures from the previous generation as historic is an In theory, saving modern and recent past resources equally difficult should be no different than preserving architecture issue that must be from an older era, but persistent challenges exist. addressed. Selec- tively excising policies have produced a distortion in our parts of our built environment obscures national list of significant structures and historic context and damages our long- also obstruct grassroots efforts. term memories of a site. In some cases, Elaine Stiles investigates the origins of subjective aesthetic arguments, rather the “50-year rule” and determines that, than objective analyses, guide preliminary despite the assertions of critics, a revision evaluations of a resource’s significance. of the age criteria for determining historic Those buildings and landscapes that do significance will not result in the wholesale not appear consistent with a community’s inclusion of sites of mediocre importance, currently favored image are marginalized, but will more effectively acknowledge their historic context ignored, and their architects’ motives questioned. Two types of landscapes are frequently targeted under these arguments: the spaces that resulted from urban renewal, and suburbia. Alan Hess addresses our cultural ambivalence when discussing these sites, often regarded as the “most unsettling specters of 1960s architecture.” He argues for the continued relevance of mid-century suburbs and dismisses the deceptive generalizations of these landscapes as “unplanned automobile wastelands.” Coming to terms with our own past and conveying that knowledge to others is one of the valuable results of preservation; the

Thanksgiving Chapel designed by Johnson/ Burgee in Dallas, Tex., in 1977.

Photo by Christine Madrid French

6 summer 2010 ForumJournal thoughtful evaluation of resources helps to dissolve preconceived assumptions and leads toward a more integrated knowledge of history. Similarly, David Gest reveals the underlying historic significance of a 1969 urban renewal housing complex. In tradi- tional preservation terms, the plain brick, unornamented 18-story building in the Bronx would not immediately stand out. Yet, Gest proved—and the New York State Author’s mother, Diane Madrid, standing in front Historic Preservation Office agreed—that of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the downtown Los Angeles Music Center in the mid 1960s. the site “contributed to the broad patterns” Photo by Ruben Madrid of American history as the birthplace of hip-hop music and dancing in the 1970s. antiquities, thereby fulfilling the design The apartment complex was recently deter- intent hinted at by its architect and easing mined eligible for listing in the National the landscape into the 21st century. Register of Historic Places. Although it Preserving the resources of the recent is one of only a small number of sites past entails expecting the unexpected in recognized for its association with African other ways as well. The 1965 La Laguna American history and urban culture, there playground in California, remarkable are concerns about its future. Securing the for its fanciful concrete sculptures in the protection of unusual, large-scale historic shape of dinosaurs and sea creatures, resources is not exclusive to recent past nearly met its end before community preservation efforts, but will require the activists rallied to the cause. Senya Lubis- development of specialized solutions. ich details the grassroots efforts to save Paul Goldberger details one such the park, which required both creative exploration in re-use at the original Getty community approaches and strategic Museum, a “Roman” villa built at the maneuvers at the local and state level to height of 1970s exuberance above the address historic integrity within contem- beaches of Malibu, Calif. Like many porary playground safety standards. institutions, the Getty Trust eventually As former National Trust President outgrew its first home—once the pride Richard Moe noted in a recent speech, of Los Angeles residents—and moved its “Our history is a continuum, and our operations to the custom-designed Getty heritage is constantly expanding to incor- Center, a thoroughly modern design by porate recent eras, new technologies, and Richard Meier that rendered the old new ways of looking at the world.” The building extinct. Yet, rather than de-acces- City of Kent, in Washington, addressed sion the structure and move on, the Getty these concerns as stewards of a number of Trust dedicated its considerable might significant “earthworks” sites dating from to reinvigorating the old building. New the 1970s. Cheryl dos Remédios writes structures were added and a respectful about advocating for and preserving these renovation ensued. In an inspired move, innovative art and landscape creations, and the villa was repurposed as a gallery for the necessity of cooperating with federal

ForumJournal summer 2010 7 agencies—FEMA and the Corps of Engi- debate about how to effectively steward neers in this case—to achieve successful our own architectural legacy is a chance to conservation of public spaces and ensure both broaden the preservation conversation continued good stewardship practices. and bring new people into the discussion. To address what many consider to be Next Steps a continuing crisis in historic preserva- Keeping up with the concurrent cycles of tion, the National Trust inaugurated the history is a difficult endeavor, and there Modernism + Recent Past Program (also is no way to predict the direction of the known as TrustModern) in 2009, funded next preservation challenge. Issues such in large part by a two-year start-up grant as the long-term sustainability of restora- from the Henry Luce Foundation. With tion projects, modern materials conserva- the official launch of the project last April, tion, and public safety in historic civic the National Trust is working to secure its facilities require additional research and position as the leader in an ongoing and a coordinated effort between partners ever expanding movement. and advocates. Whatever the resource in Headquartered at the Western Office question, preservationists must be pre- of the National Trust in San Francisco, pared to work in tandem with a variety TrustModern seeks to reacquaint Ameri- of groups and accept new perspectives to cans with their living history by reframing remain generationally relevant and con- public perceptions about American modern tinue in our leadership role as considerate and recent past resources; creating stronger community planners. federal, state, and local policies to protect Now fully ensconced in the 21st cen- our modern architectural heritage; and tury—closer to 2050 than 1950—preserva- fostering an action network of individuals tionists cannot afford to alienate emerging and organizations interested in modern constituencies that are passionate about and recent past resource preservation and saving buildings and landscapes, whether rehabilitation. The National Trust moves the rallying cry is for a suburban ranch forward on these issues with the firm house, a post office constructed of poured conviction that these places matter and that concrete, or a humble roadside motel aspir- if we do not preserve the significant build- ing to look like Mount Vernon. ings, landscapes, and sites of the 20th cen- With these essays, we hope to engage tury, our nation stands to lose a vital aspect more people in these conversations and of its architectural and cultural heritage. begin a series of focused discussions cen- Join us in this conversation and dem- tered on the development of preservation onstrate the value of the resources that practice in the 21st century. matter to you. TrustModern posts daily to Twitter and Facebook and maintains a TrustModern comprehensive website with information As an advocate for saving modern and that you need to protect and save build- recent past resources, I am often con- ings and landscapes. Visit www.Preserva- fronted with misguided generalizations tionNation.org/trustmodern. fj regarding the history and significance of Christine Madrid French is the director 20th-century American architecture. Yet of the National Trust’s Modernism + Recent this challenge is also an opportunity: The Past Program.

8 summer 2010 ForumJournal The “Modern” Challenge to Preservation

Theodore h . M . Prudon

o current efforts to preserve the sheer number of projects and, in many modern architecture differ in instances, their grand scale. any way from preservation practices as we have previously Building for the Short Term Dknown them and, if so, what are those The shifts in economic attitudes are pos- differences? The answer is both yes and sibly the most easily and directly dem- no. When approaching this question from onstrated. In the last 50 or so years, the the point of view of methodology and financial expectations that guide return on process, at least at first glance, there does investment—and thus expected longev- not seem to be much of a distinction. Yes, ity—have begun to drive the design and the same scholarly and technical steps are construction decision-making process followed. However, philosophically and much more aggressively. As an example, technically, the answer may be no. There historically leases and mortgages were are a great many differences, as will be measured in terms of 99 or 30 years, with discussed, and these may be the tip of the the expectation that the building (the proverbial iceberg. asset) was going to be there as collateral In arguing for the similarities with exist- for that term. With financial expectations ing practices, many people—quite convinc- becoming ever more short-term (such as ingly—point to earlier advocacy efforts mortgages and financing having short-term that led to the acceptance of architectural fixed rates) and with mobility, whether per- styles once considered ugly and unworthy sonal or business, becoming ever greater, of saving. In this manner, such reactions to return on investment and thus durability is the preservation of modern architec- we are facing major changes in preservation ture today are not due to shifting environmental, technical, and that different from economic expectations. attitudes expressed decades ago to, say, Victorian architecture measured in similarly reduced time frames. or Art Deco. However, it is not aesthetics The reduction in permanency, the elimi- that is at issue but the underlying funda- nation of redundancies, and the desire to mentals that have changed. make building materials ever thinner and Today, in general, we are facing major more efficient and construction less costly changes in preservation due to shifting and labor- or skill-intensive all lead toward environmental, technical, and economic an ever more temporal and potentially expectations (among others). This is fur- more vulnerable building stock. It is thus ther magnified for modern architecture by not difficult to predict that the building

ForumJournal summer 2010 9 This poses several interconnected pres- ervation dilemmas and contradictions. The first question is how to convert something that is considered architecturally or cultur- ally significant but that is less durable or semi-permanent into something that is long lasting. Philosophically that question is not entirely new in history. The most common solution, particularly for exhibition struc- tures, which acquired cultural meaning or a community function beyond their original purpose, involved replacing the less durable (original) building in its entirety with an exact replica in more permanent materials. For instance, the Parthenon in Nash- ville, Tenn., built in 1897 for the Tennessee Centennial Exhibition in plaster, wood, and brick, was rebuilt in concrete starting in 1920 and finally completed in 1931. A similar case is the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, designed by Bernard Maybeck and erected originally as part of the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in 1915 in celebration of the The entrance to the post-modern Piazza D’Italia in New Orleans (Charles Moore, 1976-79) is a opening of the Panama Canal. The deterio- conceptual rendering of a temple, constructed of rated plaster and wood structure was rebuilt cladding attached to a structure made up of metal studs and stucco. Long-term preservation is likely in its entirety in the 1960s in reinforced to require rebuilding regularly or reconstruction in concrete matching the original in detail. different, more durable materials. However, our dilemma is not just techni- PHOTO BY THEODORE PRUDON cal or philosophical; the need to rebuild inventory of the recent past and that of the with greater permanency also raises issues foreseeable future will deteriorate more of scale, economics, and time. To apply that rapidly and will become an ever-greater principle of replication to the many build- problem requiring more speedy intervention. ings that were constructed with all sorts This shorter term, from a financial and of experimental and less-than-permanent physical perspective, is precisely the oppo- materials—a process that is not just limited site of the intent for preservation. Preserva- to earlier decades of the 20th century but tion seeks to extend the life of a structure continues in full force today—within a and turn it over to the next generation in limited time horizon, would simply be over- toto, rather than as an empty site for future whelming culturally and financially. and new investment or, if the building is It is here that it is necessary to return still standing, to short-term occupants or first to the subject of time, not as a financial investors who undertake a complete (gut) indicator, but as a factor, historically, in the renovation or rebuilding of their own. determination of human and cultural val-

10 summer 2010 ForumJournal ues. These earlier—more permanent—rep- is not change, but rather concerns the rate licas had achieved a cultural and social sig- of change. Deterioration measured over nificance but had become the responsibility 500 years is called aging, while deteriora- of a subsequent generation. For many tion of a more recent building in a matter “modern” buildings, however, the time for of decades would be described as failure: preservation intervention is now, in our In both instances what was there origi- own lifetime—forcing decisions that were nally has been replaced in its entirety. previously left to Father Time, Mother However, the issues are not that clear Earth, and the next generation. It is this cut. The Glass House by Philip Johnson very lack of distance that precipitates the may have little or no original glass left— associated questions and controversies. which represents almost its entire exterior envelope—but no one would argue that Material vs . Cultural this makes it any less historic. Or consider Authenticity the entirely new exterior walls of such sky- For instance, the desire to preserve and scrapers as the Lever House, which reflect the resulting need for greater permanency the ratios and dimensions as envisioned (part of the true grit of preservation) sets by Gordon Bunshaft in his design but up a new dichotomy: that of material ver- not the particular materials he selected. sus cultural authenticity. In other words, Nevertheless, this building is considered a to make the building more permanent, landmark. On the other hand, a complete the existing materials have to be replaced reconstruction of Chartres Cathedral in with more durable ones, removing the less EIFS (Exterior Insulation Finish System), durable and more temporal but original a contemporary foam insulation mate- and authentic materials. That is, material rial finished with a thin layer of stucco authenticity is abandoned to achieve the in painstaking detail, would seem to be building’s permanence, maintain its long- entirely unacceptable. term (cultural) presence, and achieve a Even if the answer is to rebuild and new material authenticity in the future. to introduce more permanent and more This raises the relativity of the percep- technically advanced structural or building tion of time and the speed of time. A pro- systems, the resulting physical presence gram of masonry repair and replacement and visual appearance may be significantly executed over centuries probably results in different because of changes even for the replacement of a substantial amount in-kind materials. Replacing glass of the of (very) original material. No one would 1950s with glass of 2010 may be authen- dream of questioning that process or tic in its choice but the visual outcome is challenge the material authenticity of the entirely different, as a number of recent building as it appears afterwards. For a restorations have demonstrated. These more recent building this process may necessary technical “upgrades”—the take place in a much shorter time frame original materials being simply no longer and the question of authenticity is often manufactured the same way—are often raised—but the physical facts are not that justified by the statement that had the dissimilar. Moreover, this difference in technology been available at the time, appreciation is colored by the reverence the original architect without any doubt that an old building engenders. The issue would have specified it. While this may

ForumJournal summer 2010 11 be true, somehow that argument leaves alive and important was continued use. unresolved the charge and responsibility His argument was not an economic one, of stewardship of patrimony in its transfer rather social and cultural, but funda- to a consecutive generation. mentally remains correct. Much of the This ever-increasing vulnerability as current discussion, including the writings well as economic and physical temporality of this author, has focused on the concept may also force an increase in replications of the obsolescence of function1—the operating theory we may inch ever closer to an alignment with Japanese being that with reconstruction principles, which are more concerned changes in use with the meaning and significance of a building and site, and program rather than maintaining a material authenticity. requirements, the building’s of the past, which may in some ways (economic) function is no longer served. become more and more “perfect” in their This argument is presented as some- appearance and stylization as a result thing that has evolved only over the last of the “perfection” of newer materials. few decades, culminating in that “tax This will require a reconsideration of the act”–inspired misnomer “adaptive use.” concepts of reconstruction. In a way we A better term would be simply “use” may inch ever closer to an alignment with or “continued use” because every use Japanese reconstruction principles, which evolves and is therefore by definition are more concerned with the meaning and adaptive. There is no doubt that the significance of a building and site, rather specificity of function increased with the than maintaining a material authenticity. economic developments of the Industrial In short, the preservation principles Revolution, but this is certainly not and certainties that guided earlier genera- unique to that time. Buildings have been tions have gone. The orthodoxy of the adapted and modified to accommodate Scrape versus the Anti-Scrape debate changes in use—if not in function—since seems less relevant in a debate over the time immemorial. replacement of temporal construction A house from 1950, for instance, materials. Stone-by-stone replacement of which has remained residential is still a the craftsmanship of the past, continuing house in 2010, but no one would argue to build on its age and patina, will cease that it is the same house. The function to be the sole operating principle. (residential) is the same, but the particu- lar use is not. The expectations for that The Charge of Functional function are entirely different because Obsolescence of changes in lifestyle and perceptions Another threat to buildings of the more- of comfort to name just a few (accom- recent past is functional obsolescence— modating, for instance, a different type that is, they no longer serve the purpose of family life that may require a home for which they were designed or built. office, home gym, and kitchen where Back in the 19th century, the influential meals are prepared by more than just French architect and theorist Viollet-le- mom. Regardless of the economic or Duc opined that what kept a building philosophical considerations, for any

12 summer 2010 ForumJournal building to remain viable, its use will more sustainable. Residential projects such change—as it always has. as Parkmerced in San Francisco or Silver Towers in New York City are examples Issues of Density and Energy where greater densities have been sought. Efficiency Aside from the question of density, The presumed social, political, technical, the intense focus on operating costs will and sustainability failures of modernist bring the actual physical construction and architecture are often cited as reasons for the designs of post-war buildings into the demolition of recent buildings. While question—having been built in a time the social and political arguments are par- when energy was cheap and abundant. In ticularly applied to social/public housing response, many preservationists argue for (citing most frequently the case of Pruitt- the fundamental sustainability of the act Igoe in St. Louis as an example), the bigger of preservation and reuse, emphasizing the and newer part of the discussion concerns concept of embodied energy. sustainability, as “density” and “carbon Because of the greater focus on con- footprints” become our buzzwords. struction and operating efficiencies for Here, also, the preservation of archi- today’s buildings, however, the impact will tecture from the recent past will face be particularly severe for the buildings of considerable added pressures because of the recent past. Their size and ubiquity the ubiquity, generous proportions, and substantial footprint of so many of the post-war projects. Density and carbon footprint are intensely intertwined in the minds of most planners and developers, but seem to be disconnected concepts in the eyes of most preservationists. Large projects with densities lower than what is possible today will become targets for either additional densifica- tion or demolition to make way for more buildings and units. While buildings of the last hundred years are larger and taller and occupy a greater (carbon) footprint than any period before, they are still smaller and less densely placed than that which is possible or desired today. To accommodate growth, it will be argued, these early behemoths will need to make way for new (and even larger but more carbon efficient) behemoths. The argu- Many post-war residential developments are sited ment will be that on some basis—be it in considerable open space, raising the possibility by square foot, per capita, or some other of additional construction to increase density. A fourth tower is being contemplated for Silver measure­—these new buildings will be far Towers in New York City (I. M. Pei, 1966). denser, more energy efficient, and thus PHOTO BY THEODORE PRUDON

ForumJournal summer 2010 13 combined with their prime (development) ern heritage? Preservation has arrived locations make them easy targets. The at a curious but important crossroads. early modernist curtain walls with their People’s lifetimes are extended, but the single glazing and their air and water lifetime of buildings has been reduced. infiltration issues are examples of what This is a complete reversal of that which is perceived to be wrong and inefficient was customary in the 19th century compared to earlier architecture. While when preservation principles were first this singular focus may not be entirely formulated. It means that ever more of correct, the net result will be substantial our cultural heritage will appear and replacements or demolitions to make way disappear in a generation’s lifetime and for more efficient solutions, reintroducing memory. The permanence and stability of the question of cultural significance and perceived history will completely change, material authenticity. and what is transferred physically to the The arguments for preservation need to next generation will evolve within one be broadened and go beyond a mere justi- lifetime. It is possible that preservation fication of embodied energy. While trying may evolve into a more fluid interpreta- to make buildings as durable and efficient tion of the past, perhaps more reminis- as possible, it is important to reiterate why cent of the world of 1984 rather than we preserve buildings of any period. They William Morris. add to a sense of self, a shared identity, Life spans of buildings will continue and a collective memory and culture. It is to speed up, requiring earlier and quicker these qualities that sustain human beings, selections and decisions, and increasing and such an argument needs to be force- the associated pressures. The dichotomy, fully reintroduced into the preservation contradiction, or conflict between perma- debate. Building codes have been adapted nence and durability on one hand (as the and structured to deal with the fact that ultimate concern for preservation) and earlier buildings do not comply per se with what seems to be an ever-larger degree our contemporary safety requirements, but of temporality on the other, will only duly realizing that they are not any less become more pronounced. safe. So why not approach sustainability Maybe this is not just a major philo- requirements in a similar manner? sophical and/or technical issue, but also a giant challenge for preservation manage- How to Proceed? ment. It will certainly force an expansion Having looked at the recent past, it is now of our practices as well as our thinking. fj

time to look at questions for the future. Theodore H. M. Prudon, Ph.d., FAIA, is Modern architecture, representing the a practicing architect, who, among other world’s largest percentage of the built subjects, teaches the preservation of modern architecture in Columbia University’s Gradu- environment post WWII, will lose more ate Program in Historic Preservation. He is the buildings than any other period. But so president of DOCOMOMO US, (DOcumentation and COnservation of monuments, sites and far, preservationists have paid little atten- neighborhoods of the MOdern MOvement), an tion to that period. international and national organization advo- With all these synergies converging, cating the preservation of modern architecture. 1 Theodore H. M. Prudon, Preservation of Modern where does that leave preservation, and Architecture (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, in particular, the preservation of mod- 2008), Chapter 2: Philosophical Issues Affecting Preservation and Design.

14 summer 2010 ForumJournal 50 Years Reconsidered

Elaine stiles

dvocates, practitioners, and exceptional importance criterion are of scholars concerned with central concern because of the remarkable the preservation of historic rate at which younger resources are being resources from the recent past lost with little or no consideration of their Ahave often debated the tenet that saving significance. Densification of suburban recent past resources may require chang- and urban environments, real estate ing the basic framework of professional markets where land is worth more than preservation practice in the United States. existing buildings, and the continual cycle One of the prime candidates singled out of rehabilitation for commercial and retail for change is the use of the so-called “50- structures threaten scores of recent past year rule,” a criterion established for the buildings and landscapes. It is rare that a National Register of Historic Places stat- contemporary historian has the luxury of ing that “properties that have achieved 50 years to evaluate the significance of a significance within the past 50 years resource. Without access to the incentives shall not be considered eligible for the and protections that come with eligibility National Register” unless the property is for or listing in historic registers, as well of “exceptional importance.”1 as the public endorsement of significance The use of the 50-year guideline is that designation carries, advocates for intended to provide “the time needed to recent past resources often cannot find develop historical perspective and to evalu- preservation solutions for important sites ate significance,” guard against “the listing before they are lost forever. of properties of passing contempo- With the 50-year time limit in place across much rary interest,” and of the nation, preservationists have few options or ensure that “the tools at their disposal to protect those resources that National Register fall through the 50-year crack. is a list of truly historic places.”2 As a model for state and The 50-year age guideline also increas- local preservation programs around the ingly places a barrier between preserva- country, the National Register evaluative tion professionals and the public as our criteria, including the 50-year age restric- field increasingly seeks to help people tion, repeat themselves in myriad forms in protect the places that matter to them, the more than 1,000 state and local preser- rather than those that matter to scholars vation ordinances in the United States. and critics. From Phillips Oil “76” Ball The 50-year “waiting period” for Signs to mid-century elementary schools, evaluation of historic resources and the traditional and nontraditional preser-

ForumJournal summer 2010 15 Lift #1 was the longest chair lift in the world when it opened in 1947. The City of Aspen/Pitkin County designated Lift #1 as a local landmark in 1974.

photo by Ferenc Berko, www.ferencberko.com

vationists are working to save places As the field of preservation increas- that they identify with personally and ingly embraces the recent past and generationally. It is a mathematical fact the 50-year restriction approaches its that most of these places will be less own 50th birthday, it seems a fitting than 50 years old, and an almost equal and worthwhile time to reexamine the certainty that they will not qualify as 50-year waiting period. Understanding “exceptionally important.” With the where the guideline came from, how we 50-year time limit in place across much use it, and its advantages and disadvan- of the nation, preservationists have few tages can help in deciding whether it is options or tools at their disposal to a help or a hindrance in stewarding the protect those resources that fall through significant built environment. Important the 50-year crack. questions include whether the 50-year

16 summer 2010 ForumJournal restriction is as useful and valuable at 30-year period between 1935 and 1966, the local level as at the state and national the Historic Sites Survey and National levels, and whether our current standards Park Advisory Board developed most of for evaluative scholarship are sufficient the criteria for significance and integrity for making sound preservation decisions. that were later adopted for the National An essential part of this examination Register of Historic Places.3 calls for considering what the preserva- The Advisory Board and Historic Sites tion world would look like without a Survey instituted an initial time param- time-centered guideline, and how pres- eter for the review of historic sites in ervation as a movement and profession 1937, narrowing its focus to properties may need to change if significance is not dating from, or associated with events necessarily correlated to age. from, before 1870. The Advisory Board’s As a starting point for the discussion, rationale for this narrowing in scope was this article offers a brief look at the origins to avoid “controversy, or the perception and function of the 50-year guideline, its of controversial issues” associated with practical and philosophical functions, and properties “pertinent to current or near some preliminary observations about what current history.”4 Much like the 50-year the preservation landscape might look like criterion today, the Advisory Board’s 1870 without the 50-year criterion by means of cut-off date drew criticism. The American a brief survey of communities with no age Society of Architectural Historians argued criteria for historic designation. before the Advisory Board that highly significant examples of then “modern” Origins architecture were frequently destroyed Many preservationists assume that with no recourse because of the 1870 the 50-year criterion was developed in guideline, and further pointed out that conjunction with the National Register the chosen date in no way represented a program after passage of the National terminus for architectural value.5 Historic Preservation Act of 1966 The Advisory Board revised the 1870 (NHPA). National Park Service historian cut-off date in 1952 in the course of reas- John Sprinkle’s comprehensive history of sessing the Historic Sites Survey program the 50-year time limit, however, shows review practices. A board committee that the restriction was developed as part report determined that “structures or sites of the Historic Sites Survey, a predecessor of recent historical importance relating to of the National Historic Landmarks pro- events or persons within the last 50 years gram created by the Historic Sites Act of will not, as a rule, be eligible for consid- 1935. Overseen by the National Park There is no evidence in the record as to why 50 Advisory Board, years was initially chosen as a waiting period. the Historic Sites Survey was charged with identifying eration under the standards,” thereby nationally significant sites worthy of initiating what we recognize today as the both preservation and potential inclu- “moving window” of 50 years.6 There is sion as federally operated sites within no evidence in the record as to why 50 the National Park System. Over the years was initially chosen as a waiting

ForumJournal summer 2010 17 period; it appears the board decided upon upholds the concept that the passage of this as an arbitrary period because, in time enhances our ability to understand, its judgment, this was sufficient time for contextualize, and responsibly evaluate proper historical perspective and a subsid- the significance of a resource. The passage ence of controversy. The Advisory Board of time (at least in theory) helps prevent included the Historic Sites Survey 50-year designation from catering to architec- age guideline in the 1965 criteria for the tural nostalgia rather than architectural successor National Historic Landmarks history and ensures preservation of Program, adding an exception to the well-documented, well-understood, and criterion for properties of “transcendent meaningful history rather than that which significance.”7 Less than five months after is merely interesting or noteworthy. The the passage of the NHPA, the NPS insti- requirement for “exceptional importance” tuted criteria and guidelines for the new also serves a distinct purpose, holding register program, including the 50-year “underage” resources to a higher standard time limit, based on those developed by to ensure that recognition afforded the the Advisory Board.8 resource will stand the test of time. The 50-year guideline continues to 50 Years in Action serve as a practical and philosophical In reflecting on the origins of the 50-year threshold for evaluating significance criterion, it is clear that an age-based crite- and as such exerts tremendous influence rion served distinct political and practical on the workings of American preserva- purposes for the Historic Sites Survey and tion practice. The criterion has evolved National Register program, some of which to guide a wide array of preservation remain relevant today, some of which activities, including determining the scope do not. The criterion limited pressure to of historic resource surveys, the level of review or designate properties associated consideration afforded in environmental with contemporary values and living per- and design review processes, and whether sons, and offered a pragmatic solution for properties are subject to demolition delay how to prioritize and review a large back- review. As a common baseline threshold log of potentially historic sites.9 It is also for historic designation at the federal and local level, the As a time parameter, the 50-year cut-off stands 50-year guideline as a philosophical boundary for preservation activities, also has power to indicating, however imperfectly, where we believe that influence eligibility for programs such the past typically “ends” and the present “begins.” as historic building important to note that the focus of the codes, historic rehabilitation tax credits, Historic Sites Survey was in no small part facade improvement and rehabilitation to identify potential National Park units, a projects, and grant funding. substantially higher standard than is typi- While the rationale for the 50-year time cally employed in recognizing historic sites limit and exceptional importance criterion under most preservation programs. reads quite sensibly, recent-past preser- As currently employed in the National vationists can attest that these standards Register program, the 50-year restriction have perhaps unintended negative effects

18 summer 2010 ForumJournal on how the preservation field views and values the recent past. As a time parameter, the 50-year cut-off stands as a philosophi- cal boundary for preservation activities, indicating, however imperfectly, where we believe that the past typically “ends” and the present “begins.”10 Preservation is a movement rooted in time, and the reasons why society seeks to preserve past aspects of the built or designed environment stem from an underlying belief that what is old is valuable and meaningful to modern society. Unfortunately, many preservation- ists see the 50-year cut-off not only as a necessary period of distance for reliable evaluation but also as a philosophical line separating quality from inferiority. The concept of “old” being valuable and mean- ingful can easily transform into a less- defendable value judgment that what is old is inherently better than what is new. The “exceptional importance” crite- rion serves to further segregate the recent past by holding more-recent resources to a higher standard than their peers. In some modes of interpretation, the requirement is understood as meaning that only iconic, critically acclaimed, or nationally significant resources from the recent past are “good enough” for pro- tection, while the vernacular fabric we so The 1957 Inland Steel Building in Chicago was designated as a city landmark in 1998 and listed in highly value in other historic contexts has the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. less worth if it was developed during the photo by John Cramer last two generations. While the National Register program have made up approximately 3 percent of clearly states that the 50-year criterion is National Register listings, with 40 percent not meant to exclude or prohibit resources of that number holding significance at the from being considered for listing, in local level.11 The percentage of resources practice, the percentage of resources in listed in the National Register built less the National Register with periods of than 50 years ago as of today (i.e., during significance ending in the previous 50 or after the 1960s) is presumably even years is quite small. Since the mid 1970s lower. There is no research available, or recent past resources (those less than 50 even easily compiled, on the number of years old at the time of their inclusion) designated properties less than 50 years

ForumJournal summer 2010 19 old at the state or local levels, but it is A number of communities in the likely that the percentage is similar to the United States, by chance or design, have National Register, with higher and lower already forded the 50-year gap, and percentages corresponding to differing manage preservation programs with patterns of historical development and relaxed or no age criteria for designation. concentrations of resources. These communities can offer an instruc- tive look at how removing age from the What If Dates Didn’t Matter? significance equation affects program While some preservationists welcome administration, preservation of recent an end to the 50-year and exceptional past resources, and public perceptions. importance concepts, others view their The group includes some of the country’s loss or liberalization with concern. Some largest cities, such as San Francisco, Los preservationists foresee unending review, Angeles, Chicago, and Raleigh, N.C., overwhelmed preservation commissions all of which have no age guidelines in and staff, blown budgets, controversy their preservation ordinances. The list sparked by groups vying for validation also includes places as diverse as Palm via the historic designation process, and Springs, Calif.; Fairfax County, Va.; and public relations disasters as the broadened the Colorado communities of Boulder scope of potential significance collides and Aspen. Notable cities with age guide- with the public’s concept of what is, or lines of less than 50 years include New should be, “historic.” All of these issues York City and Seattle (30 years and 25 are important to address in any reconsid- years, respectively).12 eration of the 50-year criterion. A brief survey of programs in commu- nities with age standards differing from the National Register model revealed several threads for further inquiry. Most of the surveyed communities have designated properties from the recent past with signifi-

20 summer 2010 ForumJournal cance at the local and national levels. The resources include nationally recog- nized and regionally important archi- tecture, as well as sites associated with notable local or wide-reaching history. A fair number of the locally designated sites were also listed in the National Register, though many were not. For instance, Palm Springs maintains a number of locally designated modern-era sites, but counts Above: The 1955 Marble Garden at the Aspen no structures in the National Register. Institute, designed by Herbert Bayer, was The number of recent past proper- designated a local landmark in 1996. ties designated locally, however, is not photo by Ferenc Berko, www.ferencberko.com significantly greater than at the national Opposite page: The City of Palm Springs designated the 1976 Palm Springs Art Museum, level, remaining between 2 and 4 percent designed by E. Stewart Williams, as a Class 1 of total designations. In several commu- Historic Site (local landmark) in 1998. nities, there were no resources at all less photo by David Glomb, 2005 than 50 years old listed in the local reg- ister. These data can be viewed in several unfortunately stirred up public contro- ways. On the one hand, it shows that versy over why the sites proposed for removing an age criterion does not neces- designation should be considered histori- sarily lead to a flood of nominations and cally significant. In response, the Aspen listings, or listings of questionable qual- municipal government has redeveloped ity. It demonstrates that solid scholarship and refined criteria for designation of and evaluation can reliably ensure that recent past heritage a number of times, historic designations have lasting value. relying on detailed context studies, analyti- On the other hand, the relatively low cal scoring of integrity, tiered significance number, and in some places the dearth of matrices, substantial incentives, and owner listings, may again testify to the undue consent requirements for designations of influence of the 50-year criterion on the some properties. A local task force has conceptual framework of preservation. been convened to do more major revamp- Survey, scholarship, advocacy, regulatory ing of Aspen’s designation criteria. Aspen’s review, and nominations for listings may experience underscores the fact that educa- be similarly low or absent. tion, outreach, and solid scholarship— The survey of communities with foundational elements for any preservation relaxed or no age criteria also showed program—are even more critical when that operating without an age guideline is a local preservation program begins to not without its pitfalls. Staff in the local expand beyond the boundaries of what the preservation program in Aspen, Colo., community traditionally (but perhaps inac- for example, have worked proactively for curately) considered “historic.” more than ten years to designate some More detailed study of communities of the city’s later 20th-century heritage, without the 50-year age guideline would including examples of modern, rustic, serve to inform development of preserva- and chalet-style homes. Their efforts have tion policy regarding resources from the

ForumJournal summer 2010 21 recent past in a number of ways. Impor- after the institution of the National His- tant questions to explore include what toric Preservation Act, preservation finds kinds of obstacles local historic preserva- itself repeatedly grappling with overly tion commissions and staff encounter restrictive regulations that effectively from an administrative, historical, and hinder historic preservation of significant public relations point of view when there American properties. It is our responsibil- is no recommended or mandatory waiting ity, as the stewards of historic resources, period for examination of a resource. It to re-assess the purpose of this restriction would also be worthwhile to investigate and discuss practical modifications that whether the relaxed age guidelines have are needed to ensure higher efficacy and been useful in saving or preserving recent wiser implementation of preservation past resources, and how designation of standards throughout the country. fj more-recent resources affected public Elaine Stiles is a program officer for the perceptions of preservation. A compila- National Trust’s Western Office. tion of best practices now being used 1 National Register of Historic Places, How to by communities to review and evalu- Apply the National Register Criteria for Evalu- ation; available from www.nps.gov/nr/publica- ate, designate, and manage traditionally tions/bulletins/nrb15/; accessed 4/2010. “underage” historic resources would help 2 Marcella Sherfy and W. Ray Luce, Guidelines for Evaluating and Nominating Properties that Have pave the way for other communities to Achieved Significance Within the Past 50 Years; available from www.nps.gov/nr/publications/ consider similar relaxation or removal of bulletins/nrb22/; accessed 4/2010. age criteria from their historic preserva- 3 John H. Sprinkle, Jr., “ ‘Of Exceptional Impor- tance’: The Origins of the ‘Fifty-Year Rule’ in tion program. Historic Preservation,” The Public Historian 29, No. 2 (Spring 2007):82. The Next 50 Years 4 Ibid., 83-84. 5 Ibid., 87 and footnote 15. Questioning the validity of the 50-year 6 Ibid., 84. criterion is a critical expansion in our 7 Ibid., 87. conceptualization of significance and the 8 Ibid., 99. cultural value of preservation, mark- 9 Ibid., 83. 10 Richard Longstreth, “When the Present ing a desire to preserve a continuity of Becomes the Past,” Past Meets Future: Saving resources that link us to a time we no America’s Historic Environments, Antoinette J. Lee, ed. (Washington, DC: The Preserva- longer relate to.13 Reexamining an evalu- tion Press, 1992):249; and Richard Longstreth, “The Significance of the Recent Past,”Cultural ation standard that is so philosophically Resource Management, 16, No. 6 (1993):5. and practically influential is challenging, 11 Sprinkle, Of Exceptional Importance, 102; and Carol D. Shull and Beth L. Savage, “From the and must include an understanding of the Glass House to Stonewall: National Register functional, conceptual, and historic con- Recognition of the Recent Past,” Preserving the Recent Past 2, Deborah Slaton and William text of the standard, as well as a weighing G. Foulks, eds. (Washington, DC: Historic Pres- of the potential benefits and detriments of ervation Education Foundation, National Park Service, Association for Preservation Technol- change. Yet there exists no better oppor- ogy International, 2000):1. tunity to undertake these efforts. 12 This is not a comprehensive or complete list of communities with relaxed or no age criteria for We must move forward, confident in designation of historic properties. Undoubtedly more exist; this list was compiled based on eas- the wisdom that we have much more to ily available information in preservation-related gain from employing a spirit of inclusive- publications, secondary source materials, program interactions, and announcements of ness in preservation than we may lose in landmark designations. confronting controversy. Almost 50 years 13 Longstreth, “Significance of the Recent Past,” 5.

22 summer 2010 ForumJournal Coming to Terms with the Sixties

Alan Hess

he most unsettling specters of architects that have been part of the 1960s architecture for preserva- modernist narrative in the history books tionists are those twin horsemen since the client first turned the key in the of the Apocalypse: urban renewal front door lock. We’ve grown accustomed Tand suburbia. to their facades. The former decimated the traditional The 1960s, however, present other urban centers we now revere; the latter buildings that some preservationists find replaced them with an alternate universe of challenging to square with traditional shopping malls, housing tracts, freeways, views of historic significance. There is and business parks that historic preservation something disquieting about facing this still does not fully understand or embrace. era’s suburban development, its tense dis- This ambivalence is understandable. putes about the direction of modernism, Countless historic preservation organiza- and the enormous increase in the scale of tions owe their births to struggles defend- almost everything. ing charming Victorian neighborhoods The 1960s marked a turning point in in the 1960s from a new civic center, arts architecture and city planning that alters complex, or shopping center by a 1960s the role of historic structures in a livable Corporate Modern- ist architect. Why There is something disquieting about facing should the same this era’s suburban development, its tense disputes blood, sweat, and about the direction of modernism, and the enormous tears be devoted increase in the scale of almost everything. to defending those interlopers today? Still, if one purpose city today. Certainly these changes began of historic preservation is to encourage before the 1960s, but they culminated in diversity and a respect for historic pat- the 1960s on a wave of unprecedented terns before new development, we must economic and urban growth, shifting now face the 1960s. social attitudes, the maturing of mod- Of course, certain individual designs ernism, the increasing sophistication of from the 1960s are easy for preservation- commercialism, the reorganization of ists to embrace, such as Eero Saarinen’s corporate architecture firms, and the 1962 TWA terminal at JFK Airport, Louis self-assurance of suburbia. Housing tracts Kahn’s 1965 Salk Institute in La Jolla, had been counted in the dozens; now mass Calif., and John Lautner’s 1968 Arthur production created subdivision houses Elrod House in Palm Springs, Calif. It is by the hundreds and thousands. Proto- easy to advocate for buildings by major types became a standard in commercial

ForumJournal summer 2010 23 architecture, creating a new nationalized Lloyd Wright on the eve of the new landscape. More pointedly, the 1960s decade, but reinvigorated by the inau- marked the emergence of historic preserva- guration of Lucio Costa and Oscar Nie- tion as a force in urban politics, econom- meyer’s Brasilia in 1960) still presented ics, and planning. Examples of adaptive a richer, more expressive set of forms, use—such as San Francisco’s Ghirardelli textures, and concepts rooted in nature Square (Wurster Bernardi & Emmons and rather than the machine. Meanwhile the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin) dominant corporate architecture firms which turned a blue-collar factory into a offered their own, often controversial, tourism venue—helped launch an ongo- Corporate Modern solutions that drew ing architectural, preservation, and urban on formalism and a softer ornamental trend in 1962.1 sense. On the horizon rose post-mod- Even today, these phenomena are still ernism, and the early careers of Robert unsettling to many. In many respects they Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Charles introduced the world we live in today. We Moore, Frank Gehry, Robert Stern, Rich- are still grappling with their consequences, ard Meier, and other major American and we are still not certain how we got here. architects of the late 20th century. This tumult leaves today’s cities with THE MATURING OF MODERNISM something to offend nearly everyone, espe- Consider one complicating aspect of the cially proponents of International Style 1960s: the maturing of modernism. No minimalism. Yet current taste cannot be longer the unruly upstart avant garde of the measure of architectural significance. the 1920s, modernism had become the There is no Darwinian proof legitimizing official style of major corporations, major what “survived” the cycles of fashion and cultural institutions, and major architec- rejecting what did not. If anything, history ture schools. But even as the self-assured shows us that concepts and styles rejected International Style became entrenched in by one period will almost inevitably be the establishment, cracks appeared in the embraced later by another. The critic in 1993, taking square If anything, history shows us that concepts and aim on the 1960s, styles rejected by one period will almost inevitably who bemoaned be embraced later by another. that “eighty percent of everything ever foundation of modernism, especially in built in America has been built in the last the United States. Many architects were fifty years, and most of it is depressing, no longer satisfied to repeat the canoni- brutal, ugly, unhealthy and spiritually cal motifs of flat roofs, glass walls, and degrading” is not to be taken at face value. exposed structure. This gave rise to an For example, the reputations of Neo- assortment of solutions: Brutalism offered Formalists Edward Durell Stone and a raw, muscular, masculine variation; Minoru Yamasaki were as prominent neo-formalism tempered the abstraction as Eero Saarinen or Skidmore Owings of modernism by re-integrating ornamen- & Merrill in the 1960s, yet they have tation and historicist symmetries; organic declined in the intervening decades. Bru- architecture (shaken by the death of Frank talism (or beton brut) likewise has fallen

24 summer 2010 ForumJournal Left: Edward Durell Stone’s 1959 Stanford Hospital, in Palo Alto, Calif., features a series of courtyards landscaped by Thomas Church that thread light, air, and nature through the concrete building. Stanford University is ready to demolish the complex. Right: The University of California, Irvine’s humanities buildings (1965, William Pereira Associates) feature sunscreen facades and float above the terraced topography.S imilar original campus buildings received insensitive alterations in 2008.

Photos by Alan Hess by the wayside; though it took modern- labeled as such, even mistakenly, are easy ism’s expression of structure and raw fodder for alteration: A campus historian material to one logical extreme. Beton misinterpreted the original design of the brut buildings are so starkly unambiguous University of California, Irvine (1965), by that they attract controversy even today. William Pereira Associates, as Brutalist Already, several major buildings of simply because the buildings are concrete. the 1960s have been demolished or Their weightless volumes floating above threatened because they are at odds with a natural landscape, and their smooth, present fashion. Note the ease with which sculpted surfaces, however, have little to many architects and historians argued for do with the weighty, rugged architecture defacing Stone’s Huntington Hartford Gal- of Brutalism. Yet insensitive alterations lery of Modern Art (1965) in New York. in 2008 destroyed the climate-responsive Today Stanford University is ready to pre-cast concrete sunscreens of UCI’s demolish Stone’s Stanford Hospital (1959) Steinhaus Hall, turning a vivid 1960s in Palo Alto, along with its gardens by building into a bland 2008 building. Thomas Church. The Brutalist icon Boston Clearly, accurate historical analysis is City Hall (1969) by Kallmann McKinnell essential as we approach the 1960s. & Knowles sustains attack regularly. I. M. Pei’s Brutalist Third Church of THE RISE AND SPREAD Christ, Scientist (1971) in Washington, OF CORPORATE MODERN D.C., gains headlines today as an “ugly” Beyond this clash of styles and taste, building that does not warrant preser- another nettlesome issue raised by 1960s vation. Mario Ciampi’s Berkeley Art architecture is the prominent role of large Museum (1970) has withstood earth- corporate architecture firms. Are their quakes and critical venom to remain massive complexes to be considered seri- standing, so far. ous architecture, or can they be dismissed The very term Brutalism has become as a commercial product churned out by so toxic and imprecise that buildings an assembly line approach?

ForumJournal summer 2010 25 By the 1960s, many architecture offices Let us consider one example of Corpo- had reorganized themselves to meet the rate Modern design to examine how this needs of rapidly expanding rosters of controversial 1960s phenomenon might private and public clients. Corporations be analyzed. Among Los Angeles–based in new industries such as aerospace and Welton Becket Associates’ wide array of electronics needed new campuses of projects—some more successful than oth- great complexity (such as TRW’s Space ers—the Los Angeles Music Center (1964) Park Campus by A. C. Martin, 1960, in sums up the office’s approach to aesthet- Redondo Beach, Calif.); major universities ics, urban planning, and unified “Total built entire new campuses (including Uni- Design.” With the Los Angeles County versity of California, Irvine, and University Museum of Art (LACMA, 1964) by Wil- of California, Santa Cruz); cities and states liam Pereira Associates, the Music Center built new civic centers to match expand- is one of the great trophies of that city’s ing bureaucracies and cultural aspirations; cultural aspirations in the 1960s, and so is new regional shopping centers grew in worth our attention today. size; the recreation, sports, and entertain- Both are large complexes incorporat- ment industries (including Disneyland) ing several buildings carefully arranged at demanded new facilities. “Total Design,” prominent locations. The space between as the nation’s largest architecture firm in the buildings is as important as the the early 1960s, Welton Becket and Asso- architecture itself, incorporating foun- ciates, described its approach, included the tains, terraces, and plantings. The pride ability to offer unified planning, archi- and prominence of these complexes made tectural and interior design, engineering, them easy targets for criticism as over- construction supervision, and landscaping scaled, ornamentalist, anti-urban, and services for large-scale, multi-year, multi- even vulgar. As products of large commer- phase projects that might include research and manufacturing facilities, offices, auditoriums, and residences. Because of the efficiently organized, production line methods used by Corpo- rate Modern firms, the high-rise offices, educational campuses, and manufactur- ing complexes they designed often used repetitive features spread over acres of property that sometimes tended toward bureaucratic monotony—characteristics that shade our opinions today. But poor examples should not cause us to ignore the many truly distinctive and creative The curving sides of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center, Los Angeles, Calif. contributions of large firms. Certainly (1964, Welton Becket Associates) give energy for the purpose of historic preservation, and movement to what would otherwise be a Corporate Modern buildings accurately static facade. Curving forms are picked up by Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Hall (2004), across reflect many of the economic, cultural, the street (foreground). and popular trends of their times. Photo by Alan Hess

26 summer 2010 ForumJournal cial firms, they were often dismissed by styles are the broader issues of 1960s high-art critics. Despite their significance, urban planning and urban design. both have been endangered (as is LACMA None is more controversial than currently) by the overt bias against 1960s the issue of suburbanization. Today its and Corporate Modern architecture. negative aspects are highlighted under the Yet an analysis of the Music Center rubric “sprawl,” while suburbia’s progres- in the light of its times suggests another sive roots are forgotten. An odd dearth of view of its architecture and planning. Set useful scholarship (until fairly recently) on the top of Bunker Hill, the complex’s compels us to operate on myths, instead grand dimensions and neo-formalist sym- of facts, about suburbia. metries must be read at the scale of the Many aspects of suburbia rub the entire downtown, and as reflecting the sensibilities of 2010 the wrong way: Its confidence of the entire city. Nonetheless, reliance on commercially mass-produced choices of materials, details, and graph- housing tracts; on the automobile and its ics also relate the buildings to human An odd dearth of useful scholarship (until fairly scale: The concrete- recently) compels us to operate on myths, instead of aggregate-clad facts, about suburbia. structural columns are energized by an elastic taper, and freeways, parking lots, and cul de sacs; their weight is visually lightened by the on regional shopping malls that suck the small aluminum footings on which they life out of Main Streets and downtowns. stand, en pointe. The sides of the Dorothy This distaste allows us to paint a one- Chandler Pavilion curve outward, giving dimensional picture of the 1960s. energy and movement to what otherwise Far from being static, suburbia’s would be static symmetry; Frank Gehry design advanced continually in response acknowledged the power of these forms in to the desires of millions of center-city the sweeping arcs of Disney Hall (2004) residents for neighborhoods that were across the street. green, spacious, and accessible, not There is no question that the Music congested, polluted, and crime-ridden. Center is a design from an era when new Above all, suburbia was new. The cultural complexes and sports stadiums arrangement of its buildings and the redefined downtowns for a confident style of its architecture looked different new age. It looks unabashedly to the than traditional cities. Its new building future. Like many other 1960s Corporate types included regional shopping malls, Modern buildings, it is an unambiguous jetports, freeways, and mass-produced reminder of what we once firmly believed. housing tracts, and its new urban forms included business parks and commercial SUBURBIA AND PLANNED strips. All of these had precedents that COMMUNITIES had been evolving for decades, but the The question of style must always be a prosperity of the 1960s brought them to part of the conversation about architec- a new scale and prominence. ture and preservation. But even more One of the greatest myths about sub- confounding than currently unpopular urbia is that it was unplanned, respond-

ForumJournal summer 2010 27 identifying the first, or the most influ- ential, examples of a type. But another argument must also be made beyond his- toricity: Historic suburban buildings are part of a broader urban fabric that reflects strong and logical intentions. Just as the preservation of key urban anchors such as New York’s 1913 Grand Central Station and Century City’s 1966 Century Plaza

Edgewood Plaza Shopping Center, in Palo Alto, Hotel (in Los Angeles) also strengthens Calif., (1954-1958, Jones & Emmons) is one their surrounding urban fabric, the pres- key element of a unified pedestrian-oriented, ervation of a 1960s suburban shopping suburban design integrating shopping, offices, and houses. This pattern was more common in center may help save a neighborhood. suburbia than we presently acknowledge. The Edgewood Plaza shopping Photo by Alan Hess center (1954-1958) in Palo Alto, Calif., ing to short-term commercial profit by Jones and Emmons for developer rather than rational planning. Suburbia’s Joseph Eichler, is one such example. As a remarkable unfurling horizontality, its historic artifact, its existence undermines bright populism, and its commercial vital- the myth that post-war suburbia was ity look like nothing so much as chaos to an unplanned commercial product of eyes trained to appreciate the traditional one-dimensional bedroom communities. center city. Yet in population, area, and The planning concept that included the innovative urban concepts, the growth of shopping center demonstrates how 1950s decentralized suburban metropolises was suburban design could unite housing, the United States’ most significant urban- shopping, and employment in a livable, ist trend in the mid-20th century. pedestrian-scaled neighborhood. Suburbia’s new conceptions of the city Built in a modern wood post-and-beam and architecture mean that historic preser- style, Edgewood Plaza includes a market vation must seek new ways of evaluating and shops, gas station, and office building its significance. With recent scholarship by adjacent to a housing tract. This pattern Robert Bruegmann, Grady Gammage Jr., of suburban development was repeated Greg Hise, Richard Longstreth, the Los more times than we now generally credit. Angeles Planning Department’s SurveyLA, At the time of this writing, Edgewood Merry Ovnick, Hal Rothman, D. J. Waldie, Plaza’s future is still unresolved. Its pres- Gwendolyn Wright, the current author, ervation would ensure the survival of a and others (not to mention earlier cries valuable historic document, as well as a in the wilderness by J. B. Jackson, Denise workable design for suburban life today. Scott Brown, Robert Venturi, and Steven Edgewood Plaza’s concept is only Izenour), we are beginning to understand one small example of how suburbia was the patterns and logic in the buildings, planned. The 1960s also saw an emerg- styles, and plans of the 1960s.2 Will historic ing trend of sophisticated master-planned preservationists learn from this history? communities. The small-scale experi- Some suburban architecture can still ments in suburban theory at Radburn, be evaluated by the established criteria of N.J., and the Greenbelt cities in the 1920s

28 summer 2010 ForumJournal and 1930s came to fruition first in the a sophisticated linear urban form and large-scale mass-produced housing tracts complementary architecture in the 1960s, in Panorama City and Lakewood in is another example of de facto planning California, and the Levittowns on the East based on the forces of the entertainment Coast in the 1950s; these in turn evolved economy, the auto, and suburban com- into increasingly multi-faceted master- mercial strips. planned communi- ties in the 1960s Good master-planned communities represent at Irvine, Calif.; a careful balance of housing, services, employment, Reston, Va.; and and parks; can one element be removed thought- Columbia, Md. lessly without upsetting that equilibrium? They set standards nationally by integrating housing, shop- These influential projects remain ping centers, libraries, schools, greenbelts, a lightning rod for criticism, in some and other amenities into a large, complete, quarters, of the entire demographic shift well-researched, socially sophisticated, to suburbia. Yet they are an undeniable and well-detailed community design. part of urbanism and architecture in the The 1960s also applied master plan- 1960s. Now mature, they face destruc- ning concepts to a new kind of suburban- tion by a thousand small cuts. Good urban downtown, typified by Century master-planned communities represent City (1965) in Los Angeles. Built on the a careful balance of housing, services, former back lot of Twentieth Century employment, and parks; can one element Fox studios, it created a car-oriented, be removed thoughtlessly without upset- high-density high-rise office, apartment, ting that equilibrium? The recent agree- hotel, shopping, and cultural center by ment to save the Century Plaza Hotel organizing the elements of a traditional in Los Angeles, a keystone to the entire downtown into a very different form. Century City plan, represents one step in The Las Vegas Strip, which also achieved the right direction. Historic preservation

Begun in 1965, Irvine, Calif., is one of the largest master-planned communities in the United States, with parks, lakes, houses, and shopping centers all designed into a unified plan.M odern architecture was central to the original concept.

Photo by Alan Hess

ForumJournal summer 2010 29 to base our opinions instead on solid documentation and clear-eyed analysis about the forces, concepts, and patterns that shaped it. We need to find new ways to think about the suburban metropolis that are more in keeping with what was actually built, rather than precon- ceived assumptions. Preservationists must continue to defend individual masterpieces of design, but must also expand their concerns Century City (1965) in Los Angeles typified a new kind of suburban-urban downtown. Built on the to include large-scale campuses, and former back lot of Twentieth Century Fox studios, large-scale patterns of organization for it created a car-oriented, high-density high-rise office, apartment, hotel, shopping, and cultural shopping, housing, employment, or rec- center by organizing the elements of a traditional reation—in short, the complexity of the downtown into a very different form. suburban metropolis. By recognizing these Photo courtesy of Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library patterns, historic preservation becomes a valuable part of the ongoing process of faces the challenge of preserving not only change by which cities live individual buildings but entire large-scale and evolve. fj urban concepts. Alan Hess is an architect, historian, and archi- tecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News. His COMING TO TERMS books include The Ranch House, Googie: Ultra- WITH THE SIXTIES modern Roadside Architecture, The Architecture of John Lautner, Oscar Niemeyer Houses, and No matter how widely held today, the Forgotten Modern. opinion that architecture since 1945 is 1 James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of “depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy and Nowhere (New York: Touchstone), 1993, p 10. 2 See Robert Bruegmann, Sprawl: A Compact His- spiritually degrading” can hardly be tory (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), supported by the facts. The 1960s were 2005; Grady Gammage Jr., Phoenix in Perspective: Reflections on Developing the Desert (Tempe: Ari- a period of expansion, confidence, inven- zona State University), 1999; Alan Hess, The Ranch House (New York: Harry Abrams, Inc.), 2004; Greg tion, and prosperity akin to the boom Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twen- years after the Civil War and World War tieth Century Metropolis (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), 1997; J. B. Jackson, I. No matter how different the 1960s Landscapes: Selected Writings of J. B. Jackson are from the 2010s, 1960s architecture (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press), 1970; Richard Longstreth, City Center to Regional mirrored its society well. Indeed, the era’s Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950 (Cambridge: MIT Press), self-assurance gives its buildings the clar- 1997, and The Drive-In, the Supermarket, and ity and vividness that make them targets the Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles, 1914-1941 (Cambridge: MIT Press), 1999; for controversy today. Los Angeles Planning Department, SurveyLA (to We have not yet come to terms fully be published in 2013); Merry Ovnick, Los Angeles: The End of the Rainbow (Los Angeles: Balcony with our suburban history. It is still Press), 1994; Hal Rothman, Neon Metropolis (New York, Routledge), 2002; Robert Venturi, Denise shrouded in conventional wisdom and Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from myth: suburbia as a place of soulless ano- Las Vegas (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 1972; D. J. Waldie, Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (New mie, unplanned automobile wastelands, York: W. W. Norton and Co.), 1996; Gwendolyn little boxes made of ticky-tacky. We need Wright, USA: Modern Architectures in History (London: Reaktion Books), 2008.

30 summer 2010 ForumJournal When in Rome

paul goldberger

n the 1970s, the Getty Museum built J. Paul Getty, died, leaving the bulk of his itself a home in Malibu, Calif., in the multibillion-dollar estate to the museum, form of an imitation Roman villa from which suddenly became the world’s richest the first century. There was something cultural institution. The museum morphed Iundeniably kitschy about the notion of into the Getty Trust and spent a billion putting a make-believe classical villa atop dollars constructing the Getty Center, a a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean pristine modernist campus by Richard and calling it a museum, but nobody Meier, atop a steep hill in Brentwood, 13 seemed to mind. This was Los Angeles, miles east of Malibu. after all, and so what if the over-decorated The trust was obviously eager to leave galleries, with their damask wall coverings behind its arriviste beginnings, and the and trompe-l’oeil murals, gave the muse- villa could easily have become the most um’s interior the feeling of a mogul’s man- upscale condo conversion in Los Angeles sion in Bel Air? Then the Getty grew up. history. Instead, the Getty came up with a In 1976 its eccentric founder, the oilman more imaginative, and more costly, idea:

Once merely an imitation of an ancient Roman villa, the Getty Museum has been elevated through the addition of modernist companion buildings, interior changes, and a more appropriate use.

PHOTO © 2005 RICHARD ROSS WITH THE COURTESY OF THE J. PAUL GETTY TRUST It decided to give its strange building a ancient Rome. (In fact, some items in the chance to be taken seriously. The trust collection may belong to Rome; the Getty announced that it would turn the Malibu has been accused of acquiring a significant villa into a museum of antiquities, filling number of looted artifacts.) But it takes it with objects that were created in the more than hauling away some gilded period that the building—a replica of the frames to make a ponderous building into Villa dei Papiri, in Herculaneum—was a gracious one. This is not a slavish rep- intended to evoke. It was a risky move, lication of Roman architecture, although since it wasn’t clear if this approach various touches (such as new floors of would make the building look more digni- bronze, mosaic, and marble) reveal a high fied or even sillier. level of scholarship. Instead Machado It took a dozen years and $275 million and Silvetti have acknowledged the past to renovate the villa and surround it with without imitating it. They have boldly a series of modernist buildings, includ- reorganized the villa, creating more logical ing an entry pavilion, an amphitheater, routes through it, and adding 58 windows a parking garage, a cafe, an auditorium, and three skylights to bring natural light an education center, and a shop. The into the galleries. project’s architects are Rodolfo Machado One of the best things in the villa and Jorge Silvetti, of Boston—rigorous now is a new main stair of bronze, modernists who have a love of classicism glass, and hand-carved Spanish stone; and believe that an architect best respects a meticulous modernist composition, it history not by imitating it but by teasing is broad, sumptuous, and serene, and a its spirit into new forms. Machado and crisp counterpoint to the classical-looking Silvetti are about as far as you can get environment around it. The effect is play- from Norman Neuerburg, who designed ful and knowing; in Italy, contemporary the original villa, and it seemed an odd alterations to ancient Roman structures match: There is nothing overtly charming are often made in such a bluntly modern style, to make clear By treating the barely old as a revered object, which elements are Machado and Silvetti somehow make visitors feel authentically old. that this building is no longer an object of ridicule Here, of course, the but, rather, worthy of respect. “original” details date from 1974. about Machado and Silvetti’s work, while By treating the barely old as a revered Neuerburg’s design was a vast, sprawling object, Machado and Silvetti somehow exercise in cuteness. make visitors feel that this building is no The campus that Machado and Silvetti longer an object of ridicule but, rather, have created is a bracing collage of the worthy of respect. It is an understated, old and new, and the villa has been almost sly maneuver, and they do it without magically transformed. The task was taking the easy path of irony. Machado surely made easier by the fact that the and Silvetti have recast the villa not only French furniture and Old Master paint- through their upgrades but in the way ings are gone from the villa, and its new they have surrounded it with a series of contents have a genuine connection to new structures, changing its context. The

32 summer 2010 ForumJournal Now filled with antiquities from the period the building is meant to evoke, the villa’s galleries have been reorganized as well as brightened with new windows and skylights.

PHOTO © 2005 RICHARD ROSS WITH THE COURTESY OF THE J. PAUL GETTY TRUST villa is no longer its own little theme park: the renovated, painted concrete villa come It is now its own architectural folly in the into view—brilliant in ivory and white, with center of a carefully conceived, impeccably a glistening red tile roof. wrought modern campus. In the English The facades of Machado and Silvetti’s landscape tradition, the folly was not a new buildings contain a few portions of trivial object but a noble act of histori- travertine, a warm and handsome stone cal connoisseurship, playing off against a that here serves as a deft allusion to the great manor house that was designed in a dominant material on Meier’s Getty Center more contemporary style. Machado and campus. But the new buildings are clad Silvetti have saved the once outlandish mostly in striated concrete, a more proactive villa by connecting it to this honorable material that is at once harsh and delicate. architectural heritage. Here, it is sometimes layered with marble, The ring of modernist structures bronze, wood, and other forms of concrete, doesn’t intrude on the villa, nor do the to create what architects call a “strata wall.” buildings form a neutral backdrop. They The details are exceptionally refined—the are the architectural equivalent of cupped retaining walls around the entry pavilion hands, holding the original structure are capped by floating panels of translucent within a firm, protective grasp. In this onyx, for example—and there are lots of scheme, the new buildings—mainly hori- climbing vines, lest anyone get the idea these zontal structures, some of which are set architects were trying to surround the villa into the side of the canyon—are gateways with the rough and austere Brutalism that that deliver you to the old. You start with was fashionable in the 1970s. (Using the Machado and Silvetti’s monumental entry modernism of the villa’s own period would pavilion, and then zigzag up a series of have been a nasty, if clever, joke.) staircases, through a carefully choreo- Machado and Silvetti seem determined graphed sequence of modernist areas, to show that modernism can have tex- until you reach the amphitheater where ture, richness, sensuality, and scale. Their the space finally opens up. Only then does architecture recalls that of the great Italian

ForumJournal summer 2010 33 The new amphitheater set beside the villa exemplifies the engagement of the modern with the classical.

PHOTO © 2005 RICHARD ROSS WITH THE COURTESY OF THE J. PAUL GETTY TRUST

modernist Carlo Scarpa. Like Scarpa, small achievement. This act seems Machado and Silvetti can slip a sheet of particularly noteworthy in Southern glass or a crisp bronze rail into a stone California, where the line between good facade and make it seem not a coy jux- and bad taste has often been blurred taposition of different periods but a real beyond recognition, and public space is engagement of the modern with classical, often experienced as a kind of artificial so that the architectural styles separated environment. At the Getty villa, you by 2,000 years appear to have something still park your car and enter a fantasy to say to each other. world, but it is no longer a glib one: One of the new sections, a tall struc- It’s sincere, cerebral, and elegant. By ture containing the cafe and the museum adding modern buildings, Machado and store, has a large outdoor colonnade. Silvetti haven’t made the Getty’s Roman Little slabs of onyx are set atop each col- villa any less a part of Southern Califor- umn, forming modernist versions of capi- nia, and they haven’t made it any less tals. The arrangement of the onyx layers entertaining. They have given it the one varies with each column, and the effect thing it always lacked: a proper sense is of piles of books stacked at random of history. fj atop cylinders. A beautiful flourish, it’s Paul Goldberger is the architectural critic as subtle, and as gently witty, a comment for The New Yorker. on the dialectic between modernism and The New Yorker, February 27, 2006. Reprinted with permission from Paul Goldberger; originally classicism as I’ve ever seen. published in Building Up and Tearing Down: Elevating an object of architectural Reflections on the Age of Architecture (New York: The Monacelli Press, a division of Random House, derision into something serious is no Inc., 2009), pages 223-226.

34 summer 2010 ForumJournal Preserving the Birthplace of Hip-Hop

david gest

n May 21, 2007, the New York Times’ David Gonzalez wrote an article entitled “Will Gentrification Spoil the Birthplace of Hip-Hop?” It described the plight of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, a low- to middle-income housing development built in the late 1960s as part of New York State’s OMitchell-Lama affordable housing program. As a fan of urban history, hip-hop, and his- toric preservation, I had always marveled that oral histories pinpointed the exact genesis of hip-hop music and culture to a series of parties held in a Bronx housing complex in the early ’70s. Now that the state’s contract with the landlord (a management corpora- tion) permitted it to opt out of Mitchell-Lama, the corporation sought to abandon its tax breaks and subsidized mortgage—which had allowed for 20 years of affordable hous- ing—and sell the property. After reading the article, I contacted the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a nonprofit group organizing the tenants’ opposition to the proposed sale and likely loss of affordability under new ownership, and tried to help the cause by writing a narrative description of this building’s historic significance. Based on this research (composed in 2007, some of which is presented here), the New York State Historic Preservation Office determined that 1520 Sedgwick is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, possibly even as a National Historic Landmark. Although this historic docu- mentation may not legally prevent any changes (including demolition) to the building, it may serve as a rallying point for public awareness of our need to preserve this unique, tangible element of American history. In the fall of 2008, the building was sold to a private real estate developer for $7 mil- lion. However, the economic recession has temporarily made conversion of the building to market-rate units unfeasible, and the new owner has let the building fall into disre- pair, with a 600 percent increase in the number of housing violations since the change in management (from 82 to 598 violations).1

Hip-hop: An Introduction in the context of the urban South Bronx, Scholars, musicians, and the media where a complex maelstrom of social and widely recognize Sedgwick Towers, political forces at play in the 1950s, ’60s, the building located at 1520 Sedgwick and early ’70s left the African American Avenue in the Bronx, as the birthplace of and Hispanic communities searching “hip-hop,” a uniquely American musi- for a way out of lives of poverty, gang- cal genre and culture that over the past dominated crime, and drugs. Since its 34 years has become one of the most inception, hip-hop has consisted of both popular in the world. Hip-hop developed music—usually instrumental break-beats

ForumJournal summer 2010 35 with a heavy bassline, created by a disc jockey (DJ) manipulating vinyl records on dual turntables (DJing), and a vocal- ist using a microphone to rhyme in time with the beat and entertain the audience (acting as a master of ceremonies, or MCing, also known as rapping)—as well as an urban culture centered on danc- ing to the break-beats (breakdancing), vocal percussion (beatboxing), graffiti art, and unique styles of communication and fashion. These cultural expressions are often associated with the competi- tion and boastfulness of rival hip-hop DJs, MCs, and breakdancers, either as Sedgwick Towers, an 18-story building with 100 individuals or groups. apartment units, is typical of the public housing Three of the fundamental elements of constructed in New York City in the 1950s and ’60s. hip-hop—DJing, MCing, and breakdanc- PHOTO BY wikipedia/bigtimepeace ing—evolved directly from a series of events held by Clive Campbell (born in embellishment built to house low- to 1955), stage name DJ Kool Herc, in the middle-income residents. (Currently recreation room of the low- to middle- two-thirds of the residents earn less income apartment complex known as than 80 percent, and in many cases less the General Sedgwick House, or Sedg- than 50 percent, of area median income, wick Towers, beginning in 1973.2 In and qualify for Section 8 Vouchers). 1974, as these rec room parties became The building is located on a narrow increasingly popular, Campbell decided parcel of flat land in the Morris Heights to transition to outside “block parties” neighborhood, wedged between U.S. approximately three-quarters of a mile 101/95, U.S. 87, and an off-ramp, with to the northeast in Cedar Park, near the the George Washington Bridge on the intersection of Sedgwick Avenue and south side, and Major Deegan Express- Burnside Avenue. way and the East River on the east. Beginning in the 1930s, when banks The Genesis of 1520 Sedgwick routinely “redlined,” or excluded, The City of New York Housing and services to much of the South Bronx, Community Development Administra- preventing residents from obtaining tion constructed the General Sedgwick home mortgages,4 a host of social and House, a building complex of 100 political developments combined to apartment units, in 1969 as part of leave the South Bronx a national symbol the Mitchell-Lama (state-financed) of poverty and urban decay by the housing program.3 The plain, brick, 1970s. After World War II, thousands 18-story building is a typical example of African Americans and Puerto Ricans of the type—a mid-rise, public housing moved to the Bronx, as federal housing complex with little ornamentation or and urban renewal policies encouraged

36 summer 2010 ForumJournal mostly wealthier whites to purchase city.12 The borough added the General single-family homes in the suburbs.5 The Sedgwick House at 1520 Sedgwick Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954 also Avenue in 1969. provided federal funding for the clearing of “blighted” inner-city areas in favor of Clive Campbell modern, Le Corbusier–influenced “tower At age 15, around 1970, Clive Camp- in the park”–style apartments.6 The bell moved with his mother, Nettie, resulting residential superblocks did not into the building at 1520 Sedgwick enable or invite contact or interaction Avenue, three years after arriving in the among neighbors, creating a now notori- United States from the Jamaican slum ously impersonal environment. of Trenchtown.13 Eventually joined Between 1947 and 1976, the city of by his father, Keith, and sister, Cindy, New York lost 500,000 factory jobs, and among other siblings, Campbell pursued education and language barriers kept athletics in junior high and high school, many African Americans and Hispan- and his height and muscular physique ics from entry-level service, school, and earned him the nickname “Hercules.” government jobs.7 Compounding the After spending some time in a few of problems of the increasingly poor, minor- the smaller Bronx gangs, and participat- ity population of the South Bronx, city ing in the nascent graffiti movement officials piled up debt and drastically (which spread from Philadelphia to New reduced basic services in the borough.8 York in the late 1960s) using the “tag” In the ensuing years, more than a dozen CLYDE AS KOOL, Campbell began to gangs developed, with thousands of focus on building his home sound sys- members fiercely defending specific drug- tem and playing new kinds of music. dealing territories, aided by a sometimes A wide array of musical genres, corrupt local police force. too complex to document fully here, In an attempt to stem the flood of influenced the music Campbell would middle-income whites from New York9 create. His sources of inspiration dated and retain “the heart of the productive back centuries to African drumming workforce,”10 the city utilized funds techniques and call-and-response story- from the state’s Mitchell-Lama program telling,14 but centered on Jamaican dub to build housing affordable to middle- sounds and American rhythm-and-blues class residents. Beginning in 1955, the and “funk” in the second half of the 20th program provided low-interest mortgage century. According to Jeff Chang, author loans and real property tax exemptions of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of to owners of newly built housing, secur- the Hip-Hop Generation, in the 1960s, ing 35-year agreements with the owners “Jamaican musicians began to blend the (20-year after May 1, 1959) to set low- popular New Orleans rhythm-and-blues and middle-income limits on tenants, with elements of folk mento, jonkanoo, limit profits, and accept supervision by kumina and Revival Zion styles into a the state Department of Housing and new sound.”15 In 1967 a Jamaican sound Community Renewal.11 By 1961 the engineer created the first “dubplate” Bronx contained six of the 17 Mitchell- after forgetting to turn up the vocals on a Lama cooperatives completed in the recording; as Chang explains:

ForumJournal summer 2010 37 A single band session with a harmony At the party, using his father’s Shure trio could [thus] be recycled as a DJ P.A. sound system, a Mackintosh amp, version for a rapper to rock patwa and spinning records on dual Technics rhymes over [also known as toasting], 1100A turntables,20 he noticed that danc- and a dub version in which the mixing ers in the audience particularly enjoyed engineer himself became the central brief instrumental sections of records performer—experimenting with levels, when the singer and most of the band equalization and effects to alter the took a break while the rhythm section feel of the riddim, and break free of continued. In order to capitalize on the constraints of the standard song.16 the crowd’s enjoyment of such breaks, Although the advent of such dub Campbell had the idea, which he would music occurred as Campbell moved out later call the “merry-go-round,” “to work of Jamaica, toasting, reggae beats, and copies of the same record, back-cueing a rival musicians competing to host parties record to the beginning of the break as the with superior sound systems had already other reached the end, extending a five- been a part of Jamaican music culture. second breakdown into a five-minute loop In the U.S., the boasting 1950s of fury, a makeshift version excursion.”21 albums of Bo Diddley17 and 1960s and Focusing on songs with particularly strong early ’70s rock, soul, and funk record- breaks, including The Incredible Bongo ings contained elements of break-beats Band’s “Apache” and “Bongo Rock,” and rhyming styles that would also and James Brown’s “Give It Up Turn It come to inform hip-hop. Loose,” Campbell thus remixed break- On August 11, 1973, in the first-floor beats to create new pieces of music by recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Ave- using the turntables for what may have nue, Campbell DJed the first of a series of been the first time as a musical instrument. parties that would spawn hip-hop music Campbell’s rec room invention and culture. Campbell’s sister Cindy immediately generated further musical and cultural On August 11, 1973, in the first-floor recreation room innovations, as of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Campbell DJed the first of he continued a series of parties that would spawn hip-hop music DJing at 1520 and culture. Sedgwick almost once a month for wanted to throw a “back to school jam” nearly a year.22 Equipped with an echo to help pay for some unique fall outfits. box for his microphone, Campbell and Distributing hand-written invitations on friend Coke La Rock would act as MCs, index cards, the siblings charged 25 cents entertaining the crowd with now staple for girls and 50 cents for boys, hoping to hip-hop phrases like “To the beat y’all!,” collect more than the roughly $100 cost “Ya rock and ya don’t stop!,” and “This of renting the room.18 Campbell, having is the joint!”23 Campbell also named the adopted the DJ Kool Herc moniker, had unique dance styles employed to accom- been DJing house parties since 1970, but pany break-beats—hopping and spinning the rec room get-together would be his to the floor, using arms, bottoms, and first public appearance.19 even heads for leverage—as “breakdanc-

38 summer 2010 ForumJournal Preservationists, hip-hop aficionados, andS edgwick Towers tenants celebrated when the New York SHPO determined that the building was eligible for National Historic Landmark status. They now continue to advocate for its protection.

COURTESY OF URBAN HOMESTEADING ASSISTANCE BOARD ing,” performed by “break boys,” soon construction workers.24 He called his new known as b-boys and b-girls. entourage The Herculords, including Coke In the summer of 1974, to accommo- La Rock and performers DJ Timmy Tim date larger crowds, Campbell moved the with Little Tiny Feet, DJ Clark Kent the parties to Cedar Park, plugging his supe- Rock Machine, the Imperial JC, Black- rior sound equipment into lampposts, a jack, LeBrew, Pebblee Poo, Sweet and source he discovered while observing Sour, Prince, and Whiz Kid.25

ForumJournal summer 2010 39 Hip-hop’s Evolution influential cultural explosions in recent Musicologists and historians have traced history.”27 In March 2007, Grandmaster and documented hip-hop’s evolution back Flash and the Furious Five became the to Campbell’s creative period from 1973 first hip-hop musicians inducted into the to 1974, as attendees of the rec room and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with near block parties—particularly Afrika Bam- universal acceptance.28 Ultimately, hip- baataa, Joseph Saddler (a.k.a. Grandmas- hop has grown from its Bronx roots as ter Flash), and Theodore Livingston (a.k.a. an amalgamation of a homemade, urban Grand Wizard Theodore)—developed style, combining elements of music, pioneering innovations of their own. Bam- dance, fashion, language, and art, to a baataa founded the electro-funk hip-hop widely respected and uniquely American collective Zulu Nation, Saddler invented culture and brand. break spinning (“alternately spinning both records backward to repeat the same Meeting the National phrase over and over”),26 and Livings- Register Criteria ton developed a musical form of record The importance of the General Sedgwick scratching that highlighted the sound of House cannot easily be judged by the the needle dragging back and forth on exterior appearance of the building. But record audio clips. hip-hop can now be viewed in a histori- Into the late 1970s and early 80s as cal perspective, and as such, this prop- Campbell’s popularity waned, hip-hop’s erty of such seminal importance to the exploded with hits such as The Sugarhill creation of the musical genre warranted Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and Grandmas- inclusion in the National Register of ter Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Mes- Historic Places. sage.” Hip-hop continued its meteoric rise 1520 Sedgwick Avenue was deemed in popularity and cultural influence to the eligible for listing in the National Register present day, as hundreds of musicians across of Historic Places under Criterion A, for its direct association hip-hop can now be viewed in a historical perspective, with the original and as such, this property of such seminal importance public parties to the creation of the musical genre warranted during which inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. prototype DJ Clive Campbell the country and around the world began innovated essential elements that became telling their own stories through its music. hip-hop music and culture. Given a period Recently, major American institutions of significance of 1973 to 1974, when formally recognized hip-hop’s influence on Campbell performed in the Sedgwick American culture. In 2006 the National Towers recreation room, the building also Museum of American History announced met Criteria Consideration G as a property an artifact-collecting effort called of exceptional importance that achieved “Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, the significance within the past 50 years. Rhymes, the Life,” which “document[s] The context statement noted that the the undeniable reach of hip-hop and physical integrity and also the feeling and commemorate[s] it as one of the most association of the building have remained

40 summer 2010 ForumJournal intact. It is still a community of low- to ary 18, 2010, available at http://www.nytimes. com/2010/01/19/nyregion/19bronx.html. middle-income apartments, inhabited by 2 See Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A His- families striving to survive in an other- tory of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), Chapter 4; Murray Forman wise inhospitable environment. But if the and Mark Anthony Neal, That’s The Joint! The building were to lose its low- and middle- Hip-hop Studies Reader (Oxford: Routledge, 2004), Part III; Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn, income residents, it would lose the feeling Yes Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Cambridge: and association of its period of signifi- Da Capo Press, 2002), Chapter 2; Nelson cance, essential elements of its integrity. George, Hip-hop America (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), Chapter 1; Alan Light (editor), The The National Register includes few Vibe History of Hip-hop (New York: Three Rivers properties associated with African Ameri- Press, 1999), 13-22; Alex Ogg with David Upshal, The Hip-hop Years: A History of Rap (New York: cans and urban culture. This is the only Fromm International, 1999), Chapters 1-3; and Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black existing building of such importance to Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: the hip-hop movement (another important Wesleyan University Press, 1994), Chapter 2. 3 Mitchell-Lama & Limited Dividend Housing: Bronx- example, the Sugar Hill Studios in Engle- Existing Projects, accessed at http://www.comp- wood, N.J., where early hip-hop hits were troller.nyc.gov/bureaus/opm/reports/may25-05_ consolidated-maps.pdf on June 4, 2007; classified 29 recorded, was razed by a 2002 fire), and advertisement, “WHILE THEY LAST!” New York so it is almost certain that no other prop- Times, October 12, 1969, page R29. 4 Evelyn Gonzalez, The Bronx (New York: Colum- erties currently listed in the National Reg- bia University Press, 2004), 111. ister are significant for their association 5 Gonzalez, 109. with hip-hop culture. The National Regis- 6 Gonzalez, 115; Chang, 10-15. 7 Gonzalez, 118. ter resource evaluation acknowledges the 8 Gonzalez, 121. General Sedgwick House property as the 9 See “City Loans Asked To Speed Housing,” New birthplace of this unique American style of York Times, January 2, 1957. 10 Gonzalez, 116. music, and recognizes the extraordinary 11 New York State Division of Housing & Commu- impact that hip-hop has had on American nity Renewal, “Mitchell Lama Housing Program,” accessed at http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/ohm/ culture, affecting the broad patterns of progs/mitchlam/ohmprgmi.htm on June 2, our history. fj 2007. 12 Gonzalez, 116. David Gest recently received degrees in law 13 Chang, 71-72, 76. and city planning from Columbia Law School 14 Light, 6. and the University of Pennsylvania School of 15 Chang, 25. Design, respectively. The author wishes to thank 16 Chang, 30. Dina Levy of the Urban Homesteading Assis- 17 David Troop, Rap Attack #3: African Rap To Global tance Board for the opportunity to prepare this Hip-hop (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2000), 34. context statement for the National Register 18 Chang, 67; Sedgwick & Cedar company online nomination and architectural historian Franc- reproduction of party invitation, accessed at esca Smith for providing the building descrip- http://www.sedgwickandcedarshop.com on tion and analysis of National Register eligibility. June 2, 2007. Reprinted with permission of David Gest; a 19 Light, 16. longer version was originally published in Pan- 20 Chang, 69, 79. orama 2008, Journal of the City and Regional 21 Chang, 79. Planning Department of the University of Penn- 22 Chang, 78. sylvania School of Design, pages 67-73. 23 George, 18; Ogg and Upshal, 39. 1 See Tanyanika Samuels, “Tenants fearful over 24 Chang, 79. sale of hip-hop’s home on Sedgwick Ave.,” New 25 Chang, 81. York Daily News, October 6, 2008, available at http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/ 26 George, 19. bronx/2008/10/06/2008-10-06_tenants_fear- 27 Nadira A. Hira, “Is Hip-Hop Already History?” ful_over_sale_of_hip_hops_ho.html. See also Smithsonian, May 2006, Volume 37, Issue 2; National Sam Dolnick, “Problems Mount at Bronx Building Museum of American History, “Hip-Hop Won’t Bought in a Bubble,” New York Times, Janu- Stop: The Beat, the Rhymes, the Life,” accessed at http://americanhistory.si.edu/news/factsheet.

ForumJournal summer 2010 41 Preservation Is Child’s Play: Saving a Mid-century City Park

Senya Lubisich

n 2006, with construction documents of Frank Caplan, the founder of Creative for a park renovation at 30 percent Playthings and a figure at the forefront completion, all environmental reviews of post–World War II playground design, in order, and demolition scheduled, parks should provide, “an opportunity Ifour neighbors joined forces and jumped to observe sculpture and examine the into preservation and advocacy for a arts and crafts of the community. The modern resource. While preservation and park is a museum, zoo, native folklore advocacy were new to us, we did have a center….”1 For 45 years, this playground unique set of skills: Of the four founding has been a meeting place for the com- members of “Friends of La Laguna,” two munity and an icon for the city, yet it was were professional historians (of the ivory an icon for a particularly unique play tower ilk), one was a contractor (who also experience and little more. The artist and holds a law degree), and one was an engi- story of its creation faded and the play- neer (married to a Parks and Recreation ground was simply considered a hidden commissioner). The threatened resource treasure by residents. that had sparked our rapid-fire, grassroots In 2004, two years prior to our entry advocacy effort was a modernist, folk- into preservation, my husband and I vernacular playground created by a Mexi- (the ivory tower historians) chanced to can concrete artist, Benjamin Dominguez. meet the son of Benjamin Dominguez, The playground is formally named La the playground’s creator. Although the Laguna de San Gabriel although it is most playground had been part of my hus- band’s experience While it may not be love at first sight, you for more than can educate the broader public by helping them three decades, the appreciate the function and use of a modern resource. idea that the play- ground was also commonly called “Monster” or “Dino- art was a revelation. Fernando Domin- saur” Park. Admittedly, it is much easier guez was visiting Laguna playground to advocate for a modern resource that because his father’s Las Vegas playground smiles at you. had just been demolished. He was look- La Laguna playground was built in ing to see if any others remained. We 1965 and was intended to serve as an exchanged addresses and assured him attraction for San Gabriel residents and that our community would never let such visitors alike. It embodied the prevailing a unique and remarkable playground be principles of playground design, blending demolished. Two years later, we were recreation and aesthetics. In the words calling Fernando in a panic and driving

42 summer 2010 ForumJournal to his home in Las Vegas to collect oral histories, documents, and photographs. We’d been informed that the playground that had charmed us for years was no longer safe and needed to be replaced. Within three months of our frantic phone call and research trip, the City of San Gabriel had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the newly formed nonprofit organization Friends of La Laguna (FoLL), and plans for demoli- tion had shifted to plans for preservation. Like our resource, our effort to save the playground is not typical, but when con- sidering advocacy for resources that are not “yet” or not “readily” on the radar screen of what is considered historic, there are lessons that we can draw: First, our advocacy for “Monster Park” confronted, front and center, the “safety issue.” This is a common phenomenon: Modern resources and the Mexican-born artist Benjamin Dominguez spaces associated with them are blamed created La Laguna playground in 1965. His for social problems, whether they are whimsical “children’s play-sculptures” were also commissioned for other parks in California as well safety issues, access, lack of accommo- as in Nevada and Texas. dation for the disabled, crime, home- PHOTOs COURTESY OF THE CITY OF SAN GABRIEL lessness, etc. As we organized to save the resource, we heard concerns about articulate the trajectory of San Gabriel’s crime, drug use, and safety. The play- history through its post-war development ground does not cause these problems, and population boom. Age may speak for yet it is blamed for these problems. One historic relevance, but it does not com- task was to separate the resource from municate significance. the hand-wringing over the social prob- Lastly, bringing the community on lems that it purportedly caused. board with an advocacy effort is essential Communicating historic relevance to when it comes to modern resources. While the community is another challenge for it may not be love at first sight, you can advocates of modern resources. “Mon- educate the broader public by helping ster Park” is located in San Gabriel, them appreciate the function and use of home to a Spanish Mission that was a modern resource. If you can do that, founded in 1774. For our community, you will better be able to communicate the Mission is the measure of what is value. If the value is understood in terms historic. Our goal was to communicate of how the community can experience that history includes change over time. the resource, you can create the leverage We worked with our community to necessary to protect modern resources.

ForumJournal summer 2010 43 The “Safety” Scapegoat Therefore, demolition and replacement La Laguna playground showed its age was the only option. when the city made plans for a larger Our first strategy was to move the park renovation. In the words of the city conversation from potential, possibility, newsletter: “…the once vibrant, eye- and hypothetical to actual. We asked for catching Dinosaur Park has received a lot the safety claims that had been brought of wear and tear over the years, and due against the city. We asked for the records to safety and maintenance concerns, the of injuries. When the city provided none, climbing structures must be removed.”2 we were able to turn the conversation The safety problem is a common charge from “safety” to liability. Liability can be levied against modern resources and managed and interests can be protected. Safety is impor- What bothered us and motivated us was the tant. The board fear that our grandchildren might be deprived of a members of FoLL chance to play in this uniquely designed playground. are parents to 11 children; we too often the sole complaint against historic have an interest in keeping children safe. playgrounds. In San Gabriel, the city had However, this playground was designed done its due process and notified residents with child’s play in mind, as are most. We living in the vicinity of the park. On two spent a great deal of time talking to child occasions, groups organized to stop the development experts about children’s demolition. However, the “safety argu- need for play. Within that discipline and ment” proved insurmountable. within the scope of playground design The advent of “no-risk” playground is the principle of “self-selecting play.” design in the 1980s spelled demolition for This is the play experience that we seek most post–World War II playgrounds. The to preserve. playgrounds built in the 1950s, ’60s, and Playgrounds built to modern speci- ’70s represented a creative period in play- fications embrace proscriptive play: ground design during which artists (such The equipment should guide each child as Isamu Noguchi) and architects (such as through the activity. That strips away Robert Royston) designed play areas in a creative engagement in play. It pre- public spaces that would blend aesthetics vents children from testing their limits with recreation. Efforts to comply with and measuring their development. As I the modern safety standards have resulted worked on this article, my fourth child in the wholesale demolition or neutering reached the critical milestone of climb- alteration of these landscapes. ing the whale “all by my sel-fes!” We are The scenario at La Laguna playground working with the city to take baby steps was no different in this sense. In our first on this issue and will find a solution that meeting with the director of Parks and protects the resource, protects the child, Recreation, we learned that La Laguna did and protects the experience. not comply with modern safety standards, as shown by a safety assessment. Efforts Showing photographs of the playground in use, to demonstrate how well it serves its function, to bring it into compliance would be cost- helped to generate greater appreciation for it. prohibitive and, in some cases, impossible. PHOTO BY RON BROWN

44 summer 2010 ForumJournal Aging, But Not Old Gabriel. We engaged our community in A second shared challenge is the percep- a discussion about “book-ends” and the tion that modern resources are old yet need to physically frame the historical lack any historic significance, in part narrative. We asked them to call out the because their creation falls within living significant buildings and places that have memory. Our advocacy effort received marked the full arc of the city’s history, vital support from the Los Angeles including their experience and place in Conservancy’s Modern Committee and, it. This allowed us to talk about the through its work, we learned a great deal “Modern Period.” about how to educate the public about One of the most fundamental traits modern resources. However, we did not of modern resources is that they are earn the “ear” of our local historical designed with a diverse and large popu- association until after we had entered lation in mind. The 1960s was a time into a MOU with the city. When we did when society as a whole became more meet its leaders, hostility and dismay best inclusive. “Public” was intended to be describe their comportment. From their more open and representative. All types perspective, four young residents were of people were supposed to feel included wasting energy trying to save a decrepit and recognized in the public sphere, and playground when time could be better they could do so because public spaces spent saving the remaining adobes in San began to incorporate broader social

ForumJournal summer 2010 45 Modern playgrounds embrace proscriptive play, meaning that the equipment guides children through the activity. By contrast, children at La Laguna can interact with the play-sculptures however they want.

PHOTOS BY RON BROWN

and cultural trends. As suburban areas us was the fear that our grandchildren grew and developed, public spaces might be deprived of a chance to play emerged to distinguish one city from the in this uniquely designed playground. A next and to be truly public spaces—not historic playground can unite generations simply civic spaces. In a letter to Los through a shared experience of play. Angeles County Supervisor Frank Bonelli, Benjamin Dominguez argued that with his Falling In Love With Concrete sculptures, “The Los Angeles Area…can As I mentioned before, it is much easier have in its public parks the distinction and to get people to fall in love with a modern excellence of their ancestry.”3 resource that actually smiles at you. Eventually, what we were able to Our efforts captured considerable media communicate was that playgrounds are attention, in part because when you say generational and cyclical. La Laguna that the city is going to destroy a lagoon, playground represents a particular period journalists perk up. When you stand in time and an important phase of the next to Ozzie the Octopus or Sandy the city’s history, yet the experience of play Sea Serpent and ask how the city could knows no bounds. The playground is a bulldoze a grinning face, reporters take a place where the center of energy does not photo. Mostly, though, when you show change. Children continue to interact and children running through sand, hugging function in the play space just as they a seal, or clambering into a lighthouse have for the last 45 years. In that genera- (to escape, of course, down the back of a tional cycle, as children become adults, dragon), people want to know why that their experience of the space changes yet experience is being taken away. their understanding of its function does It is one thing to compose an impres- not. What bothered us and motivated sive photo that captures the “artist’s eye”

46 summer 2010 ForumJournal for a building or landscape. It is quite ability to move people. While those liv- another to also communicate the func- ing in the immediate proximity of the tion and use of a space. In the case of playground were notified, the announced La Laguna playground, a still photo can demolition of the playground came as a simultaneously communicate artistry and surprise to our community. If we could function. We did have our detractors who not mobilize people to speak up for the felt that the park would be better served resource, we mobilized them to speak out by replacing La Laguna with modern about their concern that due process may play equipment that was “clean,” “safe,” not have been followed. and “new.” But when we were able to Second, we consistently brought solu- demonstrate the different experience that tions. We were adamant that we would children have playing on play-sculptures, not simply raise objections, but that we we were able generate an appreciation would work toward solutions. When the rooted in use. city indicated that there were not funds to preserve and protect the playground, Saving La Laguna we got to work and started fundraising. During the three months of advocacy When the city indicated that it did not before Friends of La Laguna turned have the staffing to manage preserva- the city from demolition to preserva- tion, we organized and sought training. tion, every day was a scrambled blur of We have found support and advice from talking to anyone who would listen. We any and every community and preserva- kept constant public and media pressure tion organization. We also talked to the on the city, strategized incessantly, and “usual” opponents of preservation, trying explored any and all opportunities that to understand their position. It serves us presented themselves. Very quickly we well in navigating a course toward a capi- determined that the value of La Laguna tal campaign to save our resource. extended beyond nostalgia. (We were Lastly, by bringing people in, making not going to save La Laguna simply the process public, and offering solutions, because my hus- band played there by bringing people in, making the process public, as a child.) Once and offering solutions, we were able to hold our we knew that the elected officials accountable. value was greater than our own individual experience, we were able to hold our elected officials we prepared for drastic action: If we accountable. We realized that our city needed to bring a lawsuit, we would; staff did not live in the city, and conse- if we need to change the law, we will. quently may not have been as attuned to It is our intent to turn stewardship of “the places that matter” to residents as we the resource over not to our children but would have liked. Identifying a problem to our grandchildren’s children. Simply resulted in a passive response from staff put, a ribbon cutting doesn’t mean our and council. Bringing a solution required work is done. action by all parties. In hindsight, we can identify three A few months ago, as I sat at “Monster strategies that served us well: First, our Park,” a four-year-old boy burst through

ForumJournal summer 2010 47 the landscaped “Island Berm” and into in 2016…and happens to be housed in the Sandy Lagoon. Repeatedly he yelled, a “quirky” International Style building. “Whoa!” as he wove his way around the These are the places that matter. Guided concrete sea creatures. Following behind by those values, Friends of La Laguna will him was his grandmother who exclaimed, remain vigilant. fj “I can’t believe it is still here!” She had Senya Lubisich is a professor of history at raised her family in San Gabriel, moved to Citrus College. She is co-founder and president Northern California, and was back visit- of Friends of La Laguna (FoLL). Learn more at ing friends. She had hoped to bring her www.friendsoflaguna.org). 1 Frank Caplan, Parks and Recreation, January 1960. grandson to play at the “best playground 2 San Gabriel Grapevine Newsletter, Autumn 2006. around” before heading to Petrillo’s Res- 3 Benjamin Dominguez, letter to Los Angeles Supervisor Frank Bonelli, 1962, Dominguez taurant to get a pizza (which would travel Family archives. home to her husband). Petrillo’s turns 50

Friends of La Laguna

FoLL entered into an MOU with the City of San Gabriel in 2007 and serves as the steward of La Laguna Playground. With private and state grants, FoLL has commissioned a historic structures report and preservation plan available on its website. This report was honored with preservation awards from the Los Angeles Conservancy and the California Preserva- tion Foundation in 2009. FoLL has also been recognized for its community service by the California Parks and Recreation Society, district 13. Presently, FoLL is co-sponsoring legislation (AB 2701) that will place language in the Playground Health and Safety Code to clarify the jurisdiction of the State Historic Building Code for historic playgrounds. A recent grant from the California Cultural and Historic Endowment has galvanized FoLL’s fundraising for a capital project that will rehabilitate the playground. FoLL remains an all- volunteer organization at present.

48 summer 2010 ForumJournal Earthworks: Art and Landscape in Washington’s Green River Valley

cheryl dos remÉdios

n 1936 the city of Kent, Wash., was ditional funding sources, existing land-use primarily an agricultural community, regulations, and a public process to reclaim famous for lettuce. Time magazine and reshape these lands. noted that Kent produced half of the Three of their crowning achievements Istate’s bumper crop, which then ranked can be found within a 15-mile stretch in third in the nation.1 But, as in many agri- the Green River Valley: Johnson Pit #30 cultural areas, the technological changes (also known as the Robert Morris Earth- that defined the last half of the 20th work), Mill Creek Canyon Earthwork (also century also changed land-use patterns in known as the Herbert Bayer Earthwork), Kent and the surrounding farmland. An and Lorna Jordan’s Waterworks Gardens. increase in automobile ownership led to an exodus from nearby Seattle, with rural Environmental Art lands giving way to suburban sprawl. and Its Roots More roadway construction required dig- In the 1960s several strands of environ- ging more gravel pits, and increased run- mental art activities emerged in the U.S. as off from paved surfaces required more artists sought to move out of the art gallery storm water detention basins. Commer- and to respond to growing consciousness cial and industrial development moved about ecological issues.3 “Environmental in. By 1965 Kent was home to the Boeing art” encompasses earthworks (also known Aerospace Center, where the Apollo as land art), ecological art, land reclama- moon buggy was built. Now Kent is tion, and other evolving categories. fast becoming one of the nation’s largest In New York, artist Agnes Denes was distribution centers for companies such a founding voice of the ecological art as Whirlpool and General Electric.2 [commissioners] have explored creative These burgeon- alliances, nontraditional funding sources, existing ing industries have land-use regulations, and a public process to added to Kent’s tax reclaim and reshape these lands. base, which sup- ports, among other amenities, one of the movement, which focused on creating largest park systems in King County. But awareness of ecological concerns. In 1968 “park” doesn’t begin to describe the criti- she explored the relationship between food cally acclaimed land art to be found there. scarcity and environmental degradation For the last 40 years, forward-thinking arts in the Rice/Tree/Burial Project. The same commissioners and government employees year, Mierle Laderman Ukeles launched have explored creative alliances, nontra- Manifesto Maintenance Art in a visceral

ForumJournal summer 2010 49 response to motherhood, addressing the meaning that a percentage of the cost minutiae of household tasks related to of publicly funded capital improvement child-rearing alongside large-scale issues of projects is alloted per year for the com- air, water, and earth pollution in New York missioning of public artworks. These ordi- City. In 1969 Patricia Johanson was com- nances defined “art” broadly enough that missioned by House & Garden magazine to artists could take a conceptual approach, create designs for gardens. She responded even rethink infrastructure, rather than with more than 150 ideas for restoring simply ornamenting existing designs.5 The industrial sites, including a design for a Seattle Arts Commission set an influential landfill.4 Over the next 40 years, these and precedent in 1979 by teaming three art- other artists continued to explore the nexus ists with engineers and architects on the between art and environmental activism. design team for the Viewland/Hoffman Visit greenmuseum.org to see work samples electrical substation: Andrew Keating, and descriptions. Sherri Markovitz, and Buster Simpson. Two important shows which took When I asked Simpson what inspired that place in 1968 are considered to mark the collaboration, he replied: “The Bauhaus.” beginning of these land art movements: The Bauhaus ethos translated well to the the Cornell Earth Art exhibit and Earth- collaborative processes required by proj- works at the Dwan Gallery in New York, ects that blended art, public works, land which included works by Herbert Bayer and reclamation, and, in some cases, ecologi- Robert Morris. These exhibits documented cal restoration. The Viewland/Hoffman artists’ efforts to make large-scale art in the western United States. Most of the works explore geometric shapes at a larger scale with a variety of inspirations: archeology, astronomy, the experience of expansive space, and minimalism. When land artists did work under the title of “restoration,” they were more interested in exploring the potential of the available landscape than doing ecological remediation. One well-known earthwork by Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1970), involved sculpting 6,550 tons of rock and earth into a spiral form at an abandoned industrial site on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Smith- son made no attempt to remediate polluted

waters, but his work directly engaged the Born in Haag, Austria, in 1900, Herbert Bayer complex issues surrounding industrial land exemplified theB auhaus ethos. He was a painter, use. Restoring gravel pits was another idea sculptor, photographer, architect, exhibit designer, and graphic designer. Mill Creek Canyon Earthwork, that Smithson conceived and pursued before 1982, is considered his final masterpiece.T he artist his untimely death in 1973 at age 35. continued to consult on the Earthworks Park Master Plan until his death in 1985. Both King County and Seattle adopted © HERBERT BAYER; PHOTO BY JOHN HOGE, 1982; COURTESY percent-for-art funding mechanisms in 1973, OF CITY OF KENT PUBLIC ART COLLECTION

50 summer 2010 ForumJournal artists talked to neighborhood residents to restoring the land, the artists could work find out what they wanted, in the hope of with the resources at hand. creating a truly “public space.” In 1979 the King County Arts Com- Herbert Bayer also embraced the idea mission sponsored Earthwork: Land that public art should make public space Reclamation as Sculpture, hosted at the physically and psychologically accessible, Seattle Art Museum. The current director but Robert Morris’s views were more of the county’s public art program recalls: in line with those of his contemporary The symposium…was a remarkable Robert Smithson: Morris and Smithson turning point in public art program both argued that art should challenge the management…thirty-some years later, viewer’s perceptions. we’re still looking to it as an example of how to combine artists working with The 1979 Earthworks Symposium public works departments [and] civil When the King County Arts Commission engineers. We take that practice a little was established in 1969, it was one of the bit for granted here in the Pacific North- first county arts agencies in the country. west because we’ve had this remarkable The commission hired sculptor Jerry Allen history…building upon works like the as visual arts coordinator in 1978. He pro- Herbert Bayer Earthwork.8 posed a sculpture symposium to the King Commissions for both the Robert Mor- County Arts Commission, but it took addi- ris Earthwork and the Herbert Bayer Earth- tional urging from new arts commissioner work resulted from the 1979 symposium. Parks Anderson to explore “land and the elements”6 before Allen’s idea took off. A The Robert Morris Earthwork later report by the commission explains: When Robert Morris received the com- King County was in the midst of a mission to restore a gravel pit overlooking polarizing struggle over land use, with the Kent Valley in 1979 (Johnson Pit #30), endangered farmland a critical issue… he was already at the forefront of both Jerry Allen…made a crucial discov- minimalism and land art, having com- ery: [As the major road builder] King pleted land art projects in Ijmuiden, the County itself owned over 100 sand and Netherlands (Observatory, 1971), and in gravel pits for which no reclamation Grand Rapids, Mich., (Grant Rapids Proj- planning had been done. Ironically, ect X, 1974), that were fully or partially he also found that the County had government funded. exempted itself from its own reclama- Exploring human perception interested tion laws. From here Allen took the Morris more than reclaiming land. He next logical step, proposing that the chose to work in “a place where the per- [Earthworks Symposium] focus on ceiving self might take measure of certain the issue of earthwork art as a land aspects of its own physical existence.”9 He reclamation tool.7 chose to produce outdoor works because Natural restoration of sand and gravel he wanted to work with time, an element pits involves replacing and re-grading the not previously considered a formal aspect land to its original contours. Allen recog- of sculpture: nized that artists could be hired to reclaim Outside works expand and articu- these sites at lower cost because, instead of late this much further, and because

ForumJournal summer 2010 51 The Herbert Bayer Earthwork In 1975 Kent Mayor Isabel Hogan was inspired by what she saw happening at the county level, and asked gallery owner Laurel This grading plan for the Robert Morris Earthwork Whitehurst to start the Kent Arts Commis- illustrates the series of descending concentric slopes. The earthwork is nearly 100 feet deep, and sion. Initially it was staffed by volunteers, but the trail around the top is nearly a quarter mile long. they were determined to secure professional KING COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS DOCUMENT staff and their own public art ordinance. A IN COLLABORATION WITH THE ARTIST ROBERT MORRIS, 1979; COURTESY OF 4CULTURE / KING COUNTY ARTS COMMISSION local consultant advised them that they’d need to succeed at an ambitious project in site works are inseparable from their order to convince the Kent City Council to places, an element like time or space is support their funding requests, so they were not bound entirely as a formal element poised to think big. He also told them to within the object properties of the “never overlook the unlikely alliance.”12 work. Such elements must be acknowl- Herbert Bayer’s commission was an edged as existential properties of the add-on to the King County Arts Commis- complex work and site together, and sion’s original plans. The City of Kent had can’t be separated from such features purchased land for the 96-acre Mill Creek as changes of topography, of light, of Canyon Park with government funds that temperature, of the seasons.10 stipulated public access. Later it was deter- Morris cleared the site of volun- mined that a water detention dam at the teer trees (trees that weren’t purposely mouth of the canyon was needed to prevent planted) and left creosoted stumps intact both flooding and erosion. Mayor Hogan to remind visitors of the site’s industrial asked the County to reconvene the Earth- history, which antagonized local residents. works symposium’s artist selection panel, so Over time, though, the context of the engineers could work with an artist to design Morris Earthwork has changed. Today an earthen dam that would also function as a tract homes surround the site, replacing public park. the bucolic farmland that contrasted so Mill Creek Canyon Earthwork exem- sharply with Morris’s stark minimalism. plifies Bayer’s talent for integrating art Residents now appreciate the Morris into the everyday. “A dam in the ordinary work as a green space and let their dogs sense constitutes a radical interference with run along the terraced slopes. Yet the the natural configuration of the land,” perceptual shifts that Morris engineered he explained. “My intent was, therefore, hold fast when one walks down into the to give the dam a natural appearance former gravel pit. conforming to the landscape (surround- Despite its initial, “unsettling” effect ings) and to become integral parts of the on the King County Arts Commission, landscape being created.”13 The visual the project provided “a new awareness… cohesion of the 2.5-acre Bayer Earthwork of its role in County government, and the belies its multiple functions. Conceptually need to hold dialogue and form working and physically, this landscape stretches relationships with other branches of the far beyond its Bauhaus origins to encom- government, all of which are public- pass its contemporary, suburban context. serving bodies.”11 King County administrators now plan for

52 summer 2010 ForumJournal Lorna Jordan’s planting plan illustrates the five garden rooms, eleven ponds, and eight acres of open space that Waterworks Gardens opened up to the public.

© LORNA JORDAN, 1996; COURTESY OF 4CULTURE ART COLLECTION

Earthwork, which had no community engagement component, the fundraising effort and local editorials built support for the project over time.14

Lorna Jordan’s Waterworks Gardens Waterworks Gardens, located at the Renton wastewater treatment plant, is an This photo of the opening day festivities at the ecological artwork analogous to the Bayer Mill Creek Canyon Earthwork documents highly Earthwork in that it imbues large-scale groomed artistic elements. Today the rock-lined channel is overgrown with reed canary grass, and infrastructure with natural processes. The the cone that supports the bridge is hidden by alder King County government selected Lorna trees. The Kent Arts Commission is working Jordan to work on the design team of to restore the site to the artist’s original design, while supporting fish restoration alongM ill Creek. the treatment plant’s expansion with no © HERBERT BAYER, 1982; PHOTO BY CITY OF KENT PARKS art program or implementation funds in DEPARTMENT; COURTESY OF CITY OF KENT PUBLIC ART COLLECTION place. She built support for the creation of an artwork that was part of the plant’s the Earthwork to serve as a portal to a infrastructure, using natural—rather than regional trail system. industrial—systems to treat water. Dedi- Kent Arts commissioners supported the cated in 1996, the project clearly builds Bayer project with an exemplary fund- on the legacy of King County’s 1979 raising effort that brought in $120,000, Earthworks symposium. receiving grants from the county, state, Lorna Jordan identifies herself an and federal arts agencies, and an appro- environmental artist who often combines priation from Kent Parks, as well as funds green infrastructure, habitat restoration, from nontraditional public art sources and places for people: such as a Housing and Community Devel- When I joined the design team, [King opment Block grants and direct donations County] was trying to figure out how from private citizens. Unlike the Morris to disguise a 95-acre wastewater treat-

ForumJournal summer 2010 53 ment plant. Instead of an “out of sight, groom parts of the gardens to park stan- out of mind” approach, I proposed an dards, which is in keeping with its budget, environmental art/public works project but this does not extend to honoring the that invites people to observe the artist’s vision by maintaining the specific natural processes of water purification plantings and layout of the beds she while connecting them to the cycles designed for the garden rooms. Encroach- and mysteries of water.15 ment of weeds and invasive plants is an Oil-polluted water is collected from 50 ongoing challenge. acres of parking lots. As required by the The Bayer Earthwork is also in City of Renton, it is then pumped to drain disrepair, its modernist forms overgrown into Springbrook Creek. The storm water by blackberry and alder. Original goals flows downhill through 11 ponds where included fish restoration, yet now that contaminates and sediments are allowed to salmon have returned, the attendant settle. Cleansed, the water is released into regulations make it more difficult to wetlands which sustain plants, microorgan- remove vegetation. Sculptural sightlines isms, and wildlife. Waterworks Gardens is disappear into the trees, blurring the con- so attractive that couples choose to marry trast between groomed elements and the in the “Grotto,” a stone mosaic art mas- naturalized canyon trail, which itself needs terpiece and one of five garden rooms that maintenance. Closed for lack of funding, theatrically move visitors through the space. the trail still rises through a remnant of forest where berries drape the path in early Maintaining Unique Properties spring, and traffic noise from the adjacent The dual nature of Waterworks Gardens roadway gives over to the rushing creek. as both art and infrastructure has created Meanwhile, FEMA has changed the confusion around maintenance roles status of the levees along the Green River, and responsibilities. The county tends to requiring industrial sites and residences

Public art seeks to increase public accessibility. The beauty of “The Grotto” at Waterworks Gardens entices couples to get married at a sewage treatment plant, in a space that would not have been publicly accessible without the artist’s involvement.

© LORNA JORDAN; PHOTO BY DAVID MCDONALD, 1996; COURTESY OF 4CULTURE / KING COUNTY PUBLIC ART COLLECTION

54 summer 2010 ForumJournal built in the floodplain to carry insurance. (some done by a regular maintenance The Corps of Engineers is calling for exten- crew and some by goats), removing sive repairs to the Howard Hanson Dam illegally dumped trash, power washing the on the upper reach of the Green-Duwamish parking area, replacing the perimeter fenc- River (about 30 miles east of Kent), but ing, and improving signage. David Montgomery, a University of Wash- In future projects, it would be wise to ington geomorphologist and MacArthur include funding for an endowment with Fellow, published an article in April 2010 the initial commission, perhaps as a part- recommending building more, smaller nership with a parks foundation or other dams, since large dams pose a catastrophic 501(c)(3). That would enable stewards risk in earthquake zones.16 of the land, such as “friends” groups, to His recommendation comes too maintain the sites as a public resource, late for the Bayer Earthwork. The state even during an economic downturn. Such required that Bayer’s dam, designed to a group would still want to encourage meet a 100-year storm requirement, be community involvement and volunteering redesigned to accommodate a 10,000-year and pursue funding and grants for sig- storm. Although the Kent Arts Commis- nificant restoration projects, but multiple sion engaged the University of Washington means of support would guarantee the Department of Landscape Architecture maintenance of the property over time. Construction/Hydrology Studio to look at alternatives to redesigning the dam, ulti- Ongoing Public Engagement mately the Corps of Engineers raised the and Stewardship berm two feet, changing its proportional Stewarding the art and the land requires relationship to the other sculptural ele- ongoing collaboration between multiple ments. Nevertheless, as a Bauhaus master- governmental divisions dedicated to pre- piece and beloved park, the Bayer Earth- serving the site as a public space. Only the work offers a model for future integrated public’s direct involvement will continue dam designs. to justify these sites’ existence. 4Culture Public Art, previously the King Over the years, contemporary art- County Arts Commission, renovated the ists have become increasingly engaged Robert Morris Earthwork in 1995-96, with in the relationship between art and the input from the artist. Restoration included landscape. At the Herbert Bayer Earth- repairing erosion on the terraces, replac- work, we invite contemporary artists to ing the “ghost tree” stumps, replanting renew these cultural landscapes with their the meadow, correcting drainage issues, energy. The Kent Arts Commission regu- installing a locking gate at the parking lot larly partners with 4Culture Site Specific and interpretive signage, removing invasive to host contemporary art installations and plants (blackberries, alders, and scotch dance and music events. More recently, broom), re-hydroseeding with native grasses, the commission has added community installing benches in the meadow area, and performances to the mix: Youth marimba completing a path to the bottom of the pit and ukulele groups, Hawaiian dancers, that Morris sanctioned and designed. and local poets contribute to a program 4Culture provides annual maintenance that includes hands-on ecological art which includes removing invasive plants projects. During events, we provide tours

ForumJournal summer 2010 55 of the site, and at the end of each event, a contemporary dance troupe leads the audience to the front of the park, mixing and moving through the Earthwork sculp- tural elements in a site-specific piece that allows visitors to see the land anew. The Bayer Earthwork was conceived as a grand collaboration, and keeping the collaborative spirit alive keeps the

space itself vital. The Earthwork’s 25th Standing on the inner edge of the double-ring anniversary celebration in 2007 included pond at the Bayer Earthwork, acornDance the channeling herbert exhibition which performs during the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The City of Kent will restore the double- presented Bayer’s influence through pho- ring pond this summer with grant funding from tographs, drawings, and essays by artists, 4Culture Preservation. © ACORN DANCE, 2010; SPONSORED BY THE KENT ARTS landscape architects, and historians. COMMISSION AND 4CULTURE SITE SPECIFIC; PHOTO BY JIM In 2008 this exhibition helped support CLYMER, 2010 the Earthwork’s local landmark nomina- tion, resulting in an “exceptional signifi- 6 David Allen Jones, Earthwork: Land Reclama- tion as Sculpture, Technical Report, King County cance” designation. This year the Herbert Arts Commission, February 10, 1981, page 20. Bayer Earthwork was one of 25 historic 7 Ibid. 8 Cheryl dos Remédios, A Place for People: The sites selected to participate in the Seattle- Herbert Bayer Earthwork, 2009, color, 22 min- Puget Sound Area Partners in Preservation utes, digital video. Interview with Cath Brunner, current director of 4Culture Public Art (previ- Initiative. You can read the landmark ously the King County Arts Commission). nomination, explore the essays, learn about 9 John Beardsley, Earthwork and Beyond, 4th Edi- tion (Abbeville Press, 2006), page 30. our events, and watch the video online at 10 Earthwork: Land Reclamation as Sculpture, exhibit www.KentArts.org/Earthwork and www. catalog, a project of the King County Arts Com- mission, published by the Seattle Art Museum, facebook.com/GreenRiverEarthwork. fj keynote address by Robert Morris, page 13. 11 Earthwork: Land Reclamation as Sculpture, Cheryl dos Remédios is a practicing artist Technical Report, page 65. and the visual arts coordinator for the Cultural 12 A Place for People: The Herbert Bayer Earth- Division of the City of Kent. work. Interview with Kent Art Commissioner 1 “Washington: Lettuce,” TIME, July 13, Carolyn Wiley. 1936; www.time.com/time/magazine/arti- 13 Herbert Bayer, King County Arts Commission cle/0,9171,756398,00.html. newsletter, August 1982. 2 “Kent—Thumbnail History,” Histor- 14 In 1985 the City of Kent adopted a unique $2 yLink.org; www.historylink.org/index. per capita public art ordinance. This has proven cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3587. to be a slow, yet steady, approach to public 3 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, art acquisition, since projects are not based on raised awareness about the dangers of pesticide capital project budgets that rise and fall, nor are use and inspired a grassroots environmental they tied to a specific site. Ideally, municipalities movement in the United States. should combine both systems: the $2 ordinance provides stability for administration and mainte- 4 Barbara C. Matilsky, Fragile Ecologies: Contempo- nance, as well as funding for underserved areas rary Artists’ Interpretations and Solutions (Rizolli and special projects, while the percent-for-art International Publications, in association with mechanism funds art for capital projects in Queens Museum of Art, New York, 1992), p. 41. proportion to their scale. 5 The adoption of a percent-for-art fund- 15 “Lorna Jordon,” The Official Web Site for ing mechanism in King County and Seattle the City of Kent, www.ci.kent.wa.us/content. preceded wide adoption of similar programs aspx?id=7562. elsewhere. Philadelphia had established a per- cent-for-art program in 1959 called “Aesthetic 16 Bob Freitag and David R. Montgomery, “Dams, Ornamentation of City Structures,” but Seattle dikes and dredging: Can we ‘fix’ our rivers?”; and King County ordinances didn’t define the http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opin- idea of art as ornament or object. ion/2011570522_guest11freitag.html.

56 summer 2010 ForumJournal

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On the cover: Saint John’s Abbey Church, Collegeville, Minn., designed by Marcel Breuer in 1961. Photo by Christine Madrid French