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Home , 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Gerhard Kallmann, Raymond Hood

The Half-Life of Buildings

Are “great” buildings still great THETERM “instant classic” is often used to describe a new building, but how forty years later? long does architecture really last? Time can be cruel to bestselling authors (who today reads Thomas B. Costain or Grace Metalious?), hit movies (tried to watch “The Ten Commandments” lately?), and popular fashions (remember bell-bottom trousers and Nehru jackets?). Are build- ings immune? Perhaps the most graphic example of short-lived greatness currently in the news is City Hall. In 1962, Boston held a national architectural competition for a new city hall, attracting 256 entries. Gerhard Kallmann, Michael McKinnell,

WITOLDRYBCZYNSKI and Edward Knowles, all Columbia

REVIEW 9 7 University professors, came out of prover- safe political ground in making this sug- bial nowhere to win. Their design was a gestion, for City Hall was unpopular bold interpretation of what is sometimes among both the people who worked in it called the Brutalist style, then very much and the general public. Employees disliked in vogue. Brutalism (derived from the the labyrinthine interior, complained French béton brut, or raw concrete) was about inadequate heating in winter, and popularized by the French architect Le blamed dampness and mold for sick- Corbusier in the late 1950s in buildings building syndrome. Most Bostonians dis- such as the Unité d’Habitation in liked the architecture. People tolerate Marseilles and the Indian state capital of International-Style as “func- Chandigarh. Brutalism’s chief hallmarks tional” and “clean,” but Brutalist architects were monumental forms, a superhuman indulged in heroic sculptural effects that scale, and above all the extensive use of had nothing to do with function, and the exposed concrete, inside and out. The bare concrete surfaces, which were often architects of were influ- bush-hammered to expose the aggregate enced by Le Corbusier’s work, especially (which made the concrete even rougher) the monastery of Sainte-Marie-de-la- were anything but clean, and to most Tourrette, near Lyons (completed in observers simply looked cheap. It didn’t 1959). The best-known Brutalist building help that City Hall was surrounded by a in the is probably Paul nine-acre plaza (part of an I. M. Pei master Rudolph’s Yale Art and Architecture plan) that resisted all efforts to introduce Building, which was nearing completion activity, remaining windswept, inhos- at the time of the Boston competition. pitable and inhuman. When Boston City Hall was finished It is important to note that among in 1969, it received the American Institute many architects, Boston City Hall was— of Architects’ prestigious Honor Award, and is—admired. As late as 1991, a poll of the influential critic of the Times architects included Boston City Hall (as described the building as “spectacular,” well as the Yale Art and Architecture and later a national poll of architects and Building and the La Tourrette convent) historians ranked it sixth among the among the “100 most important buildings “greatest buildings in American history.” of the last 100 years.” In fact, a group of But in 2006, only thirty-seven years later, architects has recently petitioned the Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino pro- Boston Landmark Commission to grant posed selling the building and building a City Hall special landmark status (it is less new city hall in South Boston. He was on than fifty years old). Landmark status

9 8 ZELL/LURIEREALESTATECENTER Figure 1: Boston City Hall

would prevent demolition, which is the The steel-and-glass design of the apart- likely outcome if Mayor Menino (who ment towers really was avant-garde, antici- revived his proposal to sell city hall last pating the glass curtain wall of the Fifties year) has his way. The case is pending. and Sixties, and it still maintains its time- Boston City Hall has an important les- less . But most unusual buildings son to teach clients: beware the avant- remain stuck firmly to their time. garde. Commissioning an unusual or novel Brutalism, for example, lasted just a decade design does not guarantee that thirty years after Boston City Hall. By the 1970s, most hence that design will not be outmoded, architects (including even the designers of even if—especially if—it styles itself as the city hall) had given it up, and were “avant-garde.” In fact, very few buildings designing more traditional-looking build- prophesy the future. Ludwig Mies van der ings that included historical references, an Rohe, one of the masters of twentieth-cen- approach that became known as tury modernism, designed the unusual . Clients should resist the Lake Shore Drive Apartments in suggestion that an unusual building design for developer Henry Greenwald in 1948. is “ahead of its time.” The design may be

REVIEW 9 9 unusual, even unprecedented, but chances services. The clear architectural expres- are that in thirty years it, too, will look old sion of the two functions was novel, and and dated. The important question should the dramatic contrast between the glass be: Is it a good building? studios and the heavy brick towers was striking. Shortly after Richards was built, the Yale architectural historian Vincent FUNCTION Scully called it “one of the greatest build- ings of modern times,” and the Museum “Good” means useful and well as beauti- of in New York mounted an ful. The Richards Medical Research exhibit devoted solely to the building. Building (1957-60) at the University of Students of architecture, the author Pennsylvania was a project that brought included, made pilgrimages to Philadelphia then little-known Louis I. Kahn public just to see the Richards building. acclaim. The concept involved a cluster While Richards remains an important of towers containing glazed laboratories milestone in Kahn’s career, its status has in studio-like spaces, with solid brick considerably diminished over the years. shafts containing stairs and mechanical This is due in part to its functional short-

Figure 2: Richards Medical Research Building, University of Pennsylvania

1 0 0 ZELL/LURIEREALESTATECENTER comings, and in part because the design and communications, technology has had was superseded by the architect’s later a major impact on a building’s usefulness. work. The functional shortcomings were But technological changes are almost serious: large amounts of glass produced always unpredictable, hence unanticipated too much light and glare in the laborato- in a building’s design. For example, the ries; the complicated exposed concrete designers of Salk in 1965 could not be structure was not only expensive but also expected to anticipate wireless communi- environmentally troublesome due to cations, low-e glass, the need for energy falling dust; and the studio concept pro- conservation, or the way that computers vided too little flexibility for researchers. would alter work habits. One of the com- Far from representing the future, Richards mon claims of is quickly became passé: the design did not adaptability and flexibility. The implied herald a new trend in lab design. In the promise is that the useful life of a building Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La can be extended from the usual twenty to Jolla, completed shortly after Richards, forty years to sixty to a hundred years, Kahn abandoned the idea of studios and through the provision of features such as service shafts altogether, and designed larger spans, movable walls, adjustable much more conventional laboratories with spaces, adaptable infrastructure, and so on. large open floor plates, and pipes and For the owner, the veracity of the claim is ducts above suspended ceilings. The Salk important, since flexibility always comes at Institute is generally considered Kahn’s a steep price. But the spotty record of masterpiece, and has successfully main- buildings that have attempted—with very tained its architectural stature—and its limited success—to advance the concept utility—over more than forty years. of infinite adaptability (the Pompidou While the planning of the Salk Center, Lloyds of ), suggests that Institute takes future space requirements any promise to extend the useful life of a into account more successfully than building through design should be exam- Richards, that does not mean parts of the ined with great skepticism. buildings will not, at some point, become Aesthetics and function are intertwined functionally obsolete. In the past, when in the case of the Martin Luther King, Jr. technology evolved more slowly, buildings Library in Washington, D.C., designed by were functionally useful for a decade or Mies van der Rohe in 1966 (though not more. Beginning in the nineteenth centu- completed until 1972, after the architect’s ry, with gas lighting and plumbing, and death). While not a ground-breaking followed by electricity, air-conditioning, work, the four-story pavilion is a charac-

REVIEW 1 0 1 teristic Mies design, and the famous he didn’t take into account a change in the architect’s only public library. social role that libraries are expected to Nevertheless, in 2006, a task force play today. In the last few decades, a num- appointed by Mayor Anthony A. ber of American cities—Chicago, San Williams found the King Library to be Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, “an outmoded structure erected long Albuquerque, Seattle, Nashville—have before the advent of the digital world,” built new, architecturally striking libraries. and recommended selling the building The general aim is to attract a younger and building a new library on another public to an old institution. Implicit is the site. The thirty-four-year-old library is hope that novel eye-catching architecture undoubtedly technologically obsolete, can compete with Google and Wikipedia, but old buildings can be upgraded, as the which, in many ways, have made so many venerable Public Library of the functions of public libraries obso- has been successfully—several times. lete. Thus, the chief motive for moving out However, the New York library is a well- of the old King Library was less to provide loved building; the King Library appears functional improvements than to build a to have been not loved at all. Over the new “exciting” building. Clearly, just fix- years it has suffered from insensitive ing up a distinctly un-exciting old building modifications, deferred maintenance, was not an attractive alternative. and abuse. This may have something to There is some evidence that atten- do with the design. Mies van der Rohe’s at new libraries does rise, at least in brand of steel-and-glass modernism is the short run. However, the important not Brutalist, but its relentless modulari- question is: what happens several decades ty, minimal use of color (mostly black, in hence, when the once eye-catching archi- the case of the library), and dependence tecture is taken for granted; when what is on undifferentiated spaces appear dis- fashionable—sculptural shapes, or glass tinctly bleak and austere to many. In a roofs, or spacious atriums—goes the way successful Mies building, is of Brutalism and bush-hammered con- offset by the use of rich materials and crete? Las Vegas casino owners have carefully-considered details; however, the learned that using architecture to attract budget of the library required replacing the public is an expensive proposition. travertine and custom-designed furnish- To be effective, crowd-pleasing architec- ings with brick and off-the-shelf items. ture must be regularly upgraded or Mies van der Rohe intended the library replaced, since the design bar is constant- to be useful for a long time to come, but ly being raised, and the public always

1 0 2 ZELL/LURIEREALESTATECENTER Figure 3: Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, Washington, D.C., 1972

Figure 4: Seattle Public Library, 2004

REVIEW 1 0 3 wants more. Once you’ve seen the for example, its ornate Second Empire exploding volcano three or four times, style was in vogue. By the time the enor- you’re ready for something else. mous building was finished, thirty years later, its architecture was already out of date—Beaux-Arts classicism was all the TASTE rage. The city hall, with its tall mansard roofs and florid interiors, struck people as It is often said about unpopular buildings downright old-fashioned, if not dowdy. that “people don’t like this today, but they The vast stone pile became something of will grow to like it in time.” You could call an embarrassment, and calls to demolish it the Eiffel Tower Argument. It is a shaky the building started in the 1920s and con- foundation for design, and it is less com- tinued for decades. It was not until the mon that is generally believed. It is true 1980s that Philadelphians began to come that architectural tastes change every thirty to terms with their city hall. An insensitive or forty years. Certain colors and materials 1950s-era modification to the interior was go in and out of fashion; people like more undone, rooms were refurbished, and the decoration or less, more luxury or less, exterior was restored. Part of the reason for more change or less. In high-rise office this change of heart was a renewed appre- buildings, for example, Mies’ minimalist ciation for old buildings, the result of the modernism dominated from 1950 to the historic preservation movement. Also, 1970s; in 1984, the AT&T building her- public taste had changed, producing a alded the advent of more colorful designs, renewed appreciation of the city hall’s many a throwback to more traditional sky- rather overblown architectural style. scrapers. That lasted about two decades. Another example of a building affect- The current generation of towers tends to ed by changing taste is New York’s eschew historical references, uses more , completed in 1930. At glass, and introduces sculptural shapes. By first, William Van Alen’s brash 2030 or 2040, these trends can be expect- design, with its flamboyant stainless-steel ed to change once more. The interesting top and its automobile motifs (stylized thing about changing tastes is that they are hood-ornament gargoyles, winged radia- generational. One generation rejects the tor caps, a frieze of steel hubcaps, and taste of its predecessor, but the following black brick accents that suggest running generation may find something of interest boards), was not widely admired. Lewis in the rejects. When construction of Mumford, ’s architecture Philadelphia’s City Hall started in 1871, critic called it a “stunt design,” and the

1 0 4 ZELL/LURIEREALESTATECENTER New York Times likewise derided the bla- Building), the centerpiece of Rockefeller tant commercialism of the architecture. Center. When the building opened in During the Fifties and Sixties, Chrysler 1933, the seventy-story , was a distinct oddity, so different from the designed by a team of architects led by glass-and-steel boxes of that time. Today it , was the paragon of is hard to imagine New York’s skyline American modern architecture, a combi- without the popular landmark. nation of Beaux-Arts design principles, One of the most striking an Art Deco aesthetic, and construction of the Thirties is 30 know-how. Like the other buildings at Rockefeller Plaza (formerly the RCA , the limestone tower incorporated many examples of figura- Figure 5: Rockefeller Plaza, NewYork City tive art: elaborate gilded and polychrome sculptures over the main entrance, mon- umental pylons capped by heroic human figures on , and vast murals in the lobbies. This fusion of stripped-down architecture, streamlined decoration, and “Moderne” art was new and exciting in 1933, but thirty years later, architecture had taken a very different path, away from American modern to the more minimalist style of Mies van der Rohe. Modern buildings no longer incorporat- ed art or decoration: at most there was a Henry Moore or an Alexander Calder sculpture on the plaza; the interiors tend- ed to be monochrome and undecorated. The most lavish interiors at Rockefeller Center were in , and would likely have been gutted if, in 1978, they had not been declared a New York City Landmark. Yet tastes came full circle, and in 1999, the Music Hall was totally renovated to great public acclaim. As for , it continues

REVIEW 1 0 5 to be a Class A office building, much in part of the city’s skyline. It is not enough demand (and has given its name to a that a building be popular with the gener- popular television show). al public, however; it must also be loved by its owners (the taxpayers, in the case of public buildings). If owners love a build- CONCLUSION ing, they will put up with a certain degree of dysfunction—no building is perfect— Buildings achieve greatness in different and they will take the trouble to maintain ways. Some are recognized immediately, it, make repairs, upgrade obsolete techno- and some grow on people. On the other logical systems, and spruce it up every hand, some buildings enter with a splash twenty to forty years. If a building fails to and fizzle over the years. Most buildings capture its owner’s favor, however, even have ups and downs. The hardest test for a greatness may not be protection against building is probably its thirtieth birthday, the threat of the wrecker’s ball. when the public taste has turned away from the values that prompted the original design. That is when calls for demolition or drastic change are most likely to be heeded. If a building weathers this period, there is a chance that, in another decade or two, it may be appreciated again. It helps if a building is functionally as well as aes- thetically outstanding; the argument that great architecture should be held to a dif- ferent practical standard is always a hard one to make, especially to a building’s owner. An important variable among buildings is whether they capture people’s affection. Sometimes, simply familiarity can breed affection. The is in this category: it has captured the public’s imagination, not merely because of its long record as tallest building in the world, but also because its charac- teristic silhouette has become an integral

1 0 6 ZELL/LURIEREALESTATECENTER