Memory & Renewal
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MEMORY & RENEWAL By Robert Shaw Pfaffmann, AIA, AICP, Architect and Planner In October 2009, with the famed Stanley Cup shimmering dramatically at center ice of the Civic Arena (aka “the Igloo”), the Pittsburgh Penguins began their fi nal season under the historic pivoting stainless dome. The genesis of the Arena didn’t include hockey back in the late 1940s when local judge Abe Wolk and department store magnate Edgar Kaufmann envisioned a retractable fabric roof for the Civic Light Opera. Performances were often rained out at Pitt somewhat disturbing vision of a reconceived the Hill and make it a beacon of environmental Stadium so they dreamed of a new facility to and redeveloped Pittsburgh. The public got and social reform. Working with both public be located in Highland Park. Residents there to view it in the windows of Kaufmann’s and private funds ($1 million from Kaufmann opposed it, and meanwhile the original single- downtown store. Much to the chagrin of for an operable roof), ground was broken on purpose musical theater venue was growing into Wright, who had proposed a grand civic center Pittsburgh’s bicentennial in 1959. a multiple-use facility for sports and exhibitions at the Point, Kaufmann commissioned Mitchell with a stainless steel “hard top.” The roof, so & Ritchey to complete his vision of a moveable Urban Renewal & the 1960s important for keeping events dry, also became a roof civic auditorium. The unbridled optimism and embracing of new symbol of the city’s Renaissance; it would open The final location of “The Pittsburgh technologies in the 1950s was tempered with to clear skies, showing off the environmental Auditorium,” at a central point in the lower the fear of atomic war and the social upheavals transformation that had begun a decade earlier. Hill, took advantage of federally funded housing resulting from the civil rights movement. After all, it hadn’t been too long since a number and slum clearance programs in the early 1950s. Challenges included Jim Crow racism, housing of corporations had seriously planned to do A master plan developed by Mitchell & Ritchey for the poor and returning GI’s, and aging what Frank Lloyd Wright had once suggested envisioned a cultural acropolis modeled on infrastructure of 19th century cities. The general about Pittsburgh: “Abandon it!” New York’s Lincoln Center and included a half- public heard from the media and dedicated When young architects James Mitchell and dozen residential towers around it. (Only one preservationists like Jamie Van Trump that Dahlen Ritchey came back from World War II, was built: Washington Plaza.) the “sordid,” decayed Lower Hill was ready for they worked at Kaufmann’s department store, Kaufmann and an all-star cast of renewal by mass demolition. As Root Shock1 where they befriended Edgar Kaufmann. He Pittsburgh civic leaders under the mantle of author Mindy Fullilove writes, it may have been asked them to develop Pittsburgh in Progress, the Allegheny Conference on Community easier to look skyward and leave our domestic a fascinating 1947 document that provides a Development believed that they could renew problems at home. And so Pittsburgh’s business WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2010 45 and civic leaders, while struggling with issues of demolitions across the city and further into truss can be thought of as half of a cantilevered race, class, and poverty, saw slum clearance as a the Hill caused neighborhood groups with arch bridge—and was, in fact, constructed by way to improve the basic living conditions of Hill little voice in city hall (or in the Allegheny the American Bridge Company very much like residents, and a futuristic replacement fi t perfectly. Conference) to rise up and oppose further a bridge. The structural engineer was the famed In this context, Pittsburgh decided to build demolition. Many, including most business bridge engineer Othmar Ammann of Ammann the Civic Arena as a centerpiece of urban design leaders of the Hill, had not foreseen that the & Whitney. and architecture. It was to contain not only cure was becoming worse than the disease. The concept of a moveable dome structure the Arena but a “cultural acropolis” of a new Urban renewal went from idealistic social required not only creative architectural planning symphony hall, opera house, and underground housing plans to “negro removal” in the view of but engineering innovation in the structure, parking topped by gardens. While the nation’s neighborhood leaders. systems, and cladding. The innovative stainless urban agenda was in fl ux, architects continued As was the case with Three Rivers Stadium, steel roof consists of eight, 300-ton radial leaves, to be inspired by new technologies in steel, a sea of parking lots became the sad legacy of two of which are fi xed below the cantilevered aluminum, and glass–—all these innovations this plan. support. The end of the truss contains a hinged coming from Pittsburgh. The city’s Civic Arena knuckle that allows each of the six moveable became a “Crucible of Modernism” with its The Arena’s Design sections to rotate. soaring visions of the future. On the south side While the complex and controversial urban The dome’s leaves can be rotated into of a widened Centre Avenue, a half-dozen new renewal processes failed, the technical different confi gurations depending on events state-of-the-art residential towers in park-like innovations and the design of the Arena forged and weather conditions. The roof leaves roll settings (by architect IM Pei) were planned with ahead. On September 17, 1961, the newly along rails mounted on a canted support ring views overlooking the newly clean air (by 1950s christened Civic Arena became the longest-span that resolves the thrust of the dome into 48 standards anyway) above the Mon River. retractable roof dome in the world at 413 feet cast-concrete legs. The roof segments are After the Arena was built, federal subsidies in diameter and 150 feet high. A cantilevered transported by 30 electric rail-mounted motors and programs dried up and the ongoing central box beam supports the roof. This tapered on the ring, which measures a quarter of a mile in circumference. The dome can be opened in under three minutes. The building’s roof control systems were as innovative as the structure. The dynamic loads of a moving roof had to be controlled precisely and account for wind and gravity. For architects Construction and engineers today, this structure is all the of the dome. more amazing considering it was accomplished William V. Winans Jr. Collection, Box 1, Folder 24. without the aid of computer modeling. The Burden of Preserving the Recent Past Fifty years later, the Civic Arena is a recognized architectural and engineering landmark: it is has been designated eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. With its still- working retractable roof, it is a one-of-a- kind building in the world, and worthy of preservation and adaptive reuse. The Pittsburgh Sports & Exhibition Authority (SEA), which owns the Igloo, has begun reviewing its future as required under state and federal law. (By the way, the “Igloo” nickname would influence 46 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2010 the naming of the Penguins years later, not the other way around.) The role of the Arena in the context of the urban and social history of the Hill and the city is a confl icted one and the question of demolition needs our full attention and should not be considered without careful understanding of the social, economic, and historic impacts. Pittsburgh has an opportunity to demonstrate that an innovative, unique structure can have new life as a sustainable civic space and anchor for new development of the Lower Hill. We must ask ourselves, is history and the community served by demolition and erasure of our collective memory? Fifty years ago we could not have imagined that we would put museums and residences in old warehouses. The arena is the 20th century version of our old train stations and warehouses that were also considered by many as obsolete just 50 years ago. The words of perhaps the Hill’s best- known resident, playwright August Wilson, may point the way: “My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.” While he was referring to his roots in the community and the culture he knew, his words challenge us to ask questions about the many histories and memories that exist—some good, some bad. The question for buildings Its resemblance to a spaceship like the Civic Arena is, do we delete it from our was no coincidence for the Arena, memories, or transform it and make it a vital having been built in a time of anchor for the rebirth of the Hill? optimism for space travel. Photo by Robert Shaw Pfaffmann Rob Pfaffmann, AIA, AICP is a registered architect and certifi ed urban planner with over 30 years of diverse experience leading the design of key An approximation of where the architecture, preservation and planning projects Arena sits in relation to the old Hill District neighborhood. in the Pittsburgh region. His Pfaffmann + Robert Shaw Pfaffmann collection. Associates fi rm designed the award-winning enclosure at the National Historic Landmark Meadowcroft Rockshelter. 1 Mindy Fullilove, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It (New York: One World/Ballantine, 2004). WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | SPRING 2010 47 The Civic Arena boasted a revolutionary design, but heavy with steel; the retractable roof alone used 2,950 tons of beams and girders straight from Pittsburgh mills. Carnegie Mellon University Architecture Archives The Consol Energy Center is set to open in the Fall 2010 and will function as an event center for NHL hockey, basketball, family shows, skating shows, concerts, stage shows, exhibitions and other events.