|
"Everyone must conform to our ideas of what is, um, the antithesis of modern cracker-box building culture and the mindless conformity to popular taste it represents. In this way we will preserve the unique (and tourist-buck generating) historical character of our quirky, nonconformist local culture."
Of course, I'm not brave enough to point this out to anyone else.
Y'know, back where I grew up, in St. Paul, MN, there is a beautiful street called Summit Avenue. People began building on Summit Avenue in the 19th Century, it was the place where the wealthiest railroad and lumber magnates built their Victorian neo-gothic palaces, where the Archbishop's Chancery was built next to the Cathedral that sits at one end, where all the biggest, grandest, most impressive houses were built for several decades, including some to-die-for-beautiful early Arts-and-Crafts gems, elaborate "Painted Ladies," impressive stone neo-Gothic turreted monstrosities, etc.
In the Depression the building more or less stopped, to resume post-WWII much further down the street with the latest in big, impressive post-War "california style" tile-roofed rambling ranch palaces, etc. But the "old" part of the street, which was closer to downtown, began to decay. The freeway went in, the nearby neighborhoods were "urban renewed," and "old" Summit Ave. (more or less) teetered on the edge of becoming a slum. Many of the big old houses were broken up into apartments, used as office buildings, etc. A couple got so badly decayed they had to be destroyed. Some went downhill, but the street was still impressive and still had cachet.
During the late 1960s, preservationists and revivalists started to "discover" it. At the same time, one of the worst of the derelicts was bought and demolished, and to replace it, the new owner of the lot commissioned a very famous architect to build, with loving care and tons of attention to symmetry with the "spirit" of the street, a new house that would represent the pinnacle of modern architectural design yet pay homage to the "Summit sensibility." All around it, proto-Yuppies were painstakingly restoring painted ladies and neo-gothic minicastles and Greek Revival plantation houses, and watching nervously as the new house rose on its generous, tree-shaded lot.
The shock, when it began to take shape, was like an earthquake (oh, about 7.0 on the Richter scale, I'd say.) It WAS modern. Clean lines and stacked masses, unornamented but precise fenestration, and a number of whimsical details (the "orbs" topping square entry pillars, the pillars themselves, the way rails were laid into the stucco to define levels, etc.) it referenced the styles around it. It caught the eye. It was unapologetic about being modern, and aggressive about being proud of its modern sensibility and presumed excellence as an exemplar thereof. It grabbed the eye. It was as different from everything else on the block as chalk from cheese. It was NOW, they were THEN. It was HATED. It was called "the abomination," "the abortion," "the travesty," and all manner of opprobrious epithets. Overnight, a Committee sprang into existence to lobby City Hall to pass a preservation ordinance to ensure that no one, ever, should perpetrate such an architectural "crime" on old Summit Avenue. It duly passed.
Y'know what? The few empty lots continued to be built on, and since it's still one of the City's most expensive streets, they're all big, impressive, places. But there is nothing remarkable about them. No one goes "ah!" "wow!" "look at THAT one!" because all designs now must fit carefully into a bland, don't-rock-the-boat middle way between aggressive modernity and historical re-creation.
Summit Ave. is one of the places locals take out-of-towners to show how wonderful their City is, how impressive and interesting and unique. And when they drive down and gasp at the vast neo-gothic piles, the curlicued and painted Victorians, the Tara-like Greek Revival palaces, etc., you know what? They also go "WOW!" at the ONE house built in the 1960s that was unconstrainedly the best effort of a master residential architect working lovingly in the idiom of his time, with lighthearted homage to the glory around him.
And it'll never happen again on Summit Avenue, and I for one think the street is poorer for it. There is a great difference between preserving the "look" of a place and preserving the "spirit" of a place. Here in Santa Fe the spirit is (or should be) one of joy in the beauty of the high desert, the history of Spanish and American Colonial culture, the reverence of Native peoples for harmony with nature, a certain independence of mind and individualistic appreciation of difference (we are, after all, the "City Different,") and a practical attention to the limitations of scarce water resources and abundant sun. NONE of those things is served by decreeing a mindless "everything has to look the same" conformity in building styles.
You know, if you look around downtown at the few houses built between the post-War exodus and the imposition of the conformity codes fifty years ago, there are some FABULOUS houses that look perfectly in tune with the "Santa Fe style" even though they are Arts & Crafts adaptations, California-influenced bungalows, etc. They make a living, harmonious tapestry that speaks of the City's experience. But when they're gone (as eventually they will be, since we apparently don't value them or want them,) the City will have turned into a sterile, high-desert neo-Williamsburg, a sort of Living History exhibit of imitative pseudo-adobe adaptations all in one idiom.
I'm glad I won't be around then.
sadly,
Bright
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
