An open forum to discuss issues of removal, adaptation, imitation, and innovation in Baltimore architecture, planning and development. Given the closing of the Current Gallery (as noted previously), and the city’s search for new historic preservation commissioners, what sorts of productive ways can Baltimore use the relevance of its older fabric while still allowing for growth and change?
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Let the games begin !
OK, I’ll bite:
The evolution of human culture on this planet is an inclusive, continuous, non-utopian process. Hundreds of millions of individuals actively work at influencing, inventing, and leading small portions of the process. The rest go with the flow. In this context, debates about architectural theories of form are vanishingly insignificant and fleeting. However, preservation of diversity and creativity—combined with substantial change to adapt to the incredible impacts of our excessive population—is a major part of the survival capability of humans. On the one hand we will see orbiting farms and hotels to support off-world activities in the next thirty years. On the other, we must prevent global wars (over land and water resources) involving the relocation of hundreds of millions of people due to climate change and rising seas—in the same period.
To me this means we must forge a new alliance between global science and our various design strategies to achieve social justice worldwide. Achieving this requires careful balancing of preservation of cultural (and genetic) diversity with effective development of an entirely new “story” relating human lifestyles to the rights of the rest of the web of life on this planet. To the extent that architects ignore imperatives to make our cities energy and food independent—while restoring the rest of living systems to a thriving condition—we will remain largely irrelevant to the great process we are embedded within. Worse, we may be just a part of the inertia that prevents effective responses to the operation of “spaceship Earth.”
Some further thoughts about these subjects can be seen at the BTA+LDP Blog at:
http://btaplusldp.wordpress.com/
Back to the topic, it seems unbelievable to me that we continue the policy of letting the historic core be torn down with little proof that a new structure will rise in a timely manner. The image that Fred sent out shows that the alley street – Water street will go away along with one of the nicest skinny towers in the district. Yet no outcry from Tyler and his gang on this one?
My guess in this economic climate that project is going nowhere. Why rip the buildings down until you have a permit and committed financing ?
I seem to be adjudged “off topic.”
In the language of the thread, I think an “antiquarian revival,” as opposed to careful preservation of the quality components of the city, a dangerous notion.
Quality.
Preservation.
Conservation.
Respect for all forms of life.
Careful use of no more than “a fair share” of the planet’s resources by humans.
Anticipation.
Adaptation to the global changes we have accelerated.
All these factors are necessary parts of the choices we must make. The combination and balance of preservation versus modernist replacement buildings must respond to the evolving lifestyle of the city and contribute to its future sustainability. I agree that historic buildings and contributing related fabric—where they can be adapted to current use—generally provide greater value than modern replacements. More importantly, they provide a richness and depth of “urban memory” that is priceless. They are generally capable of systems upgrades to make them fully competitive with new construction in terms of energy use, water management, and the like.
New construction, whether “Modernist” or “Contextually Sensitive” or “Future-oriented” needs to be designed with substantially greater quality, sensitivity, and far less hubris than has been the rule of late.
Since “Modernist” is the name of a 20th century historical style, often equated with “minimalism” and enormous arrogance, hubris, and anthropocentrism, it has always been, in essence, anti-urban. Nevertheless, there are many examples of its use in effective contributions to special city functions—it tends to look its best when it appears as an occasional contrast. Like any other style, it also tends to be at its worst when it becomes too dominant.
There is a serious need to stop “over-sizing” or “over-valuing” buildings (a tradition that evolved from parking garage “footprint” requirements, and over-scaled development projects)—to return to creation of right-sized (read human) streets and urban places as the primary elements of city building. To these traditions, we must add new transportation systems, urban agriculture, localized energy production, and restored natural systems within the city—to suit our rapidly evolving sustainable economy. All of these things will require the evolution of new building types to be added to the mix in Future Baltimore…
I suggest we consider what these new elements might be.
Modernism’s raison d’être died with its program driven “Form Follows Function” mantra and with the Megastructure movement as it caved in on its own weight of bigness & future of extensions like the “Walking City” by Archigram (which I love by the way and certainly has influenced the Japanese). The late recession of ‘69 and oil shock of ‘73 finished the poor dear Modern Movement off for good. 40 years later some architects still kling to it like men hanging onto the the side of a foundered shipwreck.
Context and the urban design of cities replaced love of program as an animating force of inspiration in the 7o’s soon to be replaced in the 80s’ by a grab bag of historicism only to be topped by twisting and warping computer generated forms made real by *Startchitects – we certainly have lost our way as it all collapsed during the current financial meltdown.
It is a good time to have this conversation and recalibrate — meanwhile Baltimore continues to rip down pretty nice century old historic buildings and Annapolis seems to have developed a peculiar fondness for plastic , plastic & synthetics in place of its pre-industrial historic fabric.
see link: http://authenticannapolis.blogspot.com/
A person or corporation might physically own a building or a block– but do not the people of a city, as a collective, have also some kind of social claim on historic structures, as mileposts in our shared history and elements of a cherished ‘city character’?
I am interested in anyone’s idea of how this relationship should be balanced.
If form no longer follows function as the function has become antiquated and out of date — would it follow the true modernist should advocate demolishing the form ? You never saw Corb write about sensitive adaptive reuse in the the context of the city that I am aware ? China seems to be following this wholesale demoltion policy.
This of course make the Jan Jacobites cringe as they understand the fine grain build up of neighborhoods over time makes a place. If the Calvert Street assemblage (close to Redwood Street) is demolished it will not bode well for Baltimore as a city because all historic fabric can be deemed to be disposable and out of date. These propertty cost 4.5 million dollars to acquire and it would be much better for teh street to coop them and make them lofts for mixed use. I doubt a the twin hotel project designed for this site is viable and it will take years for the market to turn around for this use.
If they demolish the buildings, like the Southern Hotel site, and leave it a parking lot of will be an urban design tragedy.
The response level to local and national disasters is awesome but it’s a damn shame that so many people take advantage of the sad situations.
I mean everytime there is an earthquake, a flood, an oil spill – there’s always a group of heartless people who rip off tax payers.
This is in response to reading that 4 of Oprah Winfreys “angels” got busted ripping off the system. Shame on them!
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/19/crimesider/entry5251471.shtml