Unloved Modernism

[thomasjfletcher]

I'm trying to make a list of Modernist buildings in New York that should be landmarked (I'm sure it's been done before but I couldn't find it). If anybody has any suggestions or info I'd be grateful. Here's a start----

Some 60's buildings were never too practical in the first place. The 1965 Chatham Towers, just north of the Brooklyn Bridge, are among New York's most significant modernist buildings. But 7 1/2-foot ceilings and Swedish-made windows with internal Venetian blinds, which cannot be replaced or repaired, make the buildings, designed by Kelly & Gruzen with the Cuban modernist Mario J. Romanach, difficult to live in. New residents, failing to appreciate the building's Corbusian details, have tried to redo the elevators in brass and mahogany, said Helen Rachlin, a longtime resident.
http://www.mpinto.org/blackout/DSCN5133_(Small).JPG

In the 60's, energy was cheap, so buildings were blithely inefficient. Air-conditioning and fluorescent light were considered good substitutes for breezes and natural sunshine.


In 1969, Richard Feigen commissioned a Manhattan gallery from Hans Hollein, the Viennese architect who later won the Pritzker Prize. When Mr. Feigen sold the East 79th Street building, to the couturier Hanae Mori, he declined to seek legal protection for it. This summer the building's owners dismantled the Hollein facade, which Mr. Feigen called an act of vandalism.
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/Hanae.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES113.htm

Of course, "everything comes around again," said Robert A. M. Stern, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Which is why preservationists fight to save buildings that even they find hard to like.

Still, "many of the 60's buildings have to go," said Mr. Stern, an author, with Thomas Mellins and David Fishman, of "New York 1960." Flimsy, with low ceilings and unopenable windows, and highly energy-inefficient, some 1960's buildings would cost more to update than to replace, he said. But others, Mr. Stern said, "are important monuments that must be saved."


The obvious solution is to focus on the work of "star" architects, like Edward Durell Stone, who after decades of seeming unfashionable is winning converts to a brand of modernism that depends on the seemingly infinite repetition of shapes. "I hated him when I was in architecture school," Mr. Stern said. Still, he has argued in favor of preserving Mr. Stone's New York Cultural Center, completed in 1965, with its famous lollipop columns facing Columbus Circle - not because it is beautiful, but because it is "a landmark in the history of architectural taste."
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/095-2cc1964_large2.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID095.htm

A brochure issued by Landmark West, a group fighting to save the building, says, "The lollipop building isn't licked."


Not all of Philip Johnson's buildings have been championed by preservationists. Until this year, the city of New York allowed his 1964 New York State Pavilion at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to deteriorate to the point of collapse. (The city has recently taken steps to find a new use for the building.)
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/BKN/wfair4.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/BKN/BKN003.htm

Kevin Roche is also in the sometimes-worth-saving category. His 1967 Ford Foundation building on 42nd Street (credited to Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates) will probably survive, thanks to the inventiveness of its architecture and the wealth of its owner.
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/ford4.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID004.htm

But his Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New Haven, designed in the 1960's as a monument to car culture (a huge garage is its most visible feature), is slated for demolition.
http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/lofiversion/index.php/t605.html

It won't help buildings like Pier Luigi Nervi's American masterpiece, the 1962 bus terminal on the Manhattan side of the George Washington Bridge. The building is largely ignored, and its owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has floated plans to build a multiplex on part of its roof.
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/BRI/Feature0151_01x.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/BRI/BRI004-GWB.htm

And on the Upper East Side

http://www.friends-ues.org/Issues2.jpg
Cinemas I II-BEFORE, 1001 3rd Avenue (1962: Abraham W. Geller & Associates with Ben Schlanger, consulting theater architect)

http://www.friends-ues.org/Issues3.jpg
Cinemas I II-AFTER

http://www.friends-ues.org/images/217e87whole.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES112.htm
Great unpopular brutalism
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/217e87.jpg

The Group Residence for Young Adults at 217 East 87th Street (Horace Ginsbern & Assoc., Architects: 1968), is slated for demolition


Manhattan House (1950), an apartment building; and Cinema I and II (1962) and the Beekman Theater and Block (1952),

full ues text at
http://www.friends-ues.org/Issues.htm

[thomasjfletcher]

30 Under 30: The Watch List of Future Landmarks

When, many years from now, we look back at the close of the 20th century, which buildings will we select to tell our story?

An independent jury appointed by the Municipal Art Society of New York has just released a list of 30 contemporary buildings that it believes to be potential future landmarks. 30 Under 30: The Watch List of Future Landmarks includes residential, cultural, religious and industrial buildings constructed between 1974 and 2004 (photos). The list begins chronologically with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's Grace Building and its sibling 9 West 57th Street, completed in 1974; and ends with Richard Meier's 173/176 Perry Street Condominium Towers, completed in 2002. Spearheaded by the Society's Kress Fellow for Historic Preservation, Vicki Weiner, work on the Watch List of Future Landmarks began shortly after Mr. Meier's 1977 Bronx Developmental Center disappeared under a radical alteration in 2002. Despite an international reputation as a late Modern masterpiece, the building was not yet 30 years old and therefore ineligible for landmark status and protection. The loss of the building served as a wake-up call for the Society to monitor -- watch -- these buildings today so they will survive long enough to help tell the story of the late 20th century.

Over 150 buildings were nominated to the Watch List by design professionals and the public. The jury used a set of established criteria to judge the buildings based on their artistic, technological, historical and canonic merits, and weighed the influence they had on design and culture in the city and worldwide. Sherida Paulsen, an architect who was chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission from 2001 to 2003, chaired the jury, which included: Paola Antonelli, a curator at the Department of Architecture and Design, MoMA; New York magazine architecture critic Joseph Giovannini; interior designer Kitty Hawks; Paul Makovsky, senior editor of Metropolis Magazine; architect Greg Pasquarelli of the firm SHoP; architectural historian Nina Rappaport; David Sokol, managing editor of I.D. Magazine; and Jacob Tilove, architectural historian at Robert A.M. Stern Architects.

http://www.mas.org/ContentLibrary/30Under30.pdf

http://www.mas.org/ContentLibrary/30Under30photos.pdf

[thomasjfletcher]

How the Spirit of Ayn Rand Haunts the City
BY Julia Vitullo-Martin
March 24, 2005
http://www.nysun.com/article/11079

Ayn Rand's spirit seems to be returning to haunt us all, infusing downright bizarre criteria into today's increasingly heated debate over preserving modernist buildings. The preservationists, naturally enough, want to protect everything designed by the Howard Roark-style, celebrated modernist architects who argued they were erecting pure buildings in a compromising world. Buildings by original Bauhaus architects like Joseph Urban are on everyone's list, as are most buildings by Yale brutalist, Paul Rudolph.

But the preservationists are also lobbying to landmark buildings by the real life equivalents of Roark's protagonist, Peter Keating, whose mediocrity was rewarded by major design contracts while Roark was expelled from New York. Buildings by Philip Johnson, for example, often thought to be the model for Keating, are now showing up on most preservationist lists, even though almost no one would claim these buildings are illustrious. Since landmarking has the effect of rigidifying current use and preventing evolutionary change, New Yorkers need to pay close attention to this debate.

The Municipal Art Society's watch list of 30 Under 30 includes, for example, the egregious Marriott Marquis Hotel designed by John Portman, the immense IBM Building designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, and Philip Johnson's cathedral-size AT&T/Sony Building. Do New Yorkers really want these structures pre-empting all future uses? Are we confident enough of their merit to protect them into perpetuity? Will Walter Gropius's MetLife Building, looming over Grand Central Terminal, be next on the list of buildings to be protected?

The problem is that modernist architects espoused a good number of truly bad ideas, which are far more important than their familiar contempt for color and ornamentation. At its most fundamental, modernist architecture intended to break with the past, defy the streetscape, and rend the urban fabric. In urging that buildings be landmarked, preservationists are not merely advancing the benefits of modernism's clean, uncluttered lines. They argue the benefits of what are often modernism's depredations, such as the super block.

Of course, some of the debate will be settled by deterioration. As a Yale architectural historian, Vincent Scully, pointed out in 1999, modernists embraced an aesthetic of impermanence - with the result that most of their buildings will not survive because they were poorly built. Mies van der Rohe may have defined architecture as the will of an epoch translated into space, but much of that will is crumbling beneath its shoddy materials.

Many of the finest modernist buildings have already been landmarked. Joseph's Urban's sublime New School for Social Research, for example, on West 12th Street, is protected by an individual designation. Mayer, Whittlesley & Glass's Butterfield House, across the street, is protected by the overarching of the Greenwich Village Historic District. The best-known modernist buildings were designated when they became eligible. Gordon Bunshaft's 1952 Lever House on Park Avenue, for example, was designated a landmark in 1983, a year after eligibility.

Here are a few worthy, undesignated buildings for public discussion:

The Edgar J. Kaufmann Conference Rooms in the penthouse of 809 U.N. Plaza make up one of only three projects in the country designed by Alvar Aalto, the Finnish architect. The rooms were commissioned in 1963 by Edgar J. Kaufmann Jr., the first curator of industrial design at the Museum of Modern Art and the son of the couple who had commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. The rooms are a small masterpiece, notes a preservation advocate with the Preservation League of New York, Caroline Rob Zaleski. "Anywhere else in the world, these rooms would be a monument," she says.

The Tracey Towers Apartments at 40 West Mosholu Parkway in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx, designed by Paul Rudolph and Jerold Karlen, were built between 1967 and 1972. In these moderate-income apartment towers that opened in 1974, Rudolph deliberately mimicked the striated surface of the Art and Architecture Building he had designed for Yale. Somehow, though, they are far more pleasing. This is no minor matter since they were financed under the state's Mitchell-Lama program, which severely restricted "extras" in design and architecture in order to keep costs down for moderate-income households. A fellow with the Municipal Art Society, Vicki Weiner, notes that Rudolph successfully worked out the design problems of high-rise living in an urban neighborhood.

Citicorp Center at 153 E. 53rd St. in Midtown, designed by Hugh Stubbins and completed in 1977, was built during the fiscal crisis that nearly bankrupted New York. Though its engineering proved to be seriously flawed, its social mixture worked well: corporate offices above with St. Peter's Church and jazz center, a landscaped courtyard and galleria, and a beautifully constructed subway station below. An architect who also oversees the Web site nyc-architecture.com, Tom Fletcher, calls the church "an anchor of serenity" and the building itself a "bold presence" that helped revitalize a tired commercial area.

The Asphalt Green Aqua Center at 1750 York Ave. was designed by Richard Dattner and completed in 1993. Asphalt Green is so much fun and would be instantly recognized if the landmarks commission had enjoyability as a criterion. The original Municipal Asphalt Plant, with its parabolic arch structure, was designed by Kahn & Jacobs and opened in 1944. In 1968, the city tried to demolish Asphalt Green, which Robert Moses had called "the most hideous waterfront structure ever inflicted on a city." Instead, it was reconfigured by Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum into a sports center that opened in 1982. After much neighborhood agitation, Asphalt Green and the sports center were redesigned into the current complex.

Like Asphalt Green, the city itself needs to adapt, preserving what's best and discarding what's not. Modernist buildings should be kept or rejected on their merits - not because they're symbols of their time, or because eminent architects designed them. Eminent modernists chose to slash New York's urban fabric with many of their buildings, only a few of which are worthy of the city they damaged.

[Derek2k3]

Modernist buildings get their defenders
March 24, 10:31 am

http://therealdeal.net/breaking_news/2005/03/24/1111678319.php

No longer the loathed symbols of New York's economic might, modernist buildings are being embraced by preservationists. Buildings once considered architectural innovations in the 1960s and 70s have become eligible for landmark status following a 30-year waiting period, and preservationists are lamenting that the Landmarks Preservation Commission has neglected postwar architecture, allowing Modernist sites to be lost. Activists are pressuring the commission to hold public hearings on proposals to raze Cinemas 1, 2 & 3 and the Beekman on the Upper East Side. Also, a lawsuit was filed against the city last week in New York State Supreme Court to prevent reconstruction of the "Lollipop" building at 2 Columbus Circle without a public hearing.


In Preservation Wars, a Focus on Midcentury
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: March 24, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/arts/design/24pres.html?

[MidnightRambler]

i've got a soft spot for those bulky brown residential towers behind the manhattan community college near chambers. they're probably awful to live in, though.

[Stern]

New York Daily News:

Stones thrown over glass tower

Monday, April 4th, 2005

Put it back!

That's the rallying cry of Union Square residents and preservationists. They're demanding the reconstruction of a quirky little building - by big-name modern architect Morris Lapidus, the king of Miami Beach hotel design.

At a recent public hearing, they urged the city Landmarks Preservation Commission to grant protected status to the retail building on the corner of E. 14th St. and University Place - and force the owner to replace its distinctive three-story glass tower.

The landlord - a group that includes Lloyd Goldman, a big investor in the World Trade Center - demolished the tower on March 8. That day, the landmarks commission agreed to hold a hearing about the building, a decision that's supposed to put alteration work on hold.

The preservationists were outraged by the wreckage of one of Lapidus' only New York City designs - right when they're also fighting for landmark protection for another of the architect's creations, the former Summit Hotel on Lexington Ave. and E. 51st St.

They disapprove of alterations that are underway by the new owners of the Doubletree Metropolitan, as the property's now called.

Goldman and his reps didn't speak at the hearing. But preservationists had plenty to say about his actions.

Frank Sanchis of the Municipal Art Society saw workers tear down Lapidus' tower, and couldn't persuade them to stop. He called the police and City Hall.

"I haven't stood in the street screaming like that for 40 years," Sanchis testified. "Why should I be so frustrated?"

Architect John Reimnitz, who restored the building for a prior landlord, said he has copies of Lapidus' original drawings - making it possible for the new owner to rebuild.

Before his hotel work made him famous, Lapidus was a pioneer in post-World War II retail design.

"Lapidus designed the modern shopping experience," said John Jurayj of the Modern Architecture Working Group.

Lapidus was particularly proud of the building at 36 E. 14th St. - and called it an "attention-grabber."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/885-glassbldg.JPG

Union Sq. residents want new owners of a building at 14th St. and University Place to restore famous glass tower (above) they tore down last month.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/510-14street.JPG

[Jasonik]

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005_03_oddjob.jpg

Wrecking Ball Dashes Hopes for a Lapidus Work March 9, 2005 NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/arts/design/09mode.html?ex=1112760000&en=447116cdab74426c&ei=5070&oref=login)

[Citytect]

What a shame. Why would they demolish the building's signature architecural element? What are the owners of the Odd Job building planning to with it? This puzzles me. It seems really vindictive to raze the entry tower on the same day the Landmarks Preservastion Commission were holding a hearing concerning it. The landlord must have it out for the landmark commission.

It's really sad to see it gone, but asking for it to be replaced is pointless. Effort would be more useful in preventing similar future losses.