BSA Historic Resources Committee Meeting Notes for June 2005
Present: Maia Brindley Nilsson, Matthew Bronski, Taya Dixon, Sutton Giese, Jack Glassman, Patrick Guthrie, Jeffrey Harris, David Hart, David Kelman, David King, Michael Lynch, Doug Manley, Henry Moss, Ivan Myjer, Brian Roche, Zac Sargent, Susan Schur, Malcolm Smiley
1. Reaction to Philip Marshall's Recent Presentation on International Preservation and ICOMOS: Committee members discussed their reactions to Philip Marshall's interesting and provocative presentation at our June meeting. Many appreciated Philip's suggestion that if you intend to work with an historic resource abroad, you might improve your understanding by engaging the corresponding immigrant community here in the United States. Other appreciated Philip's tenet that we only need 'preservation' as such where there is a lack of continuity (in culture, craft, and materials) from the past to the present, and consequently, in places abroad where this continuity still exists, repair efforts should center on local peoples utilizing their own traditional materials, methods, crafts, practices and workers (while we should resist the temptation to take charge as 'technically advanced' outsiders with our own materials, syringes, and object conservation approaches).
2. Challenges of Rehabilitating the Twentieth Century Building Envelope: Matthew Bronski of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger gave a slide presentation on "Architectural Darwinism and the Technical and Philosophical Challenges of Rehabilitating the Twentieth Century Building Envelope." Matthew explained that the seed for this lecture began about a decade ago, when he sat as a student in a Preservation Theories 101 course: someone asked the professor, 'Well, what about preserving modern buildings - how are they different?' The professor answered that the significant modern buildings of the 20th century will one day become the significant ancient buildings, so we should treat them the same, with all the same care and attention as older historic buildings. In a decade of working at SGH, with much work on notable modern buildings, Matthew's experience has taught him that although significant modern buildings do deserve all the care and attention that we give older historic buildings, major technical differences mean that we can't treat them quite like older historic buildings. Furthermore, standards written predominantly for ancient monuments (e.g., Athens Charter, Venice Charter) are problematic to apply to modern buildings. In general, the Athens and Venice Charters tend to advocate a 'less is more' approach that accepts what survives, and changes as little as possible of the surviving building or monument. Such an approach works well on ancient monuments or ruins, because of the process of Architectural Darwinism, whereby hundreds or thousands of years of time, nature, and the elements have eliminated the buildings that were not technically well-designed and well-built for the long-term (Matthew cited cases of collapse and failure of ancient buildings centuries ago, from Gothic Cathedrals to Roman buildings.) Through this process of elimination by time and the elements, only the best (technically) designed and built, most durable ancient buildings survive today for us to preserve. Thus, on surviving ancient monuments, a 'less is more' approach (that seeks to accept the original design and surviving fabric, and change as little as possible) is technically viable and works reasonably well.
However, at the complete opposite end of the time-preservation spectrum is the preservation of a modern building. The time between initial construction and attempted preservation/rehabilitation has been reduced from hundreds or thousands of years to a mere 50 years, or even less. Consequently, the entire process of Architectural Darwinism is eliminated (this process involves failure; learning from failure so more viable details and methods emerge; evolution and improvement of details; leading to surviving buildings with better details that become a tried-and-true vernacular way of building, while highly flawed buildings are gone). Thus, with modern buildings, this process has not yet occurred, and the technically-flawed, less durable buildings have not yet been separated by the elements from their better designed brethren.
Further compounding this problem is Modernism's break from the past in forms, details, and materials. Traditional buildings of the early twentieth century included decades of experience and evolution of details for traditional details such as sloped roofs, punched windows, clapboard siding, load bearing masonry bonding, etc. Matthew showed plates from architect and builder detail books of the 1920's with technically outstanding, reliable, durable details for sloped roofs, wood windows, "doghouse" dormers, etc. However, for early modern buildings, little if any established body of design or builder's knowledge existed regarding how to design reliable and durable terraces over occupied living space, horizontal strip windows, flat roofs, etc. Many of these details are still challenging even today, and we can't expect that in inventing these details out of the clear blue, those who designed early modern houses (e.g., Le Corbusier, Gropius, etc.), would completely succeed by having them all their projects perform flawlessly. They didn't. Matthew read excerpts of a letter from Madame Savoye to Le Corbusier after she occupied the completed Villa Savoye in the early 1930's, in which she wrote "…it rains in the entrance, it rains on the ramp, and the garage wall is drenched. Furthermore, it always rains in my bathroom which floods with every rain - the water passes from the ceiling window… I would very much like to fix all this…). These types of technical flaws in the original designs make it far more difficult to successfully utilize a "less is more, change as little as possible" preservation approach on a modern building as opposed to an ancient monument. Matthew showed numerous other examples of specific original building envelope design flaws on notable modern buildings SGH has worked on, from buildings by Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, SOM, Paul Rudolph, and Antoine Predock. Water leakage was a common problem.
On a modern building, it is often necessary to change technical aspects of the original design in order to preserve the building for the long-term. The challenge then is to do so in a way that is sensitive to the original design aesthetics. In some cases, these technical changes can be done in such a way that the no changes are visible at the surface. Matthew showed examples from his current work on the SOM's iconic Beinecke Rare Book Library (1963) where the overall rehabilitation goal was to make the granite-paved plaza look exactly as it had originally, but completely redesign the concealed, subsurface plaza paving, waterproofing, and drainage components to eliminate original design problems and better protect the priceless collections. As another example, Matthew's showed his work on Frank Lloyd Wright's Zimmerman House (1951) as a case where the design of the new clay tile roofing was quite different than the original beneath the surface, with only a minor visual change at the surface, creating a narrow horizontal shadow line that blended with the numerous other horizontal shadow lines on Wright's roof.
Matthew distributed copies of a paper he co-wrote comparing various preservation standards. He implored us not to fall into the trap of thinking that preservation standards (e.g., Athens, Venice, Sec. of the Interior's) are something we learned a long time ago as beginners, and we 'know all that already'. Standards for preservation, our philosophical approach to preservation, and our technical approach to preservation are all intertwined. Standards and our philosophical approaches to preservation are worth frequent reconsideration by every practitioner at every level of experience.
3. Lincoln, MA Historic District Debate: A current battle in Lincoln may be a harbinger of similar issues to come in other historic districts. The battle involves the significance of a non-iconic, impure modern house in an historic district that includes houses of many architectural periods and styles. The house in question is a post WWII conversion by Henry Hoover of a Victorian house to a modern movement house. It is painted pink. In terms of design purity and iconic value to the modern movement in New England, it isn't exactly on a par with the Gropius House (also in Lincoln), but few houses are. Is there a place in a heterogeneous local historic district for a modern house of secondary or tertiary significance? David Fixler, Gary Wolfe, and DOCOMOMO testified at the LHD hearing.
4. BSA-HRC support of individual MPPF grant applications: The HRC recently received a request for a letter of support for an MPPF grant application from a highly significant property in Boston. Committee members discussed the relative pros and cons of writing such letters. While the Committee members voiced strong support for the MPPF grant program, the concurrence was that we should not write letters of support for individual grant applications, for a number of reasons, including: a) writing a letter of support for one grant applicant, no matter how worthy, would essentially be campaigning against other grant applicants, some of whom might be equally worthy or more so (we don't know); b) could be potential conflicts of interest with members involved in projects applying for grants; c) We don't know all the details of a project at the time of grant application - a very worthy or significant building that we support for a grant could end up doing specific things that we would not have encouraged; d) sorting through all grant applications in a comprehensive way that would allow us to make informed recommendations for grant recipients, would be incredibly time consuming, and would be redundant with the grant selection committee's role.
5. Sources of Innovation in Historic Preservation: Over the last few months, Henry Moss invited the committee to begin to think about innovation in historic preservation, and how it develops in the legislative, theoretical, and technical sectors of our activity in anticipation of discussion on this topic at a future meeting. Please gather your thoughts for our initial discussions of this topic at our meeting on September 9.
6. APT Annual Conference: The APT Annual Conference will be held September 21-26 in Halifax Nova Scotia. The conference theme is "Managing Time, Technology and Chaos." The reduced rate, early registration deadline has been extended to July 31! You can register online at www.apti.org
7. September Lecture; The Maya and Their Sacred Architecture: For those unable to attend the APT annual conference, mark your calendars for Tuesday, September 20th at 6:00 p.m. (revised date). Through the efforts of HRC member Lyn Hovey, Don Alejendro Cirilo Perez of Guatemala will deliver a lecture on "The Maya and their Sacred Architecture." The event will be held at The Ayer Mansion at 395 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Reception at 6:00 PM, and the presentation will begin at 6:30 PM.
8. Endangered Puritan Gravestones: Ivan Myjer told the committee of his deep appreciation for the artistic and cultural value of the early Puritan gravestones of New England. Aside from furniture, very little survives in the way of Puritan art or artisanship. Ivan noted that the carved artwork and epitaphs of the Puritan gravestone often represent a break from the austere, conservative ways of the Puritans that lends insight into the deeper complexity of their outlook on life and their inner thoughts. Many Puritan gravestones are deteriorating to the point where these artistic works are in serious danger of being lost, and Ivan has considered nominating them for the National Trust's annual list of its Most Endangered Places. Many committee members encouraged Ivan to follow-through with a nomination.
9. Bon Chance: We wish HRC member Sutton Giese the best of luck as she departs Boston to study historic preservation in New Orleans, an elegant swamp rich with its own unique architectural, musical, and culinary gumbo of the many cultures that have left their mark there. Laissez le bon temps rouler.
10. July HRC Meeting: Our 14 July HRC meeting will continue our ongoing series of digital potluck discussions with a discussion of issues raised by members' recent work. What design, technical, or philosophical issues have risen to the fore in your recent work? For example, some interesting issues raised in recent presentations at HRC include: a) the challenge of creating appreciation for early twentieth century architecture in places that more highly value the earlier architecture of their colonial past (The "Ye Olde" syndrome); b) the broad question of when to preserve, and when not to; c) the fundamental differences between preserving modern buildings with contemporary needs, and preserving ancient ruins and monuments; d) the architectural design challenge of rooftop additions that are visible from the street, in historic contexts; e) surprising findings of moisture vapor drive analysis of rehabilitated traditional masonry or wood-framed buildings in New England.
Have any of your recent projects raised interesting technical or design issues? Run into an interesting challenge repairing a cast iron façade, or pressed metal cornice? Learned something new about the work of a 19th c. Boston architect? Encountered an interesting issue in a historic district review hearing? We'd love to hear about it. Prior to July 13, please e-mail a digital image (jpg., tif, emf, etc.), and a brief sentence on the issue raised to Matthew Bronski (mbbronski@sgh.com). Matthew will assemble the images and questions into a PowerPoint presentation for discussion on July 14. Please feel free to contribute an image and issue even if you are unable to attend the meeting.
Next
Meeting
Featuring a group discussion on
"Issues and Questions Raised by Members' Recent Work"
The Architects' Building
52 Broad Street, 5th floor, Boston
Henry Moss, Matthew Bronski, and Sara Wermiel co-leaders and scribes