The Weekly Feed: Experimentation Edition
Morning Roundup: Change Edition
Former Blade Staffers Launch 'DC Agenda'
D.C. Insurance Dept. Denies Birth Control Coverage Meddling
Controversy Over Rhee Now to Include Sex, Congress
We've reached another Friday, D.C., but if those light flurries that accompanied you on your way into work this morning gave you visions of a leisurely Saturday snowball fight, you'll likely end up disappointed. Very little accumulation is expected from these flakes, and the weekend will see temperatures back in the upper 40s, with a possibility of some light rain on Saturday morning, according to CapitalWeather.com. If this update doesn't satisfy your weather nerd urges, head over to the front page of the Post's Metro section, where Lena H. Sun breaks down the story points of this year's edition of "Crap Snow Removal Grandstanding: When No One Takes Responsibility and Everyone is to Blame, it Must be Winter in Washington".
Silver Spring, Boom: Folks in downtown Silver Spring were startled by the sound of an explosion Thursday evening, writes the Examiner. Police detonated what turned out to be a harmless briefcase found on Ellsworth Drive between Fenton Street and Georgia Avenue. The City Place shopping mall was evacuated for several hours while authorities investigated the suspicious package, which was discovered when a security guard watching a surveillance feed spotted a man leaving the suitcase on the sidewalk.
Traffic Tickets Cost Everybody: A new report from the D.C. Inspector General shows that the much-maligned D.C. Office of Contracting and Procurement overpaid on a contract awarded to the company that processes the city's traffic tickets by nearly $17 million. Not only did the office give the contract to ACS State and Local Solutions without soliciting enough competitive bids, it also failed to get the required approval of the D.C. Council beforehand.
Briefly Noted: Two people shot and killed in Prince George's County ... Northwest Branch Trail to get lighting ... High rise fire in Bethesda ... Church awarded landmark status.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we said hello to the new president of George Washington University, and in 2005 we got excited about D.C. Council members hanging out at hookah bars.
Photo by Matt Adams (smada77)
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Wow! That church building is about the ugliest thing in DC. Would these board members give Lassi's turd a landmark status too?
That church is not the ugliest thing in DC, but it is certainly among the elite. What I find so galling is that once again it's only those pointy-headed archatellectuals who have huge cool-aid mustaches across they're maws who can summon up praise for these shit piles. The point of the historical preservation laws is to protect worthy buildings from the vagaries of public opinion. These buildings are not being threatened by the vagaries of public opinion: public opinion has always been consistently opposed to them. They are failures on every level except the one the architects put above all else: be challenging. These buildings are all one big middle-finger from the architectual elite to the public's taste, which they disdain. I say it's about time the public return the message.
Sometimes the point of historic preservation is to protect buildings like this church from people like you, who just don't get it. Just because it isn't a cute little victorian townhouse or whatever tickles your fancy, doesn't mean it isn't significant.
I find it ironic that the national association of architects has one of the ugliest buildings in dc.
What is the cone shaped structure on the roof? I can never remember what it is called...
"Just because it isn't a cute little victorian townhouse or whatever tickles your fancy, doesn't mean it isn't significant."
And once again, a defender of this awful school of architecture can only summon up the self-justification that it is significant because it is. It's funny you bring up Victorian rowhouses because it was an utter hatred of such style that drove people to design crap like this. This whole design school is a school of blotting out history. How utterly ironic that its defenders, realizing it has failed on its merits, fall back on historicism as the sole reason to stave-off the much-deserved wrecking ball.
Can we do this returning of the message thing first via the MLK, Jr. Memorial Library?
I've always hated on the brutalist cube that is MLK, but lately, I've come to appreciate what's become of Mies van der Rohe's fugly stepchild. The crumbling infrastructure, the perpetual homeless residents, the fact it's going to cost an arm-and-a-leg to fix, the urine smell: it's a metaphor for DC itself, writ in black girders and concrete.
Oh, c'mon folks, we need to keep at least a few of them around if for no other reason than to remind people to never, ever build something like it again.
LOL, Moose is right.
On a serious note, the Church has a serious First Amendment argument to make and the fact of the matter is that it can seek relief from landmarking from the Mayor.
HPRB had to consider the academic question of the status of the architects and the "uniqueness" of the structure. It could not make a judgement on the other issues of hardship, upkeep and Church-State separation.
At the end of the day, I would lay odds that this structure will not see 2009.
Is this church the building that has the bizarre light structure atop it, which can be seen towering over the downtown skyline and White House, light colors seasonally changing a la the Empire State Building?
I'm a big fan of brutalist architecture. Love it love it love it. And that building gives me warm fuzzies. It's an important movement in architecture. And is more fascinatingly gorgeous to me than about 90% of other buildings in washington. I pretty much cant stand anything in the Federal Triangle. (The National Archives being the exception.) And I think the U.S. capitol is probably one of the ugliest buildings in all of the western hemisphere.
But regardless, tastes come and go. We always ask ourselves how the couldn't have saved "x" building. Well probably because "x" building was found to be hideous by the next generation of tastemakers. We need to judge buildings not on the whims of taste but on larger principals. As I've said elsewhere, my hometown had few examples of late 19th century victorian architecture and zero mansard roofs -- these were seen as hideously garish and over the top, and not befitting an American community. The University of Virginia campus is another strong example. Despite being now considered a masterpiece, McKeam, Mead and White were quite appalled at Thomas Jefferson's fudging of the neoclassic details on the Rotunda -- and sought to "fix" it. Now the version we know and love to do is a hybrid version -- although there was debate while restoring the building about whether to remove those details. Colonial Williamsburg is another example of selective editing. And changing sense of what is "correct."
Buildings are living things. And tastes change. What's problematic about preservation is that you have to make these choices and determine not only what is valuable to you know. But what will be valuable in the long run. And predict what people are going to wish was still around later.
We our now at that era that important buildings of the post war generation are starting to be understood for their value. So here is an attempt not to replicate the "mistakes" made by those in the early twentieth century who removed the vestiges of the 19th. I think later generations will be grateful. But who knows.
Can we do this returning of the message thing first via the MLK, Jr. Memorial Library?
Oh, come on. I think nothing encourages kids to read more than the smell of piss and Bum Funk.
The Church building looks okay but it should have some barbed wire and turret guns stuck on it and be relocated to the Maginot Line.
DC1974,
I too love brutalist architecture. I am so glad the DC metro was envisioned in the 1960s/1970s and inherited that trend. I love DC's hodgepodge of Greco-Roman, Victorian, Brutalism, and French Baroque... something for everybody!
Also, the Washington Post published an editorial in November on this exact topic, bringing up the same buildings (and mentioning a few in DC that were saved and used in other ways or destroyed). The author, Roger K. Lewis ("a practicing architect and a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland"), argues for the modification of the current structures (MLK and church) for more practical uses today, but attempting to keep parts of the original buildings so we don't forget their history and architectural influence.
Sounds like a compromise to me. What a wimp.
"late 19th century victorian architecture and zero mansard roofs -- these were seen as hideously garish and over the top"
Well, that was true for a lot of places. I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with an aversion to garrishness. I think it may have had more to do with the fact that the Second Empire style was just really expensive to make and maintain (which may explain why it was not nearly as succesful as the other Victorian styles). Plus, your town may have been built after the Queen Anne and Italianate styles had overcome the Second Empire as the dominant Victorian styles.
"We need to judge buildings not on the whims of taste but on larger principals."
Fine. I agree with that. But I would suggest that the widespread and unflinching distaste for Brutalism is not a "whim".
For illustration's sake, let's compare it to the Queen Anne style. First of all, the Queen Ann Style lasted longer and was significantly more popularly accepted. Second, yes there was eventually a popular backlash against the extravagence of the style, but it came much slower, and lasted much shorter than the backlash against Brutalism, which was almost immediate and has only intensified over the years.
(And I'd conjecture that the preservation laws were adopted less to protect us from ourselves, and more to give a means to the people to protect ourselves from landowners like Penn. Railroad. But like I said, that's a conjecture.)
And finally, on what principles should buildings be judged? Should they simply be those principles that fit into a professor's syllabus, or should the actual man-on-the-street experience trump the text books? [And I realize your experience on the street is warm and fuzzy, but even you must admit that you're in a distinct minority there.]
(And sorry for the long screeds. I just get really worked up over these things. I'll stop now).
DC needs to step up to the plate with notable architecture because we do have some pretty freaking ugly buildings here. But it's important to look at the issue beyond the "ugly" facade.
The issue is about history and preserving it. Mies van der Rohe does not have many built works in the US, and DC has one of them. He was a very progressive architect who based his theories and principles on re-combinations of other thinkers and designers who had attacked the flaw of the traditional design styles, defined new criteria, and created alternative design solutions.
He was influenced by the ideology of "efficient" sculptural constructions using modern industrial materials. His style eradicated the use of ornament and the casting off of the superficial, the use of unadorned but rich materials, the nobility of anonymity, and an admiration for the pragmatism of American engineering structures and machines.
He recognized and appreciated that all styles have their place and time, and I think we should respect what he did for that time. The architectural language that he created represented an era of technology and production, just as Gothic Architecture was an era for spiritualism. His buildings are very direct and simple when viewed in person, which I think encompasses the meaning behind modernism.
The MLK library may not have been maintained, and may be plagued with HVAC problems, but is a rare example of modern architecture and it is a piece of architectural history that should be reviewed considerably before being cast to the wrecking ball.
MLK is black on the outside because black is how Mies feels on the inside.
FYI, fools, the MLK building by Mies is designed in the international style-it is not brutalist. Actual Brutalism can be found in the disaster that we refer to as Southwest DC....does anyone here honestly think that L'enfant plaza and the MLK library have the same architectural tradition?
If we keep this fug church, can we raze all of Southwest between 14th and 2nd?
Well oddly enough L'enfant Plaza and Third Church of Christ was designed by the same person or people. IM Pei.
loganmo - Thanks for the clarification.
And I do believe that both MLK/L'enfant are direct descendents of an obscure architectural school known as "plugfuglinist modern." I'm already working on a wiki for it.
Reid - you are correct that not many people love Brutalism, but that means there will not likely be a revival or well-supported perservation effort. Cant we leave the few examples alone?
IM Pei, and his firm, is pretty prolific in DC. His firm also did the air force memorial, the regan building/international trade center, and the holocause museum.
"Cant we leave the few examples alone?"
Well first of all, there are a lot more than few. And some of them are very prominent public buildings (e.g. Boston City Hall, FBI building). And I doubt there's a college campus in this country without some example of it.
And also, there's a very sharp difference between "leaving alone" a building and designating it as a landmark.
Also, Adam: I was dismayed to see that the DC Preservation League has designated the Urban Renewal superblocks in SW as a threatened landmark.
I have slightly more respect for the International Style. At least when that is done well (e.g. Seagram's Building) it is successful. The best Brutalist city building is still pretty damn ugly. (I think modern architecture in general, and perhaps even brutalism in a small way, can work really well as private residences in nature. I just think they violate the "social contract" of city architecture.)
Very well put, Urban Architect.
I'm not sure I can even see the church building (I'm assuming it's the picture in the top right hand corner, the Victorian style turret? - people don't like that?!). Sometimes Adblock Plus and NoScript work TOO well...
Anyway, the point of historical preservation is to preserve things that have historical value, right? Over time, architectural styles change, and some are easier to love than others. But you can't go judging everything on aesthetics, it's too subjective. Look at some old photos of the Scott and Thomas Circle areas. There was a sea of beautiful Victorian rowhouses (well, at least that's my opinion), but there was a period of time where people apparently thought these were perhaps old-fashioned, and tore them down in droves.
Look at the downtown areas today. Architects and developers have been throwing up cheaply constructed (and again my opinion) faceless condo structures with no aesthetic appeal, and people suck 'em up! What will those look like in 10 years? I shudder to think about it. I'd like to tear those down...
- Daniel
I'm not sure I can even see the church building (I'm assuming it's the picture in the top right hand corner, the Victorian style turret? - people don't like that?!). Sometimes Adblock Plus and NoScript work TOO well...
Anyway, the point of historical preservation is to preserve things that have historical value, right? Over time, architectural styles change, and some are easier to love than others. But you can't go judging everything on aesthetics, it's too subjective. Look at some old photos of the Scott and Thomas Circle areas. There was a sea of beautiful Victorian rowhouses (well, at least that's my opinion), but there was a period of time where people apparently thought these were perhaps old-fashioned, and tore them down in droves.
Look at the downtown areas today. Architects and developers have been throwing up cheaply constructed (and again my opinion) faceless condo structures with no aesthetic appeal, and people suck 'em up! What will those look like in 10 years? I shudder to think about it. I'd like to tear those down...
- Daniel