Museums in Old Buildings
For the last five years, the Conservation Society had advocated for the preservation of the Crockett and Woolworth Buildings and their re-use as the new Alamo museum. Without every saying so, the Alamo has favored a new building, partly because they want to reveal where part of the western wall was, which I discussed at length last month here. I ended that blog noting that the Woolworth Building was to be a museum of airplanes a little over 20 years ago.
The San Antonio Museum of Art, the Briscoe and almost every other museum in San Antonio is in a historic building. Some, like the McNay and the Witte, have new additions, which is what we proposed for the Woolworth and Crockett.
How are world class museums made? Perhaps you recognize some of these.
You can throw in the Prado, the Alhambra and the Hermitage as well. Locally, we have….
The Alamo museum intends to focus its interpretation on the famed 1836 battle. So, their illustrations have lots of cannons, which, while smaller than airplanes, do need a little space.
Some of the unpublished museum images show the cannons safely indoors and many of the outdoors one will be replicas. In the absence of imagery, perhaps the museum will look like this?
Hmm. What does the outside of this museum look like?
Oh! It’s a historic building! How about this display replete with conquistador astride a horse:
What does this museum look like on the outside?
Kinda looks a lot like the Woolworth Building. Except in both of these cases the column spacing is not as flexible as the Woolworth Building.
The Alamo is warning that it is do or die time for the Alamo Reimagined Plan. The next hurdle? Texas Historical Commission will decide whether the 1940 Cenotaph can be moved a few hundred feet to the south.
Stay tuned…..
School Houses Rock
Not long ago I did a blog about the myriad examples of preserved, adapted historic gas stations. Today let’s look at schools. I remember schools rehabbed into homes from the beginning of my career over 34 years ago.
The Lemont School – front half 1896, rear piece 1869 – converted into residences c. 1980.
The Lemont School above shows how even two generations of school design are easily adapted, since they needed large windows to allow enough light in for instruction – a feature suited well to conversion into apartments or condos. Offices are another easy rehabilitation goal, as seen in this 1874 school in Georgetown, Colorado. (This is from a decade ago – it is rehabbed now)
Schools are a more straightforward rehab prospect than other community-defining buildings like churches and theaters, which tend to have a massive open space inside, although of course more modern schools will themselves include assembly halls and theaters, along with gymnasia. Still, most classrooms are easily made into offices, condos or even retail spaces.
This one is for the birds. I mean The Birds (Bodega Bay, California).
Which brings us to this lovely 1916 school by local architect Leo Dielmann, which was “saved,” or rather “not demolished” 20 years ago when they tore off various additions and built a new school. And then let this one rot. Despite a sturdy concrete frame, the roof was the only wood portion and it turned into a sponge in the last decade. But the walls are there and it is beautiful.
Still the owners – the School District – have pulled a fast one, or more accurately, a really SLOW one. Demolition by neglect. Over more than two decades. Makes it look almost…natural.
Councilman Treviño has been fighting for the school, and our friends over at Ford Powell Carson architects even did some renderings to show how it could be rehabbed.
Many neighbors want to save it, but others have been convinced by the long con that the eyesore is too far gone and must be removed. The real crime here is that no one gets dunned for demolition by neglect – the most common way to deliberately destroy a perfectly usable building. There is also lack of vision – seeing older buildings as obstacles rather than opportunities.
See?
Treviño is fighting a Principal and Superintendent who want to see the building go away, which was perhaps the plan 20-odd years ago. That would be a shame. For the neighborhood, the city, and future resources subjected to the mistreatment of the long con.
MAY UPDATE
Now all the parents are upset because the School District added another fence around the landmark, closing off all open space on the block. This was not due to an incident but the occasion of a structural report that doubted the building’s ability to withstand a tornado.
Yes, really. Can’t make this stuff up! To the long con of demolition by neglect they have added structural scare-everybody-ism. As the first con was strategic, so is the second, because now we have upset children and parents demanding that something be done. Those allies are key, because the structural report itself was a bit of a laugher – it is not clear he even accessed the building! He claimed his report was based on his experience over 40 years. I have to remember that one.
Another structural engineer is taking a look at it through actual inspection and soon we will know what it costs and whether we can find all of the money. Stay tuned.
AUGUST UPDATE
The parents, pressured by the unnecessary closing of the playground, called for demolition this summer and the owner finally filed for a demolition permit. Sadly, it seems the long con is working.
Buildings For The Future
My favorite quote from Donovan Rypkema during our Living Heritage Symposium last month was a marvelously simple recitation about why saving old buildings is economically brilliant. He said simply: “You can’t build new and rent cheap.”
Preservation as Social Practice: Theaster Gates
Thanks to my dear friend Lisa Yun Lee I had the opportunity to tour three of Theaster Gates’ urban building projects on the South Side of Chicago yesterday. Gates has degrees in urban planning and ceramics, and is described as a social practice installation artist. He preserves old buildings in a creative repurposing for the local community. His work is not standard preservation, but I think that is a good thing. The first project I saw was the Stony Island Arts Bank, a 1923 Classical bank I watched deteriorate for decades. He saved it. Continue Reading
Managing Change, or We Are Technology
Little Black Pearl, 47th & Greenwood, Chicago
Managing change is what the historic preservation/heritage conservation field does. It is not about preserving “the past” or old buildings but repurposing significant elements of the past environment for future use.
Modern historic preservation in the United States dates from the 1960s, and it came up in an era of “new history” that replaced the old political history (wars, leaders, battles, boundaries) with a history that tried to convey what was happening to most people in their social and economic everyday. In a sense, history – as an academic discipline – was catching up with the globalization that industrial capitalism had launched at the time of the American Revolution in the late 18th century. In the old history, agency – what makes things happen – was leaders and battles, etc. Agency in the new history had much broader social and economic dimensions. As my favorite Leeds musical group sang way back in 1979 “It’s Not Made By Great Men.” Continue Reading