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Seattle's historic contradictions - Crosscut Seattle -

Sparked in part by the designation of a "googie" (a Denny's diner) as a heritage landmark structure (a designation that the deep-pocketed owner, the Benaroya company, is going to fight in court), Berger reports on subsequent repercussions and discussions among "representatives from the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Historic Seattle, the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, and others." The comments thread is pretty interesting, too, and there are parallels to what Victoria is facing in its considerations around "landmarking" modern buildings.

Tags: architecture, crosscut, heritage, historic_preservation, knute_berger, seattle on 2008-03-26 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Codifying what a preservation board should use as criteria seems impossible. Americans spend millions every year to visit European cities that have preserved and even rebuilt ancient buildings. They eat in Cafe’s in 500 yr. old buildings. Tourists like old stuff and pay dearly for the privilege.

In attempting to render some judgement as to what a historic building might be leads us to ponder still another abstraction. Should appearance be be a major criteria for deciding what buildings should be preserved and which should be replaced with something new? It seems hard to overlook what the building under consideration was used for. Did things of value to our culture happen there? How did it serve those who occupied the building? Were important decisions made there? Did it serve just a few, or many, over it’s lifetime? Did it in some way symbolize something good about the American culture? Did it open it’s doors to all or just a select few who could afford it? Could it be used again to serve in the same way?

An even greater abstraction that must be considered is what would replace it? Would the replacement be just for profit, just one more new building with unaffordable rents built with sub-prime loans?

In our struggle to assign values to things I’m reminded of a comment made by a friend as we noticed an older little house with with a MUP. board in front. It would be torn down and replaced with 4 new townhouses. The friend commented that this trash house was a tear down. Going through my mind was that it was almost exactly like the converted two car garage I lived in for years with my mother after my dad died. It was warm and dry and it was home to me. They used to call it affordable housing.
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- - this speaks to the "embodied energies" within/of "heritage"...
  posted by lampertina on 2008-03-26
The general population supports preservation of what they consider historic: brick and stone buildings from the 30s or before. They don't support preservation of modern buildings unless they're especially cool in some way, like the Science Center's arches. An office building built in the 50s or 60s? That's just another box.

The AIA did a national survey of the general public a year ago. They asked people to look at a long series of photos and rate the buildings in them. The list was massively skewed toward older buildings. This was an utter shock to many architects. In Architectural Record and elsewhere they came up with all sorts of lame excuses. For example, the older buildings had been around long enough to grow on people...as if a building from the 60s hadn't had ample chance to do the same. They refused to believe that people like older buildings more.
mhays
Skolnik is right that landmarking can't do it all, and shouldn't. Steinbrueck is correct that the city we love won't survive if the rules don't have teeth.
The area of conflicting policies poses a bigger problem for the city council and the Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods committee as it looks ahead to possible changes in the city's development rules and comprehensive plan in the year ahead. How do you manage all the moving parts of a complex city yet keep the contradictions to a minimum?
"'The greenest building is one that's already built.'" Recycling buildings, says Peter Steinbrueck, is the ultimate in sustainability.
Landmark proponents say the reason there have been so few lawsuits over the years is that the process does work, in part because it is selective. Architect Susan Boyle, one of the busiest preservation consultants in town, told the committee that she has prepared at least 100 landmark nominations and that 60% of them were successful, 40% failed. That, she said, showed the board is very discerning. And Karen Gordon pointed out that in the city's controversial survey of downtown buildings, they looked at 387 that were old enough to be eligible as landmarks (built before 1966), and determined that 45% were clearly not of landmark quality. In other words, those owners are now off the hook. The city only proactively nominated 37 structures and identified scores of others that are maybes.
Stepping back a bit, both Skolnik and preservationists make thoughtful points. Skolnik worries that the preservation process is out of touch with regular folks. He says that after too many years, the city's preservation office is another entrenched bureaucracy that is running rough-shod over people. He says for a property owner who opposes the landmarking of their building, it may cost as much as $100,000 to fully fight through the appeals process. Most don't have the money to fight a designation and give in. Very few, like the Benaroya Company, have the money to take a further step and sue, which is why their lawsuit over the landmark designation of the Ballard Manning's/Denny's diner is unusual. Skolnik says "I'm a believer that preservation should be a positive process for everyone."
Linda Larson, a former Landmarks Board appointee from the Charles Royer years and a longtime library trustee, emphasized that historic preservation is "a core value of the people of the city." Everyone seemed to agree on that.
Defenders of the current system are equally adamant. Larry Kreisman of Historic Seattle argued that the ordinance was established with "great wisdom" and said that if Seattle only had voluntary landmarking, "the city would have lost some of its most important vestiges of city life," meaning places like the Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square. And Historic Seattle's Pete Mills said the landmark law was "One of the few gems that allows us to preserve what's important in the city."
Skolnik argues for a major revamp of historic preservation in Seattle. He is asking the city to appoint a citizen's task force to study the landmark processes and wants a moratorium on all landmark nominations and designations until they report. He believes the process needs to be more open, voluntary, incentive-driven, and re-organized to better represent the interests of property owners and developers. If not, he fears a backlash that could undo decades of preservation work.
Perhaps most infuriating to preservationists, he has said the current process results in property takings, implying Seattle's rules aren't simply misapplied, but illegal. His critique goes to the foundations of a system that has been at work in Seattle for decades. As it is, he says the process is "victimizing property owners." The debate is whether landmarking should be voluntary, or regulatory, like zoning.

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