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Save That Modern Landmark
| Article
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18913 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1991 |
1,985 Words |
| Author
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Kenneth Powell
Kenneth Powell is an architecture writer for the London Daily
Telegraph. |
The idea that historic buildings and areas should be protected by law from arbitrary destruction and alteration is now generally accepted in every advanced country in the world. In France, for example, legislation came quite early in the nineteenth century. In England, with its stubborn tradition of individual liberty, only with the end of World War II and the election of a British Labor government were effective controls introduced. The United States was slower still. The New York City Landmarks Commission, for instance, was not established until 1965--in the wake of public outrage over the demolition of Penn Station.
Whether a monument classe, a listed building or a landmark, a historic building is seen as embodying, to some degree, the history of a community or nation. Chartres Cathedral, the United States Capitol, and the Tower of London are all symbolic of the past of the countries in which they stand.
History does not, however, stand still. Yesterday is history. Fifty years ago, Victorian buildings were generally despised in Britain (though they were the products of the country's great age of imperial and industrial dominance.) Their decorative qualities and fine craftsmanship are now widely admired by a public disillusioned by the sheer shoddiness of much postwar architecture.
Preservation, say its advocates, is not just a matter of sentiment and aesthetics: it makes sense. Tearing down sound buildings with a long potential life is a waste of resources. But what if the buildings in question are not only badly built but also, to the eye of the average intelligent citizen, positively ugly? How can there be a case for preserving them?
This issue arises because the cause of preservation has marched on. The value of nineteenth-century buildings is now recognized: It is those of the twentieth century that are now perceived as at risk.
The dilemmas facing would-be preservationists of the twentieth century are seen at their most acute in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The Kiefhoek housing scheme was built (of concrete, with flat roofs) between 1925 and 1930 to designs by the architect J.J.P. Oud. It was intended as a model settlement for the working class. Today, however, it is a near-slum. Historians of the Modern Movement have declared it to be a monument of significance. The city, therefore, decided to attempt a thorough restoration, with more spacious dwellings created by knocking two existing houses into one. The blocks have,
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