>I walked away feeling betrayed by one of our very own. This architect has >been instrumental in the preservation of Chattanooga structures as well as >structures in Chicago, New York and Boston. He is lifelong resident of our >city and knows first hand of the destruction of entire neighborhoods that >would been on the National Register today. Chattanooga is keenly aware of >the price it paid in the sixties for its downtown urban developement. More >than one of our "would be" landmarks lays buried in the Summit landfill >because it was ugly at the wrong time. Very interesting. We have a parallel situation here with the modern building I alluded to in a post a couple weeks back that is threatened with demolition by the county commissioners. The newspaper article that I cited, the efforts of several speakers at the county commissioners' budget public hearing, some quiet lobbying of commissioners by some of their respected acquaintences sympathetic to our cause, and an excellent article on the issue in the free weekly socially-conscious events calendar and reviews newspaper resulted in the commissioners voting to hold demolition of the building for 6-months in order for proponents of preservation to present a rehabilitation and re-use proposal. We can't ask for anything more than the opportunity to make our best case, so we are very pleased, and appreciative of their open-mindedness and willingness to consider our request. The interesting aspect of the situation, in counterpoint to your experience, is two local architects here that have done numerous projects for the county (one might say that they are almost the anointed designers for the county), and who also have been active in the preservation field in both their architectural practices and in serving on my commission and the board of the local non-profit advocacy organization, both refused commissions to prepare architectural documents for the demolition of the structure. Of course I have no illusions that the county won't be able to find someone to do the drawings, but I am very proud and pleased at the principled refusal by these two to do damage to a significant, if currently out of fashion, piece of landmark architecture. I figure this building, which was built in 1949 and is 49 years old, is about two to five years (and an effectively zippy paint job using colors with a contemporary appeal on the metal components) away from becoming sexy again. We're doing our best to keep it standing until then. It's a three story building with horizontal ribbon windows, buff-colored brick veneer and now tan-colored metal elements (rendering it a big beige box) with really cool steel tracks encircling it above the upper two bands of windows for a window-washing trolley. It surely was a real eye-opener around these parts in 1949, that has been totally depreciated by the onslaught of really poor shlocky knock-offs constructed in the two decades following. _______________________________________________ Dan Becker, Executive Director "Conformists die, but Raleigh Historic heretics live on forever" Districts Commission -- Elbert Hubbard [log in to unmask]