Architecture has always centered on permanence and ephemerality. Defined by material conditions, how we build is closely tied to what we preserve and how we conceptualize the future. Furthering international cooperation in education, the arts, the sciences, and culture, UNESCO is an organization that continues to examine the relationship between history and growth, preservation, and change. As architecture, landscapes, and cities become threatened by the climate crisis and unrest, cultural context becomes paramount.
Bologna officials announced plans to secure and repair the leaning Garisenda Tower, a medieval structure in the center of the Italian city. Earlier last month, the area surrounding the tower was secured after raising fears of collapse, as monitoring has found shifts in the direction of the tilt. The 47-meter-tall tower leans at a four-degree angle, similar to its more famous counterpart, Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Garisenda Tower has been a defining feature of Bologna’s skyline along with its neighboring Asinelli Tower, which is around twice the height and also leans, though at a smaller angle, and is usually open for tourists to climb.
The announcement of the establishment of a new university campus is one of celebration, marking economic opportunities and urban growth. The United States is home to over 700 college towns that have witnessed prosperity through the inauguration of educational institutions like the University of Colorado’s Boulder, and Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina. With this development, gentrification has unfortunately become a contentious issue in college towns across the country. While the transformation of these towns brings economic expansion and cultural vibrancy, it often comes at the cost of displacing long-time residents, erasing historic character, and altering the essence of these towns. American college towns offer a unique perspective on how cities can strike a balance between progress and preservation.
For the past three decades, YIMBYs and NIMBYs have been fighting pitched battles across the U.S. for the heart and soul of future development, but the housing crisis has only grown worse, especially since the crash of 2008, which changed so many things on the supply side.
This was followed a dozen years later by 2020, the strangest year of our lifetimes, which made those supply-side challenges even more pronounced. The roots of the problem, however, go back further than that, with mistakes made as long as 75 years ago now being repeated by completely new generations. Failure to understand those errors—and even why they are errors and not good practice—will perpetuate and exacerbate today’s crisis into future generations.
George Smart is an unlikely preservationist, almost an accidental one. The founder and executive director of USModernist, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and documentation of modern houses, Smart worked for 30 years as a management consultant. “I was doing strategic planning and organization training,” he says. “My wife refers to this whole other project as a 16-year seizure.” Recently I spoke with Smart about his two websites, the podcast, the house tours his organization conducts, and why documentation is such a power preservation tool.
Boston City Hall. Image Courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand
It’s true that all trends are circular, and what was once seen as old and outdated becomes new and modern again- in fashion, music, art, and especially architecture. From the mid 20th century, brutalist architecture rose in popularity before reaching its peak in the mid-1970s, when it was disregarded for being too stylistic and non-conforming to the needs of clients who wanted their buildings to feel timeless. But the love for these concrete beasts is facing a resurgence, and a renewed appreciation for this architectural style is on the rise.
The World Heritage Committee decided to inscribe the Historic Center of the Port City Odesa, Ukraine, on the World Heritage List. The decision symbolizes the recognition of the outstanding value of the site and the commitment of the 194 States Party of the Convention not to undertake any deliberate step that may damage it and to help protect it. The site has also been inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, which gives it access to international financial or technical assistance to ensure its protection and, if necessary, assist in its rehabilitation, according to UNESCO.
Theodore Prudon, the founding president of Docomomo US, recently stepped down as the organization’s head. (Robert Meckfessel is the new president.) “Docomomo” is shorthand for the group’s mission: the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the Modern movement. Prudon has had a storied career as a preservationist, architect, and educator, heading his own practice and teaching at Columbia University. In October, he was presented with the Connecticut Architecture Foundation’s Distinguished Leadership Award at the newly reborn Marcel Breuer building in New Haven, which began its life in 1970 as the Pirelli Tire Building and is now the Hotel Marcel (designed, planned, and developed by architect Bruce Redman Becker).
https://www.archdaily.com/992013/theodore-prudon-modernism-has-never-been-a-popular-movementMichael J. Crosbie
The Natural History Museum Of Lille in France will undertake a significant architectural transformation for its 200th anniversary. Snøhetta, selected to restore and modernize the complex, with a transdisciplinary team featuring the scenographer Adeline Rispal and the landscape architects of Taktyk, imagines a renovation that will support the city's ambition to combine urban renewal with the preservation of the city's historic architecture. Planned for completion in 2025 and with a total of 7,500 m², the restoration will accommodate flexible exhibition areas, more extensive storage, and gardens.
Dequindre Cut, Detroit / The High Line Network, SmithGroup. Image Courtesy of The Dirt
Decades of redlining and urban renewal, rooted in racist planning and design policies, created the conditions for gentrification to occur in American cities. But the primary concern with gentrification today is displacement, which primarily impacts marginalized communities shaped by a history of being denied access to mortgages. At the ASLA 2021 Conference on Landscape Architecture in Nashville, Matthew Williams, ASLA, with the City of Detroit’s planning department, said in his city there are concerns that new green spaces will increase the market value of homes and “price out marginalized communities.” But investment in green space doesn’t necessarily need to lead to displacement. If these projects are led by marginalized communities, they can be embraced.
At the heart of it, architecture is an inter-disciplinary profession. Ranging from structural engineers to quantity surveyors, a design project thrives from the collaboration of individuals from various fields of work. An often-overlooked connection is the link between the fields of architecture and archaeology, which in more ways than one have a lot in common. In a time of increased awareness on issues of sustainability and heritage, the expertise present in the field of archaeology plays a vital part in the preservation of architectural landmarks of historical significance. This expertise can also play a significant part in creating sensitive architectural interventions suitable for their context, contemporary in their design while responding to historical precedents.
Designed by Irish architecture firm Heneghan Peng, the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum devoted entirely to Egyptology is set to open this summer, sitting on the edge of the Giza Plateau, 2 km away from the Pyramids. Considered as the largest museum in the world dedicated to one civilization, the cultural complex will accommodate about 100,000 ancient artifacts, and will include 24,000m² of permanent exhibition space, a children’s museum, conference facilities, educational areas, a conservation center, and extensive gardens inside and around the museum's plan.
For centuries, Hutongs have been recognized as one of the most treasured types of vernacular housing in China. Witnessing the cultural and historical transformation in Beijing ever since the Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368), the name Hutong is derived from a Mongolian word that means ‘water well’. In fact, this term was given to small streets that originated during the Yuan Dynasty when the emperor attempted to organize the urban fabric in a grid-like pattern in order to manage properly property ownership and to form an efficient transit system.
“BEFORE/AFTER” documents the drastic changes, both physical and psychological, which took place during the renovation of Beijing’s Fangjia Hutong in the months between April and September 2017. In 2019, OPEN Architecture was invited to participate in “Unknown City: China Contemporary Architecture and Image Exhibition”, the opening exhibition of the Pingshan Art Museum, with their work “BEFORE/AFTER”.
OMA / Shohei Shigematsu has revealed images of the new iconic Tiffany & Co. Fifth Avenue Flagship Store. In progress and scheduled for the spring of 2022, the intervention “reimagines the retail experience while preserving the historic identity of the original building”.
