The Short Answer: An exchange with Paul Goldberger
The architecture critic for The
New Yorker is writing a book about the redevelopment
of the World Trade Center site, to be published this
year.
What's the relationship today between
preservation and the broader culture?
Preservation has established itself.
We no longer have to fight the battle over what preservation
is and what good it does. That doesn't mean there
aren't battles that have to be fought, but even politicians
and real estate developers who for a long time were
the greatest source of opposition now take preservation
for granted. That's a huge cultural shift.
What brought this about?
No single thing, although the emotional
impact of certain losses, like Penn Station in New
York, was very important. But preservation was helped
enormously by the awfulness of a lot of modern architecture
in the 1960s and '70s. The horror of modernism did
the preservation movement an incredibly good turn,
since the great unspoken factor behind a lot of preservation
was not just a love of what you were saving, but also
a fear of what might replace it. In 1920, for instance,
that wasn't the case; you could tear down a beautiful
Victorian building and put up a beautiful art deco
building. So architecture did a favor for the preservation
movement by moving it into the mainstream, and then
architecture itself began to wake up and get better.
Contemporary architects had to learn from this, to
save their skins, and they learned more about urbanism,
to be more respectful of context, scale, and the tactile,
sensual qualities we value in older buildings.
Is there a risk inherent in this
success?
Preservation mustn't get cocky or indifferent.
We mustn't lose an openness to the new. The most important
thing about preservation is not the creation of the
illusion of an old place, but the visibility of time,
of generations of architecture working together to
create a sense of place. It's as important to have
the new in that equation as to have the old. We preserve
not to take us back to the past but to make for a
better present. Now that developers are no longer
trying to fight the fundamental idea of preservation,
many will try to find ways to co-opt it. Like saving
a facade while gutting the building behind and then
asking to be praised for that. It's important that
the movement be alert and not allow such things to
happen.
Is the history of the current generation
a particular concern?
Modern landmarks weren't much thought
of in the early years of the preservation movement.
But what we once thought of as contemporary is rapidly
becoming historical. Everything looks different over
time; every generation has the right and obligation
to rethink and reinterpret architecture based on its
own values. There are a lot of buildings from the
1960s that were not admired but look very different
now and pose different preservation challenges—not
the grotesque buildings that energized the movement,
but those of unquestionable landmark status, like
the TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport. The fight there
is not over whether or not to tear it down, but over
whether or not it should be preserved as a separate,
iconic structure or connected to a new buildinga
kind of vestibule of a new terminal. This more subtle,
sophisticated controversy shows how far we've come.
What has been the role of preservation
in the life of cities?
Preserving the ordinary: the main streets
of small towns, the historic neighborhoods, the places
that make daily life more of a pleasure, even if those
places aren't great destinations. The preservation
movement has contributed as much to civilization by
saving a beautiful street of townhouses in Georgetown
as it has by making sure that Grand Central Terminal
in New York is preserved. Preservation is about beautiful,
everyday structures that create civilized communities.
The most important thing in any city is the visibility
of the arc of time. We want to preserve so we can
enjoy, learn, and ultimately be inspired by great
older architecture to create better new architecture.
Compare the effect, architecturally
speaking, of the destruction of the World Trade Center
with that of Penn Station.
The Trade Center is an architectural
martyr, our only skyscraper martyr, and a martyr to
democracy. Penn Station was a martyr to preservation,
and its loss galvanized us into realizing how critical
great buildings are and led to a resolve not to let
that happen again. The Trade Center was a martyr in
the broadest sense to the values of our society, and
also a modern symbol. Although we like to think of
ourselves as technologically very advanced, our architectural
symbols are things like the Lincoln Memorial and the
Capitol. So a modern piece of architecture symbolizing
the national ideals is quite a remarkable moment.
The replanning of the Trade Center connects to preservation.
One of the things for which there was broad consensus
after the Trade Center fell was the need to put the
streets back on that 16-acre block and restore a more
traditional urban framework. There again we see the
value shift. Nobody would have ever wanted [the attack]
to happen, but people are viewing it as an opportunity
to correct some things in that area. It's being used
in a positive way.
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