I received a rather interesting email this morning. If we button ourselves up in the wayback machine and take a long look at Cleveland's recent past we may well remember when County Management (only a 33% indictment rate!) decided they should consolidate by purchasing the Marcel Breuer Ameritrust Tower (at the corner of East 9th and Euclid Ave.) and then in an effort project their new, more environmentally friendly persona, demolish it for a brand new building. Many people cried foul (including yours truly) and a grassroots (of sorts) campaign was launched. Being as how this involved architecture AIA Cleveland eventually got involved at the very end (yes that was meant as snarky).
So the email I read this morning was in reference to a recent article in Metropolis Magazine whereas one Carl Stein (you may remember his lecture during the Breuer bruhaha) has recently released his new book Greening Modernism.
I would take a quote from the email, which was a quote from the article, which was slightly a quote from the book and post it here so that all this elaboration comes to a fine point (emphasis not mine, but close enough to what I would do).
"For Stein, the title Greening Modernism means two things. Firstly, the book is a rallying cry for those building in the modern “style” to return to the Modernist philosophy which, he believes, has a Green heart, with a capital-G. Secondly, he’s calling for a literal “greening” of Modernist buildings. He proves that the most sustainable building is an existing one and believes in recycling and retrofitting Modernist structures, citing a case study of a 29-story Cleveland high-rise. The building was marked for demolition until it was saved by a campaign to protect it and the city’s cultural heritage — in this case, the only high-rise by Marcel Breuer, the influential Hungarian-born Bauhaus graduate and instructor. The campaign, he notes, avoided the 1.7 million gallons of oil it would have taken to build anew."
Oh, how I remember to be all full of hope and vinegar.
I would like to also apologize publicly for being all full of vinegar when I had dinner with Mr. Stein after his lecture. Disgruntled young archi-wrecks have no place at civilized table side conversation. I am now older - but still disgruntled. Grrrr.
"I would like to also apologize publicly for being all full of vinegar when I had dinner with Mr. Stein after his lecture. Disgruntled young archi-wrecks have no place at civilized table side conversation. I am now older - but still disgruntled. Grrrr."
ReplyDeleteNo apology necessary, Dru. We quite enjoyed your vinegary company. Vinegar is, of course, a very useful substance. It's used mightily in preservation. I thought the phrase was "piss and vinegar", but "hope and vinegar" works too. We must remember however that hope is not a strategy. She still stands, if empty. Perhaps a new administration will see fit to fill her with people (county workers) and tear down that abomination we know as the current County Administration Building. The MedMart will need a parking highrise, and the one that brings in the bucks at 9th and Prospect could be filled instead with county worker's cars while shifting the onus of "visitor" parking to Ontario and Lakeside. That and the other guvmint office parkers when Fitzgerald does indeed take Ellison's advice and substitutes the courthouse's lake view parking garage with a beer garden. In this instance, we have no strategy and can only hope. I suspect that sugar would be the better preservative in this scenario. That is unless Fitz is a pickle man. I don't know him well enough.