Posts about Modernism

Current building needs changes

The brick building, on Church between 17th and 18th, was originally the gymnasium for the private all-girls Holton-Arms School, which was located in Kalorama until moving to Bethesda in 1963. In 1975, the building became a theater, and the Keegan became its full-time resident company in 2009.

It's a charming and intimate theater, and the Keegan has put on some great productions there, but the building poses some big obstacles. The front steps are not accessible for people with disabilities, and the front lobby is very small. There's a very limited backstage area and almost no space for building sets, creating costumes and props, or for actors to dress.

The bathrooms are tiny, squeezed into the basement, and not very nice. During intermission, there are long waits. I live on this particular block, and so when Greater Greater Wife and I go there for shows, we just go home to use the restroom between acts, but that's not an option for most people.

After seeing the condition of the bathrooms, an arts donor gave the Keegan money to renovate the space. They shared with neighbors and the ANC their proposed plans to dig out a basement, to create space for production and green rooms, opening up more space for the lobby and bathrooms.

The only externally-visible change would be a small new foyer in the current side yard, between the theater and the building next door. The new foyer would make space for an ADA-compliant elevator and new stairs between floors.

At a recent community meeting, one question from neighbors revolved around the design of the addition. The architect, Stoiber & Associates, has proposed a very modern look for the addition, with wavy lines and multi-colored glass.

Besides the theater, Church Street is filled with turn-of-the-century painted brick townhouses, with a few larger apartment buildings at the end of the block and one in the middle, across from the Keegan. Would a tiny addition just over 16 feet wide in this style look very strange tucked amid the rows of brick townhouses?

What do you think?

Preservationists differ on "compatibility"

This question raises a point of great debate in historic preservation. When a new building comes into a historic area, or a historic building gets an addition, the law says that the addition must be "compatible" with the historic district. But what is "compatible"?

Some preservationists feel that "compatible" means the new addition should resemble the old in style. This is the approach review boards take in some places, such as Georgetown. The Old Georgetown Board wanted the Georgetown Apple store to look like a Georgetown building and not a typical glassy or white Apple store.

There's some merit to this approach. Georgetown has a charm that comes from a consistent architectural style. Architects often want to make their buildings as flashy as possible, but rows of small buildings like those along a commercial strip shouldn't out-compete each other for dazzle; they should look like a row. They needn't all be identical, but shouldn't create a chaotic riot either.

In the rest of DC's historic districts, the Historic Preservation Office has generally taken a different approach. They argue that a new building should not try to look like old buildings, but exhibit a style and materials "of its time." In other words, a building built in 2012 should look to the observer like a 2012 building.

But not all 2012 buildings look alike. A 2012 building could use brick, like the rest of the street, only it could look like 2012 brick. Or, it could strive for a super-modern look that's totally opposite.

At a recent Historic Preservation Review Board meeting, board member Graham Davidson criticized a project on Florida Avenue, saying, "Your responsibility is not to create an icon... [but] to knit the neighborhood back together." Will the board want something iconic or something that seems to connect the fabric on both sides?

The theater is in the center of a residential block, and is a larger building than the adjacent row houses. That means it already serves as a focal point rather than a part of the row. By that logic, a prominent addition would make sense, to further punctuate the building's unique role among its neighbors.

On the other hand, the board might feel that a flashy design for a tiny addition detracts from the beautiful, old, historic main theater, and want something less conspicuous. They could ask Keegan to tone down the flash and dazzle in favor of either a more modest glass atrium or a brick addition that doesn't stand out.

As a resident of the block, I can see both sides of this one. As modern designs go, this is actually fairly attractive. However, always hard to know for sure how a project will look just from its renderings. Will the colors be as vibrant as they appear there? How much will it stand out, really? Plus, this isn't a large building in a distinctive architectural style; it will be 15 feet wide. Will such a small piece look too strange with such different materials from everything else?

Regardless of the approach Keegan and HPRB choose, a renovated theater that meets the needs of today will enhance the neighborhood and strengthen the arts in DC. The donor's contribution goes a long way, but the Keegan will need to raise more money from its audience and supporters to get the project built.

Keegan will present the latest draft of the plans to ANC 2B at next Wednesday's meeting, and the Historic Preservation Review Board will discuss the proposal later this month.

Without its august associations with its namesake and its designer, the MLK Library would have been demolished or gutted during the last real estate boom. That would never happen to the Old City Library, regardless of its historical merit as one of Andrew Carnegie's.

That building endures because there is something attractive and innately human in its scale. It elicits a sense of reverence and respect appropriate for its purpose. One cannot say the same for the MLK Library or the projects designed by TEN Arquitectos.

Of the West End project, Weber approvingly writes the viewer perceives the structure as a "pixilated glass amoeba," which is nearly as good a simile as that used by an architect who once appeared before ANC 6C who described his project as "two tectonic plates colliding." The Glass Amoeba overhangs the public space—an expedient trick that is about maximizing profit rather than design.

It reminds me of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. It's mass looms above the pedestrian, which always gives me a sense of unease as I walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. What they lack in an architectural idiom grounding them within an historic setting, neighboring architectural blunders aside, they make up for in shock value. They are stunning, but so is much of pop culture and neither will stand the test of time.

There are very few examples in DC where "new" (post-World War II) traditional design is done well. The Ronald Reagan building approaches it. The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building alludes to it.

But in the wrong hands traditional architecture becomes kitsch. Some of the most vocal opponents of the current Amy Weinstein design for the Hine School site are neighbors that live in the 300 block of 8th Street SE, an example of 1970-ish infill where misapplication of traditional form is on display.

Turn the corner at 8th and C Street, SE and it continues, complete with curb cuts and garage entrances the degrade the pedestrian experience. Were these structures to be subjected to design review today, they would not be permitted.

Architecture can be a restorative act. When an architect takes cues from community and not her or his creative impulse, the design result can reconcile the built and natural environment, healing the mistakes of previous generations. I often think of what was lost—and what we were given—in the Southwest waterfront during the Great Society endeavors of the 1960s.

Architecture and urbanism in practice should seek to form a whole, to make something complete. Each element, be it a room, a house, a porch, a garden, a block, a neighborhood, or a city, provides transition and each element relies upon the previous.

This shared state of transition is the underlying principle of unity found in all things. It applies to cities, to ecosystems and agriculture, to art, to human systems of organization as bureaucratic and inefficient as Congress and to things as natural and enduring as families.

I think about this in the case of Hine School project at Eastern Market. I sympathize when I hear residents say they want something that is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood. Those parts of the Hill we love the most, we love for their "completeness."

Eastern Market is already "complete", not simply because of the attention Adolf Cluss gave to brick course and cornice (and, after the fire, the careful hands that restored it), but of the neighborhood that exists around it; the activity and personal connections formed through commerce and community across generations.

Paraphrasing architect Steven Mouzon: "If a building cannot be loved, it will not endure. And if does not endure, it is not sustainable." Progressive planners and some architects get this concept of sustainability. We demand it in our transportation systems, in our food systems. There is an interest in all things local. Why not in our buildings? Why is it that an architects practicing in the early 20th century understood this balance better than many practicing today?

What most people, even architects don't realize is that the Pope building, like the East Wing, is similarly constructed using a marble veneer over a structural core. What is different, however, is the extensive use of a well established conventions construction and the use of expansion joints. These expansion joints on the facade of the Main Building are cleverly hidden behind clusters of classical pilasters on corners of the facade. Pope, not being constrained by the ideology of modern architecture, was able to find a solution that was at once attractive and still working marvelously almost 60 years after completion.

The essential difference between these buildings is clearly the technology used, but that technology is a direct reflection of the architectural philosophies of each architect. In the former case the architect believed that new materials would provide a "technological breakthrough" to allow him to create the clean lines of modern architecture. Ignoring traditional solutions and the nature of the materials he was working with, it ultimately resulted in structural failure. The latter architect however worked using established precedents of construction that took into consideration natural forces such as expansion and contraction and gravity, and combined this with a sleight of hand possible through classical architecture, created a building that has stood over twice as long with no major failures.

The question of modern versus traditional when it comes to building technology has become more than just a question of style, but that of sustainability. The cladding of the entire East Wing will now have to be removed and restored at the cost of $85 million to the taxpayer. This works out to about 17% of the inflation adjusted cost of the original building ($500 million). Add to the financial cost the immense amount of fuel, energy, and building material waste produced by such a project, the justification for such buildings is becoming more and more difficult. Structural and facade failure in an iconic Modernist building is not without a number of precedents, begging the question of why architects insist upon continuing to build such unsustainable architecture in our enlightened times, again the answer is ideology.

On one hand, architects wisely are beginning to embrace sustainability, but with the other hand cast aside traditional detailing and traditional architecture because of a ideological bias against such architecture. We need to use architecture, all of its lessons to create a better and more sustainable future, here at GGW it seems most everyone looks to tradition when it comes to urbanism, so too we should embrace it in architecture. For architecture to truly be sustainable it must not only welcome back into its repertoire the lessons that traditional and classical architecture have to offer when it comes to construction, but also must be willing to embrace them.

Have you been able to stay within your budget?
Well, there's a lot of complexities with this project. You're sitting on top of a metro tunnel that's 18 inches below; so it's a very delicate area. Plus, the client is DDOT. Even a small building for a large agency such as DDOT has a very demanding process for contractors. Yes, the cost of the building did grow, as is the case with many projects.

What was one of the biggest challenges you overcame in designing the transit center?
The big thing was simply that we were allowed to build a structure next to Union Station at all. We managed to get through all the agencies. Nobody had a problem with the design, and I think it's because it wasn't trying to look like the building next to it.

Why did you decide to make the building transparent? Was it intentional that people walking by will be able to see through the structure to the bikes inside?
Yes, it's meant to be kind of a display in itself. If we had our way, in fact, we would have made it completely transparent. However, there's always a conflict between transparency and trying to the heat of the August Sun out. We spent a lot of time trying to find the right system for that.

What sort of system did you devise to address that problem?
Well, for one thing the fritting varies as you move over the cross section of the building. On the top of the roof, where the sun is highest, we shade the sunlight the most; there the glazing is about 75 percent. As you get down to the sides of the building the glaze goes down to 25 percent.

Overall, how would you characterize the building?
We literally were trying to do a non-building. We didn't want to compete with Union Station at all. We didn't want any vertical walls. It looks a bit like a ski bump.

Is there anything about the design of the building that makes you particularly proud?
It's great that this is part of a bike system for DC. We've always had the attitude that you could build a piece of architecture that doesn't compromise traditional architecture and still use all the latest technology, so it was also a chance to do that.

The design reminds me of the Metro stations. Was that intentional?
Not really. I think it's more that there's so little contemporary architecture in DC. It's not that we've had terribly unyielding clients, but the architecture here tends to be traditional. The city really needs a nudge; we're hoping this project delivers one.

If this is a nudge, as you say, what is it nudging toward?
I guess it's not a nudge. It's more an outright boot in the butt.

Who are you hoping will like the project most—bicyclists, Mayor Fenty, DDOT?
All of the above. I think bicyclists especially will feel some affinity to it because of the bicycle references [The center's form is inspired partly by the arc of a bicycle wheel].

I'd guess that many cyclists, who may feel marginalized or pushed to the side of the road in some cases, will appreciate having a physical structure devoted to bicycles.
Hopefully, it can serve as a real base for riders. We were trying to get LED monitors that could be used as information boards. We're hoping that eventually it will be a place that can host events for cyclists.

What aspects of the station would you consider green?
As much as possible, we tried to heat and ventilate the station through natural means. We use natural convection, louvers, shading, and other techniques.

Anything to stay about the steel tubes? They're quite impressive.
They're twelve inch massive pipes. Really long tubes. They're the thing that lets the structure work. They don't act like columns, so they can be comparatively thin. All the arches are in compression and the tie-rods are pinched, so you can really lighten up the structure.

How many bikes will the transit center hold?
It's 150 now, but we might be able to get another 75 bikes on a third level of racks. The intent is to put rental bikes on the third level.

What were you were aiming for in the interior?
Mainly, we were just trying to be efficient. How do you get the most bikes in a small space? It's like a parking lot. You want to double load your aisles. The racks are a double-height racks. You can tilt the top rack down, load it, and then push it up.

Would you in any sense consider yourself a bicycle evangelist?
Maybe not an evangelist, but I am convinced we need that need to change the way that we structure our cities. We need smart development that, in part, involves making cities less dependent on the car. Most planners and and architects are talking about this, but this general public isn't.

How do you convince society people to change their habits in this regard?
Smart growth isn't just an economic thing. A walkable and bikeable city is a safer city. It's a less congested city. It's a more pleasant city. It's a healthier city.

Crossposted on DC Bicycle Transportation Examiner, which also has more slide shows of the transit center.

It has a water element, some nice paving, a few benches and a little statue, "The Lone Sailor," to suggest the human element of military service. The memorial's best feature is its humility and its benign incorporation into the cityscape. Any number of second-tier landscape architecture firms could provide more of the same.

Can a memorial "reinvent" while also remaining humble and benign? Gehry is probably not the man to do that, though Kennicott feels he "deserves the freedom to try." However, there's a very fine line between interesting and garish. If our architecture critics keep criticizing good-but-not-spectacular memorials like the Navy memorial as "not very interesting," architects won't even try for humble.

Many architecture schools indoctrinate young architects with the notion that their designs must be bold, stand out, challenge orthodoxy, and make a statement, when in truth most buildings really just need to look nice, function well, relate to people on the human scale, and integrate well into the fabric of the city. But many architecture critics egg them on, pushing the warping of the craft of architecture into a modern art contest. Former New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable did it, Boston Globe critic Yvonne Abraham does it, and it sure sounds like Kennicott is doing it, even if in a small way.

The Eisenhower Memorial should function as a plaza and as a memorial. It might be time to reinvent the language of memorials, but we don't need to reinvent plazas. Memorials have changed over the centuries, becoming different but not better or worse, while plazas have generally become worse. The classic European squares with fountains still work best, while plazas are modernism's greatest failure among many.

If Gehry comes up with a visionary new vision for the Eisenhower Memorial that's a lousy plaza, it'll be a failure. No matter how much architecture critics appreciate its creativity, people have to appreciate sitting there and eating lunch as well. And interesting or not, the Navy Memorial succeeds admirably at the one goal while doing just fine at the other. Something like that from a "second-tier landscape architecture firm" could well do better for the city than what Gehry might devise. He deserves the freedom to try, but the citizens, NCPC, and CFA, which Kennicott calls the "District's design watchdogs," deserve the freedom to tell him to clip his boldness and make a good plaza.