A new controversy is brewing in Madison over whether to build a large modern office building on State Street that would partially remove the street’s historic buildings. The issue of historic preservation versus development is nothing new in Madison, and historic preservationists intend to dig in on this one despite developers’ efforts to maintain the facades of the State Street landmarks.
Madison’s preservationists’ intransigence exemplifies a larger phenomenon that journalist Wayne Curtis calls “the nostalgia trap” – the trend of leaving historic structures intact and, thus, curtailing architects’ plans.
The most glaring example of the nostalgia trap is the case of the Battersea Power Station in London, a site that Pink Floyd incorporated into the cover of its 1976 album Animals. The station has since fallen into disuse, and developers wanted to demolish the building so that they could build a housing structure in its place. However, Pink Floyd fans and their preservationist bedfellows got their way, and architect Rafael Vinoly had to design the housing structure around the power station, shelving his aesthetic integrity.
This transatlantic quandary brings up larger questions about history and architecture: namely, what is being gained and what is being lost when preservationists save a landmark from destruction. One should turn to UW-Madison’s favorite son, Frank Lloyd Wright, for the answer to this question.
Wright believed in “organic architecture:” architecture that draws on its particular environment for inspiration. For example, a building designed for the mountains of Colorado would not be appropriate for the pastures of Wisconsin. However, if one extends Wright’s definition of “environment” to temporal as well as geographic conditions, Wright would rightly consider the preservation of historic buildings as robbing contemporary society of the chance to express its own values through architecture.
Thus, perhaps a better question is what are society’s values, and how should they be expressed through architecture? Today’s values have changed dramatically over the last decade, let alone over the last century. Many of the State Street buildings in question were built around the time of the Civil War or early 1900s, meaning they were built before concerns about the environment, before concerns about equality for women and minorities and before concerns over the rights of disabled persons became commonplace.
Madison has the opportunity to produce environmentally sound architecture, and it has the opportunity to produce handicapped-accessible architecture designed by minorities and women. If the Madison City Council chooses to preserve the historic buildings in question – which it has the right to – these contemporary values will not be expressed on the 100 block of State Street.
It is not clear whether the planned development will in fact address the aforementioned concerns, but preserving these landmarks for the sake of preservation will certainly leave these concerns unaddressed.
Now, some may disagree with the assertion that preservationists want to preserve these buildings “for the sake of preservation,” which is a fair point of contention. However, the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation website even states that “[State Street] is the one place in the city where we can a get a true sense of Madison’s evolution in the 19th and 20th centuries and where we can get a true sense of the architectural and planning values of previous generations.” Thus, preservationists want to preserve the values of the past, making Madison’s architecture static instead of progressive. This stand is incongruous in a city as progressive as Madison.
However, perhaps there exists a middle way. Architectural photography is a highly respected art form, as seen in the film about architectural photographer Julius Schulman, “Visual Acoustics.” Thus, even though it is a clich?, historic landmarks can be and should be immortalized in photographs. It is also the case that not every historic building should be removed. Developers should leave architecture’s paragons alone. While Madison’s preservationists will probably view these suggestions as unsatisfactory, the Madison City Council should consider them. The Council, after all, is responsible for the entire city’s needs, not for the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation’s desires.
Jeff Schultz ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history.