The Layered City

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Is "Green" Being Used to Validate Removal of Our Layered Cities?
published by Liz Waytkus on Saturday, 2013-04-13
by Barbara Campagna

Cities have layers.  Specifically, layers of history placed on top of the other by people and events that affected the urban landscape in multitudes of ways.  Each city has different layers that effect its residents differently.  For example, Los Angeles is a city layered with the experiences of the migrants that have come from all over the United States and the world.  Each immigrant left their mark on the city that has become embedded in its history.  Taken in toto with the rest of the United States, the strata(um?) of Los Angeles have become part of American history.  So how does the "Green" trend affect the urban layers.  Should being green justify removing our layered cities?  This is the question being posed by Liz Waytkus in her post for the Documentation of the Conservation of the Modern Movement (DOCOMOMO).

In a recent study on energy efficiency in midcentury Manhattan recently published, "Midcentury (Un)Modern: An Environmental Analysis of the 1958-73 Manhattan Office Building," drew a sharp line in the proverbial sand.  This study suggested that it might be more energy efficient to demolish the old buildings and replace them with greener buildings.  Of course, the prospect of this has owners and developers salivating with glee.  However, the Preservation Green Lab argues that an understanding of this study needs to be more nuanced.  The recognition and acknowledgement of nuance seems to be a lost art.  In the rush to jump on board the green train, we make grand statements of condemnation or value judgments that draw sharp lines which shut out dialogues or balance.  In this case, it's either green and energy efficient or it isn't; beautiful or ugly.  Pretty black and white with no in between.  Historic preservation and urban planning and design doesn't work that way.

Discussions on the subject are far more complex than the broad-brush approach.  It's easier for studies such as the one above to be interpreted as a blanket statement that some midcentury modern buildings are inefficient and should be demolished.  It's hard for people to love bricks and mortar.  Bricks and mortar don't carry the same resonance as the story of a place.  Think about for a second.  If you remember the house you grew in or the elementary school you went to, what the first thing that comes to mind?  The memories of experiencing the place or the color of paint on the walls?  The same is true for historically significant places.  Historically significant places are fraught with so many memories both good and bad.  Yesterday, Sunday April 21, 2013, the news television program "60 Minutes" featured a story on the construction of the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City, opening next year.  The museum is built around remaining pieces of the World Trade Center and loaded with artifacts of that terrible day.  What I genuinely connected with was the museum's decision not to exclude images of the hijackers so as not to white wash the story.  My point here is that future visitors will connect with their memories of that day, not the layout of the space.  Balance is the operative word.

In dealing with urban layers, the key issue is how to strike a balance between what is energy efficient and what has historic value.  How do we tell a story of a place without white washing it? The mid-century office buildings, previously mentioned, all have stories connected to them.  In terms of energy efficiency, some are more efficient than others.  Some use more electricity than others but rather than tear the whole thing down, change the light bulb, it you can.  Truthfully, I'm about the least sentimental preservationist around.  I don't get overly attached to places to the point where I want to chain myself to a building.  I operate from a point of logic and reasoning that's not inflexible.  If its more cost effective to change a light bulb or switch from gas to LEED, than great.  Something to that effect.

In place like New York City, density is a key issue, specifically increasing commercial occupancy without decreasing energy efficiency.  One example is a building located at 675 Third Avenue (1966, Emory Roth).  The "Midcentury (Un)Modern: An Environmental Analysis of the 1958-73 Manhattan Office Building," cited this building as a case study for increasing commercial occupancy without decreasing energy efficiency.  The study concluded that energy savings could be realized in locked up in obsolete parts of office buildings, which were not only inefficient but no longer commercially viable.  How can this be possible?  I suppose, the easy way is to shut off all systems in unused portions of older office buildings and sub-divide larger spaces into smaller office suites.  I'm not sure how all the planning would work out but it's an idea.  Does this also mean instead of "demolition by neglect" we now have "demolition by lack of energy efficiency?"  Take a building down because it's no longer energy efficient?

There are those individuals who don't particularly care for Brutalist architecture, popular in the late sixties and early seventies.  Just so we're clear, I'm not a fan of it either but I recognize the value of it in the broad spectrum of architectural history.  This aesthetic judgement appears to give some people a license to tear Brutalist buildings down.  Yes, they're not terribly energy efficient but does that mean we have carte blanche to eliminate a whole phase of history?  No.  It's like not including the hijackers in the 9/11 Memorial Museum.  Yes, it's not a pretty part of history but it is part of history.  Their inefficiency doesn't stem from the wrong kind of light bulb, rather from neglect.  Thus we have a case of demolition by lack of energy efficiency through neglect.  Perhaps the solution is proper maintenance and/or retrofitting.  After all, to quote an oft-used preservation aphorism, "the greenest building is the one already built."

Would replacing millions of square feet of existing commercial space with "greener" buildings improve the state of greenhouse gas emissions?  Maybe.  We still have to deal with two basic problems: inefficient building operations and adding to landfills.  These are human problems.

Happy Earth All