Courtesy Knights of Columbus Museum.
High Modern at its best. Or worst?
Fun fact: There may be more high modern buildings per capita in New Haven that in any city in the world.
That’s right. Any city in the whole wide world.
The New Haven Preservation Trust lists more than 100 midcentury modern structures on its website. This small city of about 130,000 residents may be the epicenter for modernist restoration: hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested over the last decade to stabilize and purify iconically modern buildings.
The call to modernist restoration is not just about technological updates, repair of failing surfaces, or structural miscalculations. It’s about belief in the embodied magic of the genius architect and faithfully channeling the designer’s posthumous input. No one wore WWKD (“What Would Kahn Do?”) bracelets during the exquisite restoration of Yale’s Center for British Art, but the journalistic love that project architect George Knight has received is based on his unconditional devotion to the master.
“It’s sort of a whisper that you hear,” Mr. Knight said in the New York Times. “There’s a phenomenal understated quality to this building. It’s always” — he drops his voice — “Are you sure you want to do that?”
Duo Dickinson Photo
The Center for British Art
And in this little city, there are many more where that came from. Take for instance Kevin Roche’s Knights of Columbus Tower. Several years ago, the tower had a complete reglazing and a new HVAC system installed without benefit of the original architect. Or Eero Saarinen’s Ingalls Rink,where architects buried new locker rooms and training facilities to make them visually disappear. Or when a new building, the 87,000-square-foot Loria Center, designed by Gwathmey Siegel, was grafted onto Paul Rudolph’s original 114,000-square-foot Art & Architecture Building, to allow the host building to be completely returned to its perfected 1963 state.
This channeling aspect was once reserved for restorations of buildings hundreds of years into history. Beyond following the drawings and construction photos that comprehensively document the literal nuts and bolts of 20th century construction, today’s projects go beyond the conventional rules of traditional preservation architecture. There is no stylistic history to adapt, there’s only the mind of the original designer to commune with. The cult of personality so necessary for the modern movement’s success is now being frozen in perfectly restored embodiments of genius.
Time seems compressed in the 21st century. But buildings are time travelers — they should last. When boomers replace a knee, get a Botox injection or just take up yoga after 50, they’re hedging their bets, hoping to break the rules of inevitable decline. It’s even harder to simulate the blush of youth in buildings, especially buildings designed to express the zeitgeist of 60 year old innovation.
We can beat against the tide, but it goes out, despite billions of dollars and the desperations of mortality.
To hear more, click on or download the audio above.
Duo - thank you for your masterful, poetic and articulate explanation of why preserving these these modern masterpieces is so essential for New Haven and the world, and for sharing your inspired appreciation of this subtle craft!