Wrong standards for preservation plan
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Regarding the proposed new preservation plan for Charleston:
The Committee to Save the City would like to be on record as being very concerned about the proposal to alter the whole focus of our historic preservation ordinance by adding to it the Department of Interior Standards.
As architectural journalist David Brussat wrote in The Providence, R.I., Journal, "Citizens who want to preserve their cities must challenge those who still treat the standards as a jobs program for modern architects, beauty and history be damned."
We who cherish the beauty and historic uniqueness of Charleston want to see new construction look to the finest precedents of the past in the design of new buildings.
It is a Charleston tradition: St. Michaels was clearly inspired by St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London; Randolph Hall by Palladio's Villa Malcontenta; and the Miles Brewton House by Palladio's Villa Cornaro.
Palladian influences can be seen throughout the Historic District in the porticos, raised basements, colonnades, chiaroscuro, modillioned cornices, Palladian windows, the symmetry and the very sophisticated and creative use of the classical language.
The Department of Interior standards were written in the 1960s and express the ideology of that time, when most architects were only trained to be Modernists. That was then.
Today, many architects have moved on and have taken a much more refined and sophisticated approach in their designs.
New buildings in Charleston need to be of our place, not of the 1960s.
The best contemporary architects have moved beyond the minimalism and abstraction of the 1960s and are again capable of producing the chiaroscuro, which enriches Charleston's historic streetscapes. This much more literate approach is certainly more reflective of our place.
Charleston was the first community in the world to recognize the importance of protecting the harmony and context of a whole neighborhood of buildings by the "continued construction of buildings in the historic styles". (sec. 54-230 of the Zoning Ordinance)
Our ordinance does not need to be amended to reflect the more limited and very dated vision of the Standards. We urge that this proposal be removed from the Preservation Plan.
JACK W. SIMMON Jr.
Chairman
The Committee to Save the City
Church Street
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