Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Happy Birthday I.M. Pei!
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
St. John the Baptist Catholic Cathedral Finally Gets A Steeple!
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Simmon set-up!
You are probably wondering where this sheet-wearing, queer-eye for a clan guy caricature of Jack Simmon came from and why I am just now posting about it. When I read Simmon's Op-ed piece in the Post & Courier (a great local medium or platform because they'll print anything) and then read the Post & Courier's architecture reporter Robert Behre's article in support of fighting the Federal Regulations and I'll admit-I was "sofa-king" pissed, pardon me, "sofa-king" livid (where are my manners?) that I hand-wrote a snarky diatribe about these two dilettantes and their lack of understanding of both Palladio and architecture as well as the intelligence of the average reader of the Post & Courier into my sketch-journal.
One of the Bushido tenants that I try to adhere to is, if you are really livid write down your
thoughts, or begin the snarky e-mail and then put it in your desk drawer, wait a couple of days and then pull it back out of your drafts or desk-drawer and if you are still overcome with anger, hit send or toss it in an envelope. Since I have become more reserved over the years, I decided to not write into the Post & Courier, but to finish my remarks and then stash them in my desk for a few days. If I was still quite livid, I then would write a letter to the Editor at the Post & Courier. (Boring!)So, I was indeed bored and wanted to see what sort of talent I still had with a pencil, pen and marker, so I decided to have some fun with my frustration of these two Chucktown cronies. Above you can see my initial ideas, and then here is the circle enclosure of Robert Behre. Granted I have never met either of these two gentlemen, and I doubt Behre wears thongs (then again, maybe he does) and I doubt Simmon is a battle-flag boxer type of guy (then again, maybe he does) but alas, I had to vent my frustrations. Which interestingly enough, were bent around one single word-chiaroscuro (Italian for light/dark).
So why post now? Well, these sketches were done on a Post-it presentation board paper, which I had stuck to the back-side of my bedroom door, meaning, I have been looking at this thing for about three months and it seemed apropos to tear it down and share my frustrations. The lesson here for all of us is that someone is always watching, even if the editors have gone to sleep and misusing Italian phrases for your own pat-on-the-back-look how smart I sound just pisses people off. (I have my notes, which I will post this Sunday).
Jack Simmon's Op-ed Piece in the Post & Courier
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
Copyright © 1997 - 2007 the Evening Post Publishing Co.
Bobby Behre's Rubber Ducky!
And here is where it all started, behind every old crusted confederate is a well tanned blow-hard in a bath-tub.
Should Charleston adopt federal preservation standards?
It seems odd to admit that the city of Charleston has no formal standards for preserving historic buildings.
And it may seem odder still that some people bristle at the idea of adding them.
But that's in fact the case. The city's newest architectural debate is a rather esoteric one. It's a debate not about a particular building but about the collection of ground rules and processes by which the city approves new buildings and changes to buildings in the historic district.
It's a debate spawned by the city's preservation plan that was unveiled a few weeks ago and will be up for formal approval sometime next year.
Part of that plan recommends giving property owners and developers more information and education about what the city wants from rehabilitated or restored buildings in its historic district.
Toward that end, the plan suggests that the city formally adopt the U.S. Secretary of the Interior's standards for historic preservation, a set of guidelines created years ago to ensure that people receiving historic tax credits were in fact respecting, not abusing, their historic properties.
The Preservation Society of Charleston, which supports the city adopting these standards, recently brought their author to town to make the case.
W. Brown Morton, a professor at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, was the bureaucrat in the Interior Department who took the first stab at writing the standards after Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1976.
Morton says he was influenced by the 1964 Venice Charter that emphasized the need to preserve ancient monuments in the full richness of their authenticity.
His standards have been revised twice since his original 1978 version, and Morton says he regrets how the language has become less flexible.
For instance, he originally wrote that "every reasonable effort shall be made to provide a compatible use for a property requiring minimal alternation." Today, that standard reads, "A property will be used as it was historically or be given a new use that requires minimal change."
Robert Russell, historic preservation professor at the College of Charleston, says the hardening of those standards is one reason to oppose the idea that the city should adopt them.
He notes that adaptive reuse projects such as the Murray Vocational School on Chisolm Street, the Craft School on Legare Street and the Immaculate Conception School on St. Philip Street (all converted into residences) may no longer be possible under the standards.
He also notes the standards might even block local efforts to make traditionally designed additions to older buildings.
"My hesitancy comes from the fact that these standards have been used to beat up people, especially people who want to do traditional architecture," Russell says.
He notes a standard for additions to rehabilitated buildings says additions should be "differentiated from the old," adding, "It's got to be distinct, which means it can't be historical, which means it's got to be an abstraction."
Morton concedes some poorly trained bureaucrats have turned the standards into "The Ten Commandments, an exercise which I term 'cheap thinking.' "
However, Brown still believes the standards can help Charleston.
"You must protect your city, but you must not adopt standards and criteria for change that will create, by faking the past, a false impression of an historic Charleston that in fact never existed," he says. "The Secretary of Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation can and should help you in your truth-telling.
"There is an essential tension in every historic community such as Charleston between what many people think their beloved place has been and should remain and what others think their community has never been and should become. The ideas of the former group may be anathema to ideas of the latter group and vice versa.
"However, I am convinced that it is out of this creative tension between these two sets of hopes that the future appearance of the city will be born."
Whatever the outcome of this debate about standards, Charleston shouldn't abandon the informal standard Board of Architectural Review members have tried to apply since 1930: plain old common sense.
Reach Robert Behre at 937-5771 or by fax at 937-5579. His e-mail address is rbehre@postandcourier.com and his mailing address is 134 Columbus St., Charleston, SC 29403.
Posted by The Bushido
