[Continued from yesterday’s Part 7 and the preceding Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.]
By: David A. Smith
After seven previous parts readers may no doubt wonder not only why architectural fans are so eager to see the Paul-Rudolph-designed Orange County Government Center preserved by any means necessary, but also why I’ve devoted so many words to rebutting their dreams.
Visually interesting exterior … what could go inside?
Initially I was irritated at Michael Kimmelman’s smug and shallow wisdom-versus-ignorance formulation; then I became absorbed in the story itself; and finally I realized that the architectural advocates are always overruled but never contradicted, so this post is intended to serve as a prototype for hundreds of similar Brutalist buildings, bad but beloved, that should all disappear unless they have unique and peculiar circumstances – a big grant benefactor, for instance – who can justify them without reference to economic practicalities.
Here I come to save the day
Sources used in this post
Defending Brutalism (2013 article by David Hay; navy blue font)
New York Times (April 7, 2012; brown font)
Physical condition assessment, OCGC (May, 2013; brick red font)
New York Times (July 6, 2014; pastel blue font)
Architectural Record (December 16, 2014; lavender font)
The New York Times (January 27, 2015);
Wikipedia entry (accessed February 9, 2015; emerald green font)
Because even with everything already listed, there are still more challenges for those who would see the building endure.
4C. Can the building be legally renovated at all?
The business of design review today is vastly different than it was fifty years ago when architects like Mr. Rudolph were active:
The State Legislature had already approved $74 million in bonding for the project, which entailed renovating some sections and reconstructing others.
But then the county learned that because of the building’s architectural significance — it has been deemed eligible for landmark designation — the renovation plans required state and federal historic preservation review, a process that could take more than a year.
Dain Pascocello, a spokesman for the Orange County executive, Steven M. Neuhaus, said the decision to consider selling the government center, and building a new one, came in response to concerns that the renovation plan would not survive that review. It was not a response to Mr. Kaufman’s proposal, he said.
This too is ironic: should the county decide to renovate the property, it would make the property a struldbrug and even Mr. Kaufman’s proposed renovation, whatever that might be, might be insufficient and the costs might would rise.
Many people who spoke at a public hearing last month in Goshen endorsed Mr. Kaufman’s proposal. It would:
Save the center.
Potentially save the county a fortune.
Bring in tourist dollars.
Even put the Rudolph building on the tax rolls.
All of these, one notes, are claims by Mr. Kaufman – an architect, not a developer, not a general contractor, not an economic-development analyst – and despite the voices of those who chose to come out, the county’s decision was not changed.
“I’m a pretty modern type of person when it comes to architecture and paintings,” said Mr. Diana, the county executive. “If the building functioned in the right manner and was effective and efficient, I’d leave the building right where it is.”
Diana’s giving his slow pitch
Having suffered for four decades with inefficiency, high operating costs, leaks, and compliance/ liability risks, one can easily see how the county concluded the building was a concrete-clad white elephant and it wanted to make the building dematerialize.
Steven M. Neuhaus, Orange County executive, seems determined to pursue the teardown plan. He recently vetoed a proposal that would have allowed the county to sell the center to Mr. Kaufman.
Probably for the reasons I outlined above, and possibly this next one as well.
MidHudsonNews.com quoted him the other day [Could not find on a Google search – Ed.] as saying that “construction and deconstruction work” will begin “by spring of this year.”
4D. Does the proposed artists-space use work?
“It could sustain itself and be a contributing element to the community,” Mr. Kaufman added. “It’s an excellent building for artists to use.”
What basis has he, I wonder, for that conclusion? The attractive interior spaces are the large, monumental public areas; they may be suitable for displaying art, as in a museum, but not for creating it – and the office spaces, as we’ve seen, are dark and low-ceilinged.
“We all know the arts have been the first wave of rejuvenation in many neighborhoods.”
Aside from Mr. Kaufman’s classifying Goshen as an economic backwater, what basis has he for thinking that the county just needs an artists’ space to jump-start its economy?
He pointed to artist studios developed by Ted and Marianne Hovivian, Brooklyn furniture executives, in a warehouse at 56 Bogart Street in Bushwick.
To begin with, it’s Brooklyn, a well located neighborhood in a city of eight million people. Then too, 56 Bogart had in its favor a suddenly improved location:
A one-seat right to Midtown Manhattan
The MTA’s decision to re-route the M train through the heart of midtown Manhattan in 2010 erased the invisible barrier that Myrtle Avenue — the area hit hardest by arson fires in the late 1970s — posed for years, according to real estate.
and original construction:
All lofts have at least 108″ windows:
Those are nine feet high, which means the floors were twelve to fifteen feet high. In other words, the building was originally a factory, so to be converted back to a factory (for artists) isn’t a change in intended use but a reversion to original design.
offering great light for the artists who range from painters, sculptors, photographers, jewelry designers and craftsmen.
With the building’s proximity to the L train it makes this a convenient space to work
Somehow I doubt that the hipsters for whom a rerouted subway was the key to improving a neighborhood will be willing to trek up to little Goshen to set up ship.
They plan to open an Orange Arts sales center, complete with a model unit, in Brooklyn, to entice artists priced out of the borough. (Many artists, when their leases come up for renewal, leave the city, Kaufman notes in his proposal.)
What’s 72 miles and two hours’ drive, anyway?
But to help those artists keep one foot in the borough, he has promised that a gallery in Bushwick will show work by artists who live and work in the Goshen complex. Clever marketing!
I think Mr. Kaufman’s projected economic use is a pipe dream … but then, he wouldn’t be risking anything by pursuing it, as he asked the county to give him the land, give him the building (for no cash), let him design the new building (for a tidy fee)
4E. A preservation that worked: the Art and Architecture Center at Yale
Orange County legislators should take a look at his Art and Architecture Building at Yale, which Post Modernists had squarely in their cross hairs.
Architects shooting other architects? You mean Yale.
Opened in 1963, it was restored several years ago. Ugly partitions and drop ceilings from an unfortunate renovation were stripped away, years of contempt and neglect erased.
Cramped, dark, byzantine spaces returned to how Rudolph intended them: light-filled, exalting, with serendipitous vistas and a communal, townlike connectedness. [The Yale renovation was done] by the firm of Gwathmey Siegel.
That’s the firm which Mr. Kaufman bought in 2011. Ironically, the addition required for the Yale building’s expanded use was not universally loved by the hard-to-please architectural preservationists:
In the autumn of Charles Gwathmey’s life controversy beleaguered the architect, and his design [widely panned by architectural critics] for the addition to Paul Rudolph’s New Haven masterpiece, the Art & Architecture Building at Yale.
Figure 1.2(Right) Paul Rudolph’s New Haven masterpiece, the Art & Architecture Building at Yale, Gwathmey’s addition neither denies or embraces the existing building. [Whatever that means – Ed.]
There’s a syncopated flow to the building. The concrete facade, its corduroy pattern bush-hammered by hand, looks quarried from some immense rock. Almost miraculous, the restoration vindicates Rudolph.
Does it? Or does it prove that bad design can be cured only with non-economic money?
Around the same time DesignLab dropped out, the legislature decided it might sell the building outright. Kaufman’s was one of two proposals. The other bidder, Pike Development Corporation, offered to buy the building, renovate it according to the Clark Patterson Lee plan, and then lease it back to the county. An architectural disaster.
Universities can afford to sustain art for art’s sake. County governments have to follow the economics.
