Applied History

This week’s readings further highlighted the fact that so much of what goes on in the world of historic preservation is subjective. There are certain buildings and sites that I am sure we would all agree are significant to our larger collective history but many of the others that are preserved in the name of history, culture or impact raise questions. While Elvis Presley’s contributions to music and culture are significant, is Graceland itself really that historically significant? If Elvis had never lived there, would it still be listed as a National Historic Landmark? Are there other places in Memphis that would mean more to society?

The guidelines for historic preservation seem to remain largely subjective to the whims of historical preservation boards and even the court system. The documents from the Boise Historic Preservation Committee kept coming to mind as I read more on this section…so much back and forth over window sill depth and the matter of an inch. Additionally, historic preservation raises the thorny issues of property rights and eminent domain.

I can see the importance of adding places like the early McDonald’s to the National Register as it represents a shift in American (and global) culture as we became a more mobile society and required businesses to adapt to the changing needs of the consumer. However, as Ryan pointed out, would we make the argument to preserve the Wal-Marts, Best Buys, etc. to illustrate the architecture and culture of 2013? So many of our purchases today are made over the internet. How do we accurately preserve that for posterity?

Historic preservation is vitally important for us to not only embrace and understand our past, but also to ensure that future generations have the opportunity to interact with history. The subjective nature of the field raises concerns, however.

This week’s readings brought us some of the nitty-gritty details of historic preservation. I am still very much a novice to this field, so I’ll keep this book handy if I ever become involved with saving a historic building. I found the following three items especially helpful for understanding this field:

1. There are criteria for buildings to NOT be considered for historic recognition. I never thought, for example, about the significance of moving a building to its importance for designating it historic. Christs Chapel on the BSU campus for example was moved two or three times. I wonder how that affects its significance as a historic place?
2. The evaluation of significance, in terms of age, style, unaltered, historical. This was  a nice tool for me to comprehend how to rank buildings for historical significance. From what I gathered, historic preservation is more of an art than a science. In many ways we are dealing with human emotion, so coming up with a rubric like the significance thermometer help preservationists determine historic designations. It also helps the public understand the decision process.
3. The Dedesignation process is a tool to keep the integrity of the National Historic Landmarks. As the book said history is not static. Many of the buildings on the NHL are still being used in some sort of day-to-day operation. It is important to designate buildings, but it is also important to delist buildings that were significantly altered. This sends a message to building owners that they have an active part in preserving their building’s history.

After reading these chapters, I feel the historic preservation field is much better off now than it used to be. It seems there is a good system in place for preserving historic buildings. Yes, some structures may fall through the cracks – Boise’s schools in the bench neighborhoods for example, but overall these mechanisms are working. I must admit though, after browsing the application process on the National Register website I am a bit dismayed by the idea of submitting one of these applications!

The readings this week covered a lot of ground.  The field of historic preservation is vast and complicated.  If I learned anything, I learned that there are as many different ideas of what and how history should be preserved as there is actual building that should be preserved.  One of the things that I found most interesting is the argument on when a building becomes historical.  The McDonalds building in DowneyCalifornia is a prime example.  It is both a piece of architectural history and a cultural monument.  It represents a style that should be preserved and a piece of Americana.  Who would we be without Big Macs and the Ronald McDonald?  This building is the perfect representation of that because it is so stylistically 1950s.  I also enjoyed reading about Rehabilitation preservation, also known as adaptive use (197).  Buildings can’t sit empty.  When they do, they tend to fall into disrepair.  To maintain their viability they need to be used.  It also becomes dangerous if a block of prime real estate is taken up by a building that has no discernable use.  Profit seekers tend to start salivating when that happens.  Sometimes the original purpose of a building no longer exists and if it to remain a part of the community, it must have a new life.  Turing an old Mill into a museum is an example of adaptive use.  Turning old warehouses into lofts is another example.  In this way the past is recognized and preserved yet the building does not sit idle.  Who knows, in another 100 years, today’s loft apartments might turn into shops.

I love the idea of the experience economy.  People want the experience of stepping into the past and by using that desire coupled with a historic area, cities can be both profitable and historically preserved.  By involving people in the idea of a historic building or district a link is created.  People are much more likely to fight against development when they have an attachment to something.  The Boise Egyptian Theatre is the perfect example of this.  It brings in smaller venue events and created an intimate atmosphere in a restored theatre.  It is a public site where people can gather and be entertained in a historic and intimate venue.  If anyone threatened the Egyptian with destruction today they would have quite a fight on their hands because the people of Boise are involved with the history of the building.

Reading the chapters for this week showed me how much goes into historic preservation. Having no real background in it, I was amazed at how much goes into it, and how many different styles of it exist. Chapter seven gave a brief overview of the many styles of preservation. One thing mentioned in chapter seven that I important was “A guiding principle of good restoration practice is that an original element, even if in poor condition, is preferable to a replicated element (195). And a few lines later, the author took issue with Viollet-le-Duc’s interpretation that historic works should look how they were designed to be, which is confusing in itself. How many historic buildings that we take for granted as historic were altered to fit the designer’s assumption of what it should have been? There are a lot of recreated historic buildings in this country, how do we know if they are supposed to look that way or not? Examples spring to mind like Williamsburg and Jamestown. Sometimes the ruins are as important as the recreations. If Troy was reconstructed, or Knossos on Crete, would that really benefit more than the ruins? Although they are ruins, they are the original ruins. Should the Colosseum be renovated? I don’t believe so because you are taking away the originality of the building when you do that. If the Colosseum was rebuilt, it would not have been built in 80 CE, but in 2013. I think that is important to consider before jumping to the conclusion that we need a perfect visual of what the town, or building, looked like instead of the original foundations or ruins.

Another chapter that interested me was the chapter on historic significance, chapter five. The author proposed that McDonald’s is a historic building, and was added to the National Register (142). At first I was a little perplexed why McDonald’s of all places was historically significant. It’s one of many fast food restaurants in the country. Will Wal Mart and Best Buy become historic buildings on the National Register as well? I certainly hope not. However, I realized it represented something about life in 20th century America. Not only is McDonald’s popular, but it has become a part of our culture being one of the first fast food chains in America. Fast food, regardless of what one feels about it, is an important part of American culture. It represents the fast pace many of us live, and therefore is historically significant, for a positive or negative reason. Although I still find it odd to put it on the list, I understand in a way why it was added.

The section that stuck out to me concerned communities selling their cities as a ‘special experience’ or ‘experience economy”(283).  This is something that I’ve actually really been thinking about for Boise recently. Having lived in the Treasure Valley for more or less 6 years now, I think it is a shame that Boise hasn’t taken advantage of this idea. The city calls it downtown area “BoDo” but then does no marketing within the area about it. In class on Thursday Dr. Bieter told us there were little historical looking glasses in a few spots downtown and I was genuinely shocked. Boise not only needs to stop selling itself short and start marketing itself, but the local historical community needs to wake up and do the same. The historical museum has a horrible marketing program, I didn’t even know there was a Black History Museum in the area, and the lack of local marketing almost gives me the impression that Boise people are ashamed of their own history. This area is rich with culture, heritage, and history but no one really talks about it.

The focus of the section on this experience economy is the community that needs to sell itself to tourists. I think, however, that a city needs to sell itself to its own citizens first. If a tourist asks a local Boise man or woman about the local museums and the only thing they can think of is the Basque museum or the old houses on the North End then that is a failure of the local historical community. The authors should have focused on the sad reality of poor self-marketing of historical communities as much as it did the minute details they went into describing historical preservation and cement. There is a hole in their argument that they don’t cover the sad realities along with the ‘successes’ like Pike Street in Seattle. I think we would have been well served to learn about where it didn’t work just as much as where it did.

When walking downtown wondering where the older buildings have gone, like Fosters Warehouse Furniture, the older restaurants and shops, it seems that Boise has suffered from what other cities have suffered from.  It seems that either these buildings were not good enough to keep and needed to be torn down because of this new, invigorating term called progress. BODO (Boise Downtown) is the area where these older buildings were and is trying for the upscale, chic look that other cities have and that Boise is trying to emulate.

I look at the examples in the book, like Pikes Place and Pioneer Square in Seattle, Lower Downtown (Lodo) in Denver, and the renovation of St. Louis Union Square Station and Pittsburgh’s Station Square are excellent examples of cities looking at existing structures and using the character and flavor to renovate and attempt to preserve these prestigious buildings and their place in history.  Boise has tried to make what seems a token gesture at restoration and preservation, but our fair city seems to be getting better at attempting to work at doing better in preserving its past.  Boise has its own historical street program like the one mentioned in Chapter 11, on Pg. 324.  On Grove Street there is a narrative on the early buildings and how it related to businesses that were originally downtown that were run by Chinese immigrants.  This historic street exhibit is essential in telling the story of the everyday life that occurred in the early history of Boise.

Examples of what preservation and restoration in Boise can be seen with what was done with the Egyptian Theater. The theater was saved in the 70’s and has been renovated many times.  It is an example a building that is registered in the Historic American Building Survey or HABS and is known in the survey as the Ada Theater.  The Fort Boise Administration Building is also registered in HABS, so there are many buildings that are in the Survey in Boise.

Seeing that from this week’s readings implies that  preservation does indeed matter and that local governments care as much for preserving certain buildings and landmarks as much as the federal government does.  Concerned citizens are the ones that raise their voices in preserving and using technology as a way to seek to renew and make these older gems of the past sparkle as when they were first built.