Despite a city planning report advocating its preservation, Oklahoma City’s Downtown Design Review Committee voted 3-2 last week to green light the destruction of the Stage Center, a futuristic landmark of modern architecture designed by the late John M. Johansen. — artsblog.dallasnews.com
Despite a city planning report advocating its preservation, Oklahoma City’s Downtown Design Review Committee voted 3-2 last week to green light the destruction of the Stage Center, a futuristic landmark of modern architecture designed by the late John M. Johansen.
Originally known as the Mummers Theater, the center opened in 1970, an optimistic and playful complex of boxy spaces in aluminum and concrete, connected by angling catwalks and exposed mechanical systems painted in primary colors. From the outset, it looked more like a child’s fantasy of a space station than a hall for theatrical performance. Johansen, an enthusiast of new technologies throughout his life, compared its pod-like elements to electronic components.
The theater, which sits on a prime landscaped lot adjacent to the Myriad Botanical Gardens in Oklahoma City’s business district, will be replaced by a glassy office tower of no particular distinction.
Although the flood-damaged theater would require considerable restoration, and theater groups have long struggled with its design, the decision to tear the building down is particularly unfortunate, as it is one of the few iconic works of architecture in Oklahoma City, and might have been transformed into a civic centerpiece. Instead, a significant element of the city’s history will be destroyed, and with it an opportunity lost.
Another Johansen designed auditorium building, the Morris Mechanic Theater, in Baltimore, is also the subject of a contentious preservation fight.
The Oklahoma City decision is the second major blow to a regional landmark of modern architecture in recent months, following the rejection by Houston voters in November of a plan for the adaptive reuse of the Astrodome.
—@marklamster
14 Comments
Why the fuss? This building is awful. The city planners are just holding out for a payoff.
sad. glad I don't live in that neo-liberal wasteland
Miles, Miles, Miles.....this building is at least interesting, even if a lot of people don't like it.
Donna, I'm sure you could find a few people who find turds interesting, too. That doesn't mean they should be preserved. Or are you suggesting the building be preserved as an educational tool demonstrating what not to do? "Interesting" is the polite response to a question about something you don't like.
There's a house around here that follows the same principle, it looks like an unrelated series of additions done by architects competing to be more outlandish. It was once featured on the cover of a design magazine, and should also be torn down.
Glen Small's eulogy / overview on John M. Johansen with a futurist slant/pix
http://www.smallatlarge.com/2012/11/john-johansen-bites-the-dust/
i went to visit this project in the 90's. Venturi was still topical and OMA just hitting their stride. It was very cool to see that architecture could be more than graphic design and game playing with french theory. Changed my opinion quite a lot of what our job could be...
This bit from Glen Small's website is funny and apt: most architects have some form of bubble diagram organization pre formal design. john just let it all hang out and called it a building.
Miles, a turd isn't intentional. A building is.
A turd is part of the life-cycle process. Ideally, so is a building. Unfortunately most buildings are intentionally not considered in this manner.
Venturi was still topical LOL
Well, I'm all about preservation....I think its an interesting building. Never visited it but would defidently rather look at this building than the billions of cvs and stripmalls that litter the landscape. I do think that those black pipes that awkwardly shoot into those elevated masses look weird. would look better if they were removed. Anyway, architecture is a rare anomaly. Whether its a masterpiece or not, it should be protected. If we judged nature by its picturesque perfection we would not be so willing to protect the "ugly" yet important animals like the mole or the gila monster...All of Nature is amazing even if some of its parts are evolutionary freaks. I see architecture in a similar way. The evolution of architecture sometimes produces moles and sometimes peacocks... They are all important parts of the story/history, and they all should be preserved. I try not to judge architecture based upon aesthetic or functional characteristics, but rather by the contrast they provide to the banal depressing soul sucking void of the business as usual landscape that occupies the majority of our built environment. Its all about intention imo. If one intentionally makes something with rigor, care, and love, then it is worthy of preservation even if it falls short of being a masterpiece.
This does not mean that we cant critique architecture and assign it a level of importance or interest according to our liking and philosophical basis, but we should at least be open to idea of keeping it around, and humble enough to realize that our critique should be in the form of words / philosophy and not sledge hammers.
Some buildings become symbols for things that should be preserved. Others become symbols for things that shouldn't. Others are just buildings.
with the rash of notable building demolition that has and continues to occur, is there a checklist of what makes a building valuable enough not to demolish? is it the architect's name and reputation, the era in which it was built, the movement that the building was part of? does a building worth saving still have to function, did it ever have to function? are we to expect a shorter life for any building given our changes in taste and the ability to build new more complex buildings much faster than in the past? should we just put an architectural expiration date on all our buildings and when that day comes knock them down? is it because buildings are more about image and visuals than spatial experience that we are willing to rid ourselves of award winning pieces of architecture/art? with the pending demolition of the Folk Art Museum one could argue that architecture is not art because if this were a painting rather than a building, then MoMa would be preserving the building in their permanent collection rather than readying the wrecking ball. maybe buildings don't really matter that much.
I can't really muster a super strong argument for saving this building, though others certainly could (known/respected architect, experiment, represents a zeitgeist, etc.). I'm just noting, Miles, that it's at least interesting/different from the everyday and has a story.
Quondam, the Roche pyramids are so, so sadly compromised that they could easily be nominated for demolition. Their strength was in repetition of a simple form (there were supposed to be 9, only 3 were built) and their siting in a flat field from which they thrust up with no plinth or interference. In the intervening years the site has been fully engulfed by suburbanism: Outback Steakhouse, a couple strip malls, some banks, some 4-5 story office buildings. So the impact of the straight rise out of the ground plane is lost unless one is actually IN the parking lot of the building. And even then one feels and sees the Pizza Huts et al nearby and that ruins the starkness of the pyramid forms.
Also, a few years back they started allowing signage on the straight walls. So these days they don't look different enough from much of the built landscape to be all that interesting anymore.
vado, for most people buildings really don't matter that much. but I think most people also couldn't identify a compelling spatial experience from their own life if you asked them. They could tell you they like that a building is historic, or big, or has nice decorations like columns and window surrounds (that building has "a lot of architecture on it" is a phrase I've actually heard). But they equate that with appearance, not experience. They could probably tell you about a spatial experience from Minecraft, on the other hand.
Also, back to Johansen: Quondam that page from the book you posted reminds me of contemporary renderings: a lot of people "gathering" around the building showing how active and urban it is. At least these people have somewhere to sit.
"But they equate that with appearance, not experience"
I understand your point Donna, but I would be careful to characterise 'most people's' reaction to their built environment with such a broad brush. For many who lack the 'credentials' to be taken seriously by high brow architects, 'appearance' is in fact 'experience', especially since we are visual creatures. Some might indeed see decorated sheds as having 'a lot of architecture on it', but rather than be dismissive it might be more productive to understand why that is. Or maybe why so many buildings without are not considered architecture, if the public's opinion matters to you. I was around whenJohansen taught at Pratt Institute, and I can tell you he was plenty dismissive of lay people's opinions, something that seems apparent with this building.
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