steven,

you might forward this to UW or NYU (he graduated from both)

What a queer building.

I think the best bet was something I was partially involved with at one of my jobs.

That is... to have the entire archive digitized to the best extent that it can be, charge minimally for copies of the digital archives and then auction off the rest.

The only reason I am commenting on this is because I actually ran across an article about this firm's financial disaster.

I think Yamasaki's debtors probably want money more than they want to see an archive preserved with some dignity. However, they maybe willing to let a university digitize the archive if the university is willing to pay interest on the value amount of the "loan" in question. Hence, the university responsible charging other institutions small sums of money for duplications of the digitized archive.

That being said... having digital access to the archive may increase the value of the archive as people will know what the exact contents are. That could start some pretty interesting price wars! That explanation may make debtors want to hold off until the archive is preserved and published.

Of course, Yamasaki's firm is millions if not tens of millions of dollars in the hole. I wouldn't be surprised if contractors, vendors and employees aren't looting the place.

I think his work should be definitely preserved as he is a pretty sterling example of the best and worst practices of architecture of the 20th century.

interesting.... does the person that stamped the dwg's have any rights to them?

the challenge with the archive, at this point, will be that it's an asset of a company that has (presumably) filed for bankruptcy protection. given what i've read about their collapse, they've filed for chapter 7, not chapter 11.

so, their assets (everything really) is under the control of their bankruptcy trustee and only they can disburse the company's assets.

that said, yes, someone could almost certainly try to negotiate with them directly to acquire the archives. they will want the money, but they will also want to make sure they get the best deal for the estate (what the company will be referred to in court).

as to the looting.... my guess is that the really valuable stuff is locked up somewhere safer than perhaps the most recent work.

archives are really tricky things - so much of what gets saved by companies has almost no use to anyone outside a very small group of people over time. preserving the material (in a climate controlled space) is very expensive and most people naively assume that every architect who's been published should have their archives saved. there's probably very little value in his collection outside the trade center original material (from a monetary standpoint). so, the idea of digitally archiving the material is great. from that point on, though, depending on how much there is, i'd be surprised if anyone actually 'keeps' most of the material around. probably only the most prominent public projects.

Perhaps MOMA would have an interest and might "cherry-pick" the most important/relevant/quality items. They might well put up some money, but i doubt they would have an interest in much of the vast collection.

a better fit might be the CCA (Canadian Centre for Architecture). Phyllis Lambert has been pretty good at collecting (and making available as an archive) important portfolios and collections of work from Hejduk, Eisenman, etc. the CCA might see a relevance to keeping some portions of the collection.

finally, it might be that a state (michigan) institution could come forward (Wayne State Univ; U Michigan; Detroit Art Museum) and offer to take over the collection in lieu of a portion of the state taxes owed by Yamasaki and Asoc. Sometimes a state government will allow a value to be associated to an archive and donation of that archive to a state institution in lieu of taxes or other liabilities. complicated, but it has been used.

at the end of the day, it will depend on how a value for the collection is established. it is not so easy to put architectural drawings in an auction and get much interest from a paying public, so the state authorities might see a greater value in preserving the collection intact and getting a social benefit, than the process of putting up the works and hoping to make maybe a few thousand dollars for a few drawings and having to hold or to discard the rest.

given yamasaki's contribution to wayne state university and the city of detroit, in a fair and just world, the collection would go to wayne state university. i just emailed a few people there who might be interested to alert them about the archive and inquire about any possible means they might have to obtain it.

steven, just realized, this is sort of a mapa project. perhaps it's time to break out our markers and bumwad for another design charrette. ;)

He designed the WTC towers...I'm pretty sure there would be plenty of interest in that archive.

This is sad - I had no idea they went under - I know several people who work(ed) there. I don't know if they would know what is happening to the archives, but I could try and find out...

in the interest of protecting america from further terrorists attacks on his buildings, i would think that the department of homeland security would be interested in safekeeping this archive of valuable information.

in fact, probably all architects in america should be required to turn over their archives to homeland security.