Elected officials in Goshen, N.Y., voted Thursday against a resolution to demolish and replace the Orange County Government Center, a late-1960s building in the small Hudson Valley town that sparked debate on the value of modern architecture.
"I am deeply disappointed by the outcome of today's vote," Mr. Diana said in a written statement.
— online.wsj.com
16 Comments
Fantastic news. I wonder what James Kunstler will have to say about it?
Cool news. Good job to everybody who wrote in or otherwise raised their voice in support.
Yo!
This is great news!
This is horrible news. Systematic destruction of human civilization has been delayed by at least a day.
and i had such hopes!
japan has shut down all its nuclear power too. not sure what the world is coming too (or not coming too).
excellent! i hope mr diana will now get behind this decision and determine how best to renovate to meet the needs of the community. now that he knows that's the selected path, he should... right?
the fact that the local government's elected representatives have taken this position is a huge deal, an indicator that they are hearing that the community wants to keep this special place. score one for preservation of the modern!
We have to keep a few of these so that we have real examples of the variety, forms, and experiments modernism has made so that we have a record to remind us to not do this kind of modernism again.
wonderful news! the building they proposed to replace it with was a complete turd...
Scribbler, I totally agree. Even if one doesn't find this building beautiful (which I definitely do!), it's important to history to keep excellent examples of various movements/schools of thought so we can learn from them. As Steven said on another thread about this building: it wasn't so long ago that people were tearing down those ugly, decadent old Victorian houses that are now so prized!
Yes, this is wonderful news to everyone who doesn't have to live here. Donna, a building that cannot perform it's function is not means to keep it on life support and reinforces the stereotype all architects are born with hearing deficiencies. Good luck restoring Rudolphs lemon.
dubya, you say "here" as if you're a resident, so tell us how *exactly* does the building not perform its function? (The roof leaking isn't a sufficient excuse - virtually every building in history has had a roof leak at some point.) How *exactly* is it impossible to do sensitive renovations that will enable it to house government office space functions, especially in an era of computer-enabled meetings and remote work?
Donna, yes, here as in I lived 10 mins from this building before moving back into NYC. It was always a source of contention with the residents and those who had to work there. When people confess it depresses them to arrive, enter, work and exit this building, would you tell them to suck it up because you think it's beautiful? You're enthusiasm is great, so great, in fact, it did save this building but ask yourself at whose expense; the vanity of the profession or something beautiful AND functional? (Physically and psychologically)
A fake Colonial column depresses ME, and I can articulate why from a base in education. What would lovers of that column say to me, "just suck it up because I think it's beautiful"?
This conversation is endless. If someone thinks a Colonial plastic column represents "beauty" they won't be swayed by a plain clean concrete line with clear light coming in from above unless we teach them WHY that is beautiful. Our job as architects is to show them that beauty exists in all kinds of built work, and that the optimism of experimental work can be a shared source of inspiration, even when it ends up a little wonky, as much experimental work does. We've not done a great job, as a profession and society, convincing people that beauty exists in unexpected places. The level of visual literacy of our culture is shockingly bad (as is our literal literacy, apparently), and in part it's our profession's fault, though I place even greater fault on a society (ours) that allows equivalent value to the opinion of someone who says "I don't know art (architecture), but I know what I like".
The local paper has posted a story that the cost and size of the storm damage may have been exaggerated to make the case for demolishing the building:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120510/NEWS/205100325
This brings up the important role partisan politics have played in the fate of this building, and that we shouldn't make such definitive conclusions without checking where our information is coming from.
"When people confess it depresses them to arrive, enter, work and exit this building, would you tell them to suck it up because you think it's beautiful?"
It don't really matter if the building is beautiful or not (or whether anybody thinks it is) but, yeah, they need to suck it up. Cause in all likelihood you could probably put these same people in the most beautiful building of their own choosing and they would still confess to being depressed upon arrival, entering, working and exiting.
Yo!
Carl, thats kinda what they did with some of the housing projects after Katrina. Just wanted to make way for their greedy developer friends. It is probably more about money than the architecture. Some fuck head developer probably has the city officials in his pocket.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.