Well, see, they’re rich and famous, and we should assume that because of that, they know better than actual experts in historical preservation! I mean… aren’t their needs more important that preserving something that might be a historically significant building!!! History’s just opinions anywayz! /s
We absolutely do. It’s often left up to the state and local municipalities, so that leaves a lot out (though the Federal government has national sites as well run by the National Parks). Sometimes it’s up to individuals or communities. There has been some effort in recent years to help preserve ATL hip-hop cultural history, for example, such as Cee-Lo Green recently purchasing Rico Wade’s house in order to put a museum there to the Dungeon family, but that’s not really the city or state doing that, that’s community self-preservation… which is important, too, but not the same as the state or federal government stepping in.
Some of the impact of the localizing of historical memory and preservation is actually being discussed on a series NPR has been doing recently:
this is something that is really very alien to far too many Americans these days. It wasn’t always that way, but it is now. That’s why we have governments in the modern age, in part to represent our best interests. Yes, it can be twisted and abused, but it doesn’t have to be.
Like so many things in the US, it is done state to state. For example, my wife often needs to work with the Maryland Historical Trust, which seems to be pretty powerful.
and when I worked in New York, no renovations could be done to my office because it was a historical landmark. It was pretty miserable in the summer.
You’re arguing against a point I didn’t attempt to make. Nowhere have I said people don’t have a right to an opinion, or that it is an objective fact that the house was beautiful. So I don’t know what you’re on about.
Motion to nominate “anything involving architecture” for inclusion in The List
(as an aside, it’s kind of a known animal at this point that public-facing architectural decisions have become some weird flash-point in a larger, (sometimes MAGA and QAnon adjacent) and intentionally fanned cultural-flame war (see also Tartaria nonsense)). IMHO, that’s not specifically what tends to go on here at BB, but it is related to the intensity of rhetoric that tends to surround the topic that it has become weaponized - particularly along the lines of directing ire at supposedly modernist forms.
…and indirect and track and recessed lighting…and the people who knock out half the walls, then can’t figure out why they’re so cold in winter and warm in summer.
Opinions will differ, but, for me, the Pirelli Tire Building doesn’t pass as an example of brutalism architecture. With its classic Italianate themes and detailing, it has oodles of character.
The basic building material alone does not define the architectural philosophy being conveyed, any more than a poured concrete, perfect copy of Michelangelo’s La Pieta would be an example of brutalism. The PTB does not meet the visual aesthetic requirements. Re “impossible without poured concrete” just look up “Granite government buildings in Rome, Italy”.
There’s a reason most of Frank Lloyd Wrights buildings are not lived in, but are preserved as Museums. Cost of maintenance, Location, and pretty much designed to the original owners specifications. People long gone. Houses that make either no sense or are so bafflingly out of step with reality today, we marvel at them. Because they influenced modern living. But, nah. We shouldn’t care. Pave em over.
At the end of the day, if that house had been in the UK it would have been Listed, so you wouldn’t be able to do any major work on it without special permission. Someone would have bought it because they appreciated the heritage of the building, not for the convenient location.
The people who bought my old house were Americans.
From what I’ve read this building would easily clear the threshold, though. At least for Grade II listing, which would have been enough to stop demolition.
It it wasn’t listed and protected and they paid over 12 million for them it is within their rights to do whatever they want with it
Do you know why Europe is full of historical buildings? because we care and protect the shit out of them
Granted, that level of protection was not always perfect and in the 60s and 70s there were a lot of buildings demolished but in general there is an agreement that nice things must be respected
