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The loss happens more often than people realize<\/h2>\n
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Kelvin Dickinson<\/div>\n
February 21, 2022<\/div>\n <\/div>\n
Thank you for the timely article about the ongoing threat to Midcentury Modern homes following the loss of Breuer\'s Geller residence. As President of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation, I\'ve witnessed the loss of several significant homes and it happens more often than people realize. Sometimes its outright demolition like the Geller, and sometimes its through insensitive gut renovations or incongruent additions.\n\nThe PRHF is a NYC-based non-profit organization representing the Paul Rudolph estate. The most important part of our mission is advocating for the preservation and proper maintenance of buildings designed by Mr. Rudolph, since direct experience of his work is key to appreciating Mr. Rudolph’s contributions to modern architecture. \n\nRudolph designed a number of buildings around Sarasota before expanding to the Northeast U.S. and eventually overseas, primarily in Asia. We follow 326 projects (167 of them built) on our website at https://www.paulrudolphheritagefoundation.org/timeline \n\nMidcentury Modern homes are threatened for several reasons: from decay and demolition to a loss of stature amongst the general public. The homes may face gradual indifference as the novelty of the design wears off and clients pass on the works to subsequent (and increasingly further removed) generations. To quote Rudolph, \"Principles don\'t change. Styles change; attitudes change.\"\n\nPreservation groups like ours often find out about demolition threats usually from locals out of concern and sometimes after a demolition permit was already issued. The lesson of all of this is \'if you like it - take a photo of it, talk about it, draw a sketch of it, take your students or family to see it, walk around and thru it, because without you it will be gone.\'\n\nIn order to ensure more of the gems are preserved, the public (i.e. potential homeowners) needs to be reminded that their worth is based on more than just the square footage of a floorplan. In the end its the public, not architects alone, who will save these buildings.<\/div>\n
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why?<\/h2>\n
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Heng Q Liu<\/div>\n
April 9, 2022<\/div>\n <\/div>\n
I live in a midcentury modern and plan to add an addition (with respect to the original design) instead of demo and rebuild. I was hoping this article could provide some reasoning as to why these homes were loved and torn down but didn\'t see much. At the end of the article it mentioned briefly that architect Toshiko Mori found it \"challenging to meet current codes\". Is the code to blame? I love the simple and economic way to build large windows in a slim profile but know it won\'t meet today\'s energy code for one. Maybe it\'s just another example that creativeness gives way to industry favored standards and codes? IRC has existing building provisions but it offers little help to preserve history in this regard.<\/div>\n
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