My misgivings about “interpretive” interventions in historic precincts grew during a 2003 trip to see a trio of additions at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s Liberty Bell Center; Kallmann, McKinnel & Wood’s Independence Visitor Center; and Pei Cobb Freed’s National Constitution Center. I’ve admired work by each of those partnerships elsewhere, but at Independence Mall, all three seemed badly miscast, particularly Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Perhaps they were intimidated by the setting’s gravitas, or were persuaded to abandon their woodsy post-and-beam manner for a less congenial mix of masonry and metal. Whatever the reason, inside their new shelter the real Liberty Bell looks fake.
Variations on that phenomenon recur with distressing regularity at other visitor centers. Although double-take simulacra of world-famous structures can be a hoot on the Vegas Strip, at revered historic shrines confusion between true and false amounts to sacrilege. I have come to realize that visitor centers subvert credibility through the extra degree of separation they impose between viewer and artifact, and that all visitor centers abet that pernicious process to some extent.
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