From a New York Times article about the San Francisco Philharmonic:
The orchestra has begun the process of seeking permissions for a possible renovation; it is trying to get them approved before the building turns 50 years old, when it will acquire historic status under local law, making changes difficult.
San Francisco's concert hall was built in 1980. By 2030 it will be locked in place and difficult to renovate.
This is insane. You don't renovate a building when it's still new, after all. You renovate when it starts to show some age. But when that happens the historical preservation folks leap in and insist it's now a beloved old building.
I don't oppose historic preservation per se, but it's gone way overboard. Save it for buildings that are genuinely old and genuinely historic. The Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall is neither.
The state ought to ban cities from designating more than a certain number of their buildings historic. Force them to choose the ones that actually count.
Historic Preservation Boards are also part of the problem. They tend to become absurd busybodies over time.
The state ought to ban cities from designating more than a certain number of their buildings historic.
Or simply pick a date far well in the past, you know, 1930. Isn't that the purpose of having rules-based systems and standards?* If it's built after that you can't prevent the owner from destroying it without an act of the legislature that is itself subject to court review.
*I know, California doesn't like rules-based anything.
"*I know, California doesn't like rules-based anything."
Of course they do. You just don't like the rules, or have no idea what the rules are.
Plus 1.
I guess the counter argument would be that the proposed "renovations" are truly horrific thus they want to get them approved before anybody can do anything about it. I have no idea but I've been to Davies Hall within at least the last decade and it didn't seem to be falling apart, at least not in the publicly accessible areas FWIW, it bookends the architecturally similar California State Public Utilities commission building. The PUC itself desperately needs renovation after approving NEM3.
This is at least part of the rationale: there needs to be a really good reason to demolish a perfectly good building, and "because it will make a shitton of money" doesn't count as a really good reason.
It's also important to maintain the history of a place, particularly in today's building paradigm where every new building is the same old stupid shit. Contemporary architecture and design is soulless and bad, for the most part.
there needs to be a really good reason to demolish a perfectly good building, and "because it will make a shitton of money" doesn't count as a really good reason.
Of course it's a good reason. I'm very far indeed from a libertarian, but the onus of proof should be on those who want to prevent property owners from doing what they want with their own property, not those who want to interfere.
Note I do not write that the correct decision will rarely come down on the side of preservationists. Perhaps if frequently ought to, especially in a major cultural hub like San Francisco.
But "highest and best use" is a fundamentally important concept in real estate. For perfectly sound reasons: the "shitton of money" you deride is an objective signal that the land in question is being put to better use than before (No, it's not the only thing we should consider; but it is a very important consideration).
From reading the article it doesn't seem like the renovations are all that drastic. From what I can tell it will be all interior improvements like seating and acoustics. I can’t imagine what any objection would be, but perhaps they just want to avoid a process that can be tedious.
My takeaway from the article is that they're not planning anything substantial for the exterior, but want to make some big changes to the lobbies and public accommodations as well as the main performance space, and what they have in mind involves Frank Gehry in some capacity. They're also looking at a separate small recital building.
A lot of this is probably stuff they really should do, like a range of ADA compliance, that would involve some extensive redesign and would be a lot harder to accomplish and a lot more expensive to document in the face of "historic" status for the interior. Gehry comes with a lot of zeroes attached, and I could see the extra work easily running multiple millions more once the historic tag is affixed.
The amounts seem staggering, honestly. The symphony board has a commitment of 50 million for the small recital hall (50 million!), and we're talking about an operation with an $80 million yearly budget. For that kind of outfit, a few million extra for design approvals sounds like a serious burden.
At the very least, historic preservation rules should distinguish between exterior and interior-- locally there's a "historic district" designation that's pretty tough about exteriors but gives you a free hand on interiors-- and they may in SF, though it doesn't seem like it.
The worst aspect of this for me is that there are probably a couple hundred or so people in the Bay Area, most of them tech bonanza winners, who could take care of all this with loose change from the couch cushions and never miss it.
I moved to SF in 1980. The thing that sticks in my mind regarding historic preservation is the beautiful rotunda in the old City of Paris building. The building itself was no big deal. The way things got resolved was Nordstrom’s was required to preserve the rotunda but was allowed to otherwise renovate the property. It seems to me that if there are historic aspects to a property and a resolution like that is possible it should be done. I don’t think just being old makes something worth preservation.
I’ve passed by the building a large number of times and have attended shows there several times. It’s a very nice building and there’s nothing decrepit about it. I suppose if those rules weren’t in place they could kick that renovations can forward a few years.
Yeah, the 50-year rule just seems like another stress factor here. It could just be one that applies automatically to public-use buildings of a certain size, or something like that, where they might try to get some kind of exemption or delay. Doubtful that every 50-year-old house is suddenly historic and can't be touched inside or out, but it's CA so who knows?
I've never seen the building or been in it, but given that it was designed in the 70s and finished in 1980, it probably has things that will need fixing/upgrading-- plumbing/wiring/hvac-- or should get attention-- overall traffic flow, wheelchair accommodations like ramps, doors, switches, sinks, corridors-- stuff that's designed-in now but usually wasn't thought of back in the day. Easier and better to do as one package, and probably exponentially quicker and less expensive if it doesn't have to preserve the original look.
I agree that it would be way better all around if the city can be flexible about stuff like that.
This would be exactly the kind of renovation and modernization that should be allowed. It highlights why we need another tier of historic preservation status that's less about preserving history and more about protecting the fabric of our built communities to allow them to evolve instead of being transformed (enshittified) by a firehose of outside capital.
What I was referring to with "because it will make a shitton of money" is more to do with demolishing perfectly good buildings to replace them with whatever will make the (new) owner the most money - i.e., speculation and profiteering as the purpose of the transaction and change, not utility.
"the onus of proof should be on those who want to prevent property owners from doing what they want with their own property, not those who want to interfere."
If I'm not mistaken the City owns the building in this case. The building is part of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, which in turn is an entity that is owned and operated by the City of San Francisco.
Well, you can't know if the owners are damaging it if they don't do the report, tho.
Among the other considerations are externalities (costs not borne by the property owner), especially social costs. See: Ronald Coase.
...there needs to be a really good reason to demolish a perfectly good building, and "because it will make a shitton of money" doesn't count as a really good reason...
George Steinbrenner had no other reason to tear down one of the most beloved buildings in New York City, the House That Ruth Built, the old Yankee Stadium. He needed the city's agreement, and for about twenty years NYC mayors turned him down. Then he finally found his mark. Rudy Giuliani, of course. The next mayor, Michael Bloomberg, tried to get the city to cancel the deal, but it was too late. The Yanks played their last game in the stadium in 2008. The old stadium was demolished after the '09 season, and half a year later Steinbrenner was dead. Making a "shitton of money" doesn't do much for you if you're not around to spend it.
He who dies with the most toys is still dead.
Sport stadiums are sort of a special case. Almost all of them have some sports history that is important to some people. But when they get old - they're old. Very difficult and expensive to renovate and they take up a lot of land. The wrecking ball is usually the best solution. I think we just have to accept that these facilities are temporary and cut the cord, even if Babe Ruth or whoever played there.
(Btw, if you want a big dose of Yankee nostalgia, be sure to visit the Yankee museum next time you go to the new stadium. Awesome!)
Why is it "important to maintain the history of a place"?
Because in the current building/development climate, demolition and replacement is transformative and destroys communities that were built organically, at human scale and generally incrementally - and that's bad for communities. It's only good for capital. These changes function as financial vehicles rather than actual improvement of the community. The use of historic preservation rules as an obstacle to that transformative badness is unfortunately only about preventing the harm, and is often not successful, rather than about doing something good.
I will note that I was speaking in a vacuum and don't know the specifics of this particular building. It sounds like the current owner (the city?) wants to make changes to modernize and maintain the existing structure, which is a GOOD thing. That's exactly the kind of thing that needs to be encouraged.
I guess the counter argument would be that the proposed "renovations" are truly horrific
That's a pretty weak counter argument given that these things are inherently subjective. I'd imagine the design team in such cases will generally approve of the renovations, believing they're top notch.
The Long Beach, California Public Library opened in 1909 and lasted 63 years before the city felt it had to be demolished. The replacement library lasted about 40 years, and the latest version of the Main Library opened in 2019. At this rate it should probably start looking over its shoulder in about 2030.
In Long Beach, we don't preserve Old Stuff. We blow it up.
Looked it up. The 1909 library was a very nice typical Carnegie library. It's too bad they couldn't have preserved it with some new use (and that's what I would have fought for if it was possible), but the 1999 one is a way bigger and pretty nice modernist building with no doubt way more usefulness for today.
https://downtownlongbeach.org/spectacular-new-main-library-is-set-to-welcome-educate-and-assist-the-entire-long-beach-community/
Would it make any difference if you knew that it was designed by Pietro Belluschi and SOM? Would you designate ASU's Gammage Auditorium as historical? What separates the two structures?
Nothing, both are dated and not interesting. Designed by a well known architect is not synonymous with historical. Neither building adds anything unique that merits preserving.
+1
What makes for an interesting, undated structure?
Yes. Grady Gammage is a work of art, and it also works.
What "works" or doesn't, seems like a poor metric. Half of FLW's works were poorly constructed and designed, such that they leaked almost immediately. Almost all of his works in California have required extensive remodeling and structural upgrades. Even Fallingwater required massive intervention to prevent the cantilever from, well, falling into water.
Alas, too many architects pay homage to Wright...."Look, my building leaks too!!!" And, they don't have to design the "lily pads":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Wax_Headquarters
The lily pads were quite beautiful.
Agree. But all the FLW buildings are as much art as a Gothic cathedral, and most of them work well. Apparently real engineers were not seriously consulted all the time though. Fallingwater could have been fixed with a couple skinny supports but then there go the famous (poorly engineered if at all) cantilevers.
Fallingwater is well worth visiting. You can easily see it and the nearby pretty much the opposite except for also being art and pretty wonderful Kentuck Knob in a day. Do it in the early fall if possible. Walk back down from KK through the woods - not just nature but more art on the way.
I've been in the Marin Civic Center building and also Grady Gammage many times and they are both great.
Even if you have engineers, there's always the chance the materials or the builders failed in some way.
Besides being beautiful all a building has is function - whether it works well or not.
That's a philosophical distinction. Does form follow function, or is adornment allowed and style important?
I'm just here to spark thought about the process of what is and isn't worthy of the historical designation. There is much nuance to this and no one here other than a handful of us have taken Architecture Theory and History in college or studied Urban Studies.
When we wanted to tear down and replace our home in a small neighborhood near San Francisco we had to pay the city $5,000 for a historical study to be sure our house didn’t need preservation. Fortunately, though the place was about 90 years old there was nothing special about it. No famous architect designed it. No special person slept here. We had heard that Clark Gable had lived in the area before becoming well known but, fortunately, he never lived in that house.
Slightly OT, yet oddly pertinent:
- Before the start of last season, Oregon State replaced half of its stadium at a cost of $150M+.
-Did you know that Northwestern is going to replace its existing football stadium with a new one that will cost $800M?
- Prior to the 2019 season, USC spent $315M to renovate the Coliseum.
- The combined athletic operating budgets of Ohio State and Michigan in the 2021 season was nearly half a billion dollars.
- SoFi Stadium, home of the Chargers in Inglewood cost a reportedly $5.5B.
- Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, home of the Raiders, cost $2.2B.
- In three years, the B1G schools are projecting to collect $90M in media revenue for the season.
- In his lawsuit, QB Jaden Rashada confirmed that the Florida Gators head football coach offered him $14M in NIL to commit to the Gators.
Sports, the humanities, and so on, our societal values are crystal clear.
Yup.
Kevin is suffering from old man syndrome (which often strikes me) in that nothing built in my lifetime can possible be historical. When we saved the Fox theater in Atlanta from destruction, it was about 45 years old.
I just checked out some photos. Spectacular. The Fox in Oakland was brought back decades ago and it's amazing, really peak Deco.
Don't get me started on NYC Penn Station.
Yeah, but automatic preservation should be paid for by the government rather than an imposed cost that makes the building less economical.
In 1970, Victorian architecture was obsolete and in the way of progress.
In 1980, 60 year old Craftsman bungalows from the 1920s were just old, obsolete homes.
In 2000, Mid Century Modern homes didn't have many fans.
Now these are all desired building types. My Victorian neighborhood looks a lot better with design controls, keeping the fad of the moment at bay.
This sounds like a very California problem. Literally nobody in any of the 8 east-of-the-Mississippi states I’ve lived in is trying to protect anything built in 1980.
It really should be torn down. It was an acoustical nightmare from day one that needed extensive mitigation after it opened. There is nothing worth preserving.
Replacing it may be rather pricey.
But the symphony hall at Lincoln Center has been completely redone inside to fix the acoustics at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars two or three times since it was built in 1962. Maybe the recent one actually works.
Preserving and old structure JUST because it's old is a little misguided IMHO.
If it is a building of significance that is a different story.
The picture in this article shows a good use of a corner which may or may not have an impact on the sound generated by the orchestra which is the MAIN reason for a renovation - to improve the sound and a secondary reason would be to make it easier for disabled people to enjoy the music. Improving comfort etc are also considerations but just because the building is turning 50 years old does NOT lend any more credence to than the same building at 30 years of age
Let them renovate
A significant building should be designated as such and at that point a new buyer should be made aware of that significance BEFORE they purchase that building. Make them aware of the possible restrictions placed on renovations to that building.
But to just say the building is dated is plainly wrong. I came from a mill town in Mass that had old textile mills. Thick granite walls - old oil soaked timbers - 15 foot ceilings. Many have burned down but some have been renovated into stunning apartment buildings (at very high rents).
The California gold rush was in 1848 which brought about 300,000 people into the rural state. Boston Mass had a population, by itself, of almost 100,000 at that same time. The east coast seems far older than the west coast.
Again let them renovate
When I was growing up I asked my parents why they were not finishing the buildings. It turned out that the seventies were a peak time for brutalism and brutalism adjacent buildings. The ultimate function over form. It says here tear all such structures (ironically, because the amount of concrete required, brutalism will be with us longer than the pyramids-ugh).
I am in the Seattle area. The 'historic' buildings were built before it was realized that the area has severe earthquakes. Given that much of the older city is on soft fill, the historic buildings are largely death traps - Only the buildings that have been recently retrofitted for earthquakes and modern buildings built to withstand earthquakes are reasonably safe. My civil engineer daughter says that it is typically several times more expensive to reinforce a building than it is to tear it down and rebuild it - even in the previous style.
From my point of view, I would set a retrofit or destroy mandate on all the buildings that do not meet earthquake standards, and historic status would not be material. 10 years would be too short a period given the scale of the problem, but 20 to 25 years is probably reasonable. Organizations can retrofit the historic buildings if they can raise the resources, otherwise tear them down.
LA gets big earthquakes every 20 years or so. San Fran gets huge earthquakes every 100 years or so. And Seattle, we recently learned, gets MONSTER earthquakes every 500 years or so.
We didn't know that about Seattle until recently, and almost all construction there was built without seismic design. I really hope the local governments can find the backbone to tell historic preservation types to take a flying leap. Lives are very much at stake in this.
Don't call it San Fran. I've lived there and in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is always El Ay and San Francisco is always only San Francisco. And the state's name is not Cali. No, I have no idea why but I totally agree.
* ahem *
San Diegan here. We all refer to that NorCal city as San Fran. All of us. Shortly after moving here I referred to that city as Frisco, but locals corrected me. "It's San Fran."
But you're right about the state. In speech it's always California. In writing it is often CA. But never Cali. Cali is a city in Columbia.
Back in the 60s, 70s I remember it was fairly common to call it "Cal", but that seems to have been retired. Maybe because Cal Ripken Jr became famous.
We knew about the earthquakes.
They just didn't care.
It's not that Davies is decrepit, but that parts of the design are insufficient and obsolete. One thing in particular about the hall I know is begging for change: the gift shop. Newer halls that I've seen, such as Disney in LA, have expansive self-contained gift shop areas. Davies' gift shop is awkwardly tucked into a corner of the main lobby. Providing adequate space for one apparently wasn't on the agenda at the time Davies was designed.
Possibly access to the main hall could be made easier. To get there from the foyer lobby, one must either walk up a flight of stairs or take one of a bank of two elevators. (There's also a non-stair back way in through corridors not intended for use by patrons, though they're allowed to use them, but it isn't marked and requires opening heavy doors which isn't convenient in wheelchairs.) In heavy rushes, especially when leaving after a concert, when the elevators are likely to be full with patrons from the upper levels, it can be damned difficult for patrons who can't use the stairs to find space, for themselves or even more if they come with walkers or wheelchairs, to go down one measly level in those elevators.
There are two separate questions raised here. First, should buildings older than a specified age automatically be considered historic? Second, if the answer to the first question is yes, what should the specified age be? I'm inclined to agree that if there is going to be an age threshhold, fifty years is too low; a hundred years would make better sense to me.
Looks like you'd play basketball in there, not Beethoven.
San Francisco doesn't have a Philharmonic like the LA Phil. It's the San Francisco Symphony. Surprised no one has commented on that.