Historic preservationist here (personally and professionally)
Wow. I do believe that you're the first person I've ever heard say Googie is your favorite architectural style (I'm partial to Richardsonian, Second Empire, and Italianate, myself). I have to admire you just for liking a style that is not generally liked. You get points for originality, no doubt.
This, as everything in the U.S. does, varies from one state to another. Here in Texas, for example, us historic preservationists face an interesting hypocrisy: Texans are immensely proud of their history (the San Jacinto monument is twelve feet taller than the Washington monument), but they seem to think history happened without a backdrop. So you have a general population and a state government that is proud of their heritage, but to Hell with the places that heritage occurred at (especially if said places are more valuable as a strip mall or tract housing).
True story: the Daughters of the Republic of Texas- the state's version of the DAR- formed in the 1890s specifically to restore the Alamo. At the time, there were some proposals floating around to demolish the whole thing.
It is extremely frustrating to me, but down here unless a building is proven to have hosted a very important historical person or event, even at a local level, it will not be preserved unless it has some commercial value. Sort of like those historic houses you mentioned- I am all for turning a 1890s Victoria mansion into a law office if it keeps the building from demolition. I think the phenomenon you're referring to is adaptive re-use, wherein historic preservation only goes as far as what it needed to keep the historic appeal intact. otherwise, do what you will. The renovation of the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio is a great example of successful adaptive re-use, as is LoDo and some of the projects in the Cass Park area of Detroit. I am actually a huge proponent of AR simply out of pragmatism- sometimes, it's all we can do.
Of course, to make things even more complex, different communities even in the same state have different attitudes toward historic preservation: my hometown of Victoria, Texas has always been very interested in historic preservation, and now other cities who want to restore their downtowns and original neighborhoods come to Victoria to see how they do things. Contrast that with Brownwood, Texas, which has a 70% vacancy rate in its downtown and has since the 1950s.
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Date: 6/5/13 19:12 (UTC)Wow. I do believe that you're the first person I've ever heard say Googie is your favorite architectural style (I'm partial to Richardsonian, Second Empire, and Italianate, myself). I have to admire you just for liking a style that is not generally liked. You get points for originality, no doubt.
This, as everything in the U.S. does, varies from one state to another. Here in Texas, for example, us historic preservationists face an interesting hypocrisy: Texans are immensely proud of their history (the San Jacinto monument is twelve feet taller than the Washington monument), but they seem to think history happened without a backdrop. So you have a general population and a state government that is proud of their heritage, but to Hell with the places that heritage occurred at (especially if said places are more valuable as a strip mall or tract housing).
True story: the Daughters of the Republic of Texas- the state's version of the DAR- formed in the 1890s specifically to restore the Alamo. At the time, there were some proposals floating around to demolish the whole thing.
It is extremely frustrating to me, but down here unless a building is proven to have hosted a very important historical person or event, even at a local level, it will not be preserved unless it has some commercial value. Sort of like those historic houses you mentioned- I am all for turning a 1890s Victoria mansion into a law office if it keeps the building from demolition. I think the phenomenon you're referring to is adaptive re-use, wherein historic preservation only goes as far as what it needed to keep the historic appeal intact. otherwise, do what you will. The renovation of the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio is a great example of successful adaptive re-use, as is LoDo and some of the projects in the Cass Park area of Detroit. I am actually a huge proponent of AR simply out of pragmatism- sometimes, it's all we can do.
Of course, to make things even more complex, different communities even in the same state have different attitudes toward historic preservation: my hometown of Victoria, Texas has always been very interested in historic preservation, and now other cities who want to restore their downtowns and original neighborhoods come to Victoria to see how they do things. Contrast that with Brownwood, Texas, which has a 70% vacancy rate in its downtown and has since the 1950s.