Sadlack’s??
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
(I hope not)

Thanks for your insightful article. I appreciate the historical significance of the varied buildings in Raleigh. They add to the character of our city. Gentrification and progress can be a good thing, but I believe we lack the vision and strength in our council to just say no sometimes to the influence of outside money. We don’t need cookie cutter buildings with no character. But that’s all we get because they are safe choices.

Thanks again.

Let’s just tear down everything with any history so we can make room for all the locusts, I mean New Yorkers! I thought they were already having trouble filling the downtown condos already built?

:-(

Jeff: Most of the buildings in this article are currently in use. As far as getting involved in the process, unfortunately the only ones allowed to are the CACs around each project. If you’re a renter or live on the other side of town, your input means nothing to the developer. City Council can only step in when a zoning change is required, and up until now they’ve shown no desire to turn down new development.

To the second ‘Ms. Helen…’ : You aren’t helping your case by insulting another reader. In case you missed it, I am in favor of many new downtown residents. The larger point is to demand that we hold developers and architects to a higher standard. We gauge our culture and lives by the built environment around us. Dozens of apartment buildings that all look the same don’t reflect the growing culture we have in Downtown Raleigh.

It’s not my fault what she smells like. Maybe if she wasn’t such a provincial, NIMBY type she wouldn’t gorge herself on mayonnaise the way she does.

In any case, you may be in favor of new DT residents and progress, and your point is well taken. Many other, however, are dangerously trying to cling to a past that is no longer there, at the expense of the future. It is far better to have modern new apartments, however unoriginal, than boarded up buildings where “local music used to happen.” Guess what, we have local music now. And more culture and events happen when people actually view downtown as a place to be, like they did when those places being torn down were actually useful.

I have my reservations when I see comments like this: “Sadly, most of the current and future projects are replacing historic modernist buildings with uninspired cookie-cutter projects that all look the same.” I would like to know what “historic modernist buildings” and “cookie-cutter projects” is the author referring to. Is he talking about the nature of the proposed projects? Is he talking about the architecture?

Not to reduce the [great] significance of the author’s effort to take a close look at what we are about to lose, but I sense negativity towards several projects that we either know nothing, or very little about – at least with regards to the architectural details. I could make a similar argument against all the post-modernistic garbage that will be replaced. I am all for preservation, but there is little to cry about, especially when we have not seen actual renderings of what is coming. Site plans can be an indicator, but not always helpful. The vast majority of the “historic modernist buildings” are nothing more than inferior designs and greatly outdated.

One thing that I have to agree with is the author’s following comment: “It’s unlikely anyone could make the argument that the Brewery or the buildings around it are architecturally significant enough to warrant preserving. However, character and importance sometimes aren’t defined in the appearance of a building, but in the life and character that resides inside.” Very true, and it is our duty as Raleighites to preserve as many of the good memories as we can. Digital photography has made it really easy to capture what is about to be lost and it is worth remembering, even if the buildings replaced are not architecturally significant.

Maybe they should open a bakery there…

The below is my opinion as to why so many mid-century modern buildings are due to get torn down (and it isn’t because people don’t like modern architecture.)

Well, obviously, mid-century modern buildings were built, of course, during the middle of the century. What was going on during the middle of the century? The precipitous decline of the American city. The car was KING. Many mid-century modern buildings clearly exhibit these values in their design.

Take 401 Oberlin. I certainly can’t outright condemn this building because it is clearly quite attractive, well proportioned, and well maintained. It’s also better than many of its contemporaries, in that it’s not behind a parking lot (the same can’t be said of the post office next door for example.) However, it doesn’t do justice to the prominence of its location. This intersection is the nexus of what is effectively the most walkable neighborhood in the city.

It is not the mid century modern architecture that I take issue with. It is the contemporary societal trends that some examples of this architecture reflect that are the problem. In that era, the experience of the pedestrian was undervalued. That error made these buildings doomed to be replaced, eventually. Being set back behind berms and shrubs is just perfect for an institutional building like the state capitol, but for a commercial building in a busy walkable shopping district? Sorry, but no.

Of course, not all mid-century modern architecture is guilty of this. The Western Lanes building built in the 1960s is an example of mid-century modern that gets it RIGHT. Though certainly not as elegant as 401 Oberlin, its good urban form pretty much guarantees its future.

Just look around Raleigh, at what’s been demolished and what went up in the same place, to see the same kind of cookie-cutter designs we’re going to get when the buildings mentioned in this post are all gone. You don’t need to see the plans for every proposed project to make the educated guess that 95% of them will be U-G-L-Y.

You write: “Sadly, most of the current and future projects are replacing historic modernist buildings with uninspired cookie-cutter projects that all look the same.” Is it possible that someone said the same thing when these “historic buildings” replaced whatever (per-historic?) was there before?
I love modern architecture, but nice design in itself is not sufficient to warrant keeping it. I must serve the current use well from all perspectives, environmental, societal, traffic, users, etc. “Historically nice” is just one aspect.

Before I get jumped on about design decisions on rehabness…

They didn’t have the resources we have now. The open flex space design is a hallmark of modernism. The materials were limited.

Richard B, what are you talking about? You need facts to back up your outlandish hyperbole, silly. 95%? Give me 20 projects that involved demolishing buildings in Raleigh, and then show me that 19 of them involved buildings that were worse to look at than the original. I can give you examples to the opposite, although I’m not going to propose percentages. The SECU branch downtown was a tiny ugly building. It was demolish and they are building a 12-story LEED certified beautiful glass building in its place. Rundown, small buildings, and gravel parking lots filled with weeds in adjacent Green Square were replaced with two modern buildings, the Nature Research Center and NCDENR building. The Wake County Justic Center and RBC Plaza also spring to mind. Not to mention the various condo and apartment buildings that have popped up around the DT area. Replacing single-story rundown/unused buildings with large-scale, urban, dense development. Then actually take a look on Hillsborough St outside the Brewery, and that block immediately left, right, and across from it. What exactly there should be saved to sacrifice new development?

I think I made some good points. I’m sorry you have no sense of humor, but it is your site and I will honor your rules. I still haven’t seen any insightful response to the points I’ve made. Let’s focus on what is important.

So crappy old buildings are why our economy is somewhat better than many places? Not RTP, 3 major research universities, and all the educated transplants and locals? No, you’re right, and there’s a conspiracy of evil people trying to do it too…

Jeff, economies are like ecosystems. It’s not so obvious which elements are critical and which aren’t. What’s important for the health of ecosystems and economies is a rich diversity. The role that universities play in our economy is different than the role played by history and aesthetics, but they all play a role.

Old buildings turn a place that would otherwise consist of utilitarian living quarters into a rich cultural and aesthetic landscape that has a personality and a character. I’ve heard of cities being described as the residue of our collective human memory. The buildings are critical elements of our heritage. A rich heritage creates staying power. A city that is loved because of its rich heritage will tend to produce citizens who stay, plant roots, and create a bedrock of prosperity. The alternative is a collective of condo-living transients, young out-of-town professionals who are like fair weather friends–here for the economic benefits who will turn tail and leave as soon as those benefits fade.

They’re falling fast–the Brewery was demolished earlier this week. One down, many soon to go. 401 Oberlin in particular makes me sad though–the building is not only attractive and unique in its own right, but it does fit that corner so perfectly. As noted in particular by orulz, though, a lot of that relies on context–as the neighboring modernist buildings fall, one by one, it will seem less and less well suited to the site. Which is a crime of a different sort. But between that and the Ballantine’s cafeteria building, one of the last pieces of contiguous modernism in Raleigh (even the newer infill building between 401 and the post office blends in) will be lost.

While I don’t know if it would have made any difference, I will say the siting of the cafeteria building seems a mistake. Its best side is clearly the one that faces the parking lot–it presents an unremarkable narrow face to Oberlin, and the nondescript rear of the building to the majority of Cameron Village. Probably would not have saved it in the end, but it would have at least given passers-by a better idea of what, exactly, is being lost.

Also a quick note on the bookstore–as of a few days ago, last I saw, the folded-plane canopy from the front of the building remained standing. While the whole building is of course a loss, if its most distinctive feature is being retained in the new design (even divorced and standing alone as it is) I have to give them a little bit of credit.

Well just one short lyrical note on the Brewery.

Like the underground club scene at Cameron Village, now the Brewery is gone.

Music doesn’t need architecture as much as architecture needs music.

Tear it all down and fiddle.

I will admit to not being a fan of modernist architecture (at all), but aesthetic preferences are not why I disagree with this post. The modernist period coincided (or helped push) rapid decentralization and human-hostile design to it’s logical extreme, and some of these structures are representative examples of that period. They might be somewhat unique and true to that style architecturally (why they are intensely valued by some architectural purists), but most of these modernist designs are terrible buildings viewed in the context of trying to form a vibrant, durable, walkable city, where there are a diverse set of places and ways to move about the area.

Raleigh, like most places in the US, has spent most of the last 60 years allowing, even actively promoting (by law), an auto-dominated suburban built environment consistent with the modernist design ethos. Suburbanization truly dominates our landscape like few other metropolitan areas in the country. We are a severely auto-dependent city with a small pre-WW2 urban core and a huge ring of disconnected, low density suburbs. I believe that when viewed in the context of the human built environments of the last several thousand years, the fossil fuel-driven and auto-dependent modernist period will be seen as a case of hubris on a massive global scale that had disastrous unintended consequences for our civilization.

Numerous academic studies have confirmed the numerous environmental and health benefits of building more walkable, urban, traditional development, of the type we have in only a few areas of the city. Indeed, the redevelopment of many of these sites indicates the measurable increase in the desire for this type of built form (even if the new urban projects replacing the modernist buildings have some flaws in the quality of their urban design). Given the very real challenges of global climate change, the obesity epidemic, air and water pollution, and the US aging population, I don’t believe we are left with much of a choice any more. In my view, we need all the sustainable development we can build as quickly as it can be built, or this area will not ensure continued economic viability. Our current growth trends do not guarantee future economic success in a rapidly changing world.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong believer in the value historic preservation creates for our culture. However in the context of the preceding points, we need to be strategic enough to know what to preserve, and what to redevelop.