Posted by strongjohn10856 on November 26, 2007 at 8:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)

The Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines are the bible, the standard, by which preservationists nation-wide judge their work and the work of others. While somewhat overly prescriptive, they are well-understood by most practitioners.

The strongest reason to adopt them in Charleston is to insure consistency in project review and approval at various levels. It would be a shame if a project, undertaken by a well-intentioned owner or designer, was denied certification for historic preservation tax credits by the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service stemming from the City's review process.

Professor Morton made a excellent case during his recent lecture here in Charleston, and repeated in the article, that we should be careful to avoid designs for additions or new buildings that directly mimic historic styles and create a false sense of the historic built environment. It is more than possible to design compatible new work without outright mimicry or retreating to pure abstraction.

John P. McCarthy, RPA, .

Posted by trm2105 on November 26, 2007 at 9:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I go back and forth on this subject a lot myself. So much so, that I'm doing my thesis on the very subject. I'm no expert on preservation, but I'm certainly interested in how the subject relates to urban planning and architecture.

The tension that Brown spoke of can also be understood as a tension between the desire for a protecting a collective identity expressed by our built past, which embodies different meanings for different groups, and the freedom for individual expression through architectural means.

There was no BAR telling the Charlestonians of the past what their house or their neighbor's house should look like. While one might question the nature by which they pursued their happiness, it should be noteworthy that they designed and built with their own personal enjoyment and flair and not with the blessing of a board of arbitrary review. Should we deny ourselves that much and what does that mean for those living in Charleston 300 years in the future?

It is a complex issue. It involves a lot of subjectivity, emotions, biases, history, identity, and basic individual rights. Striking the balance will continue to be a struggle. However, should you be required to start riding around on horse and buggy, dressing your ladies in hoop skirts, and telling your sons to wear their silk stockings, I'd be a bit concerned.

Posted by Anamoglam on November 26, 2007 at 11:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)

http://cityrepair.org
I haven't read the federal code, but I have worked with both the B.A.R. and H.C.F. and am glad that we as a city stick up for our past, and look to the future in many cases.
However, as you will learn if you visit cityrepair.org you will see that part of the reasoning that comes with legislation can lead to civic death. If you want a healthy city, you sometimes need to break the rules.
David Walen AIA associate

Posted by mlm on November 26, 2007 at 11:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I fully agree with Robert Russell on this issue. The intentions and results of the Venice Charter have been open to unresolved questions for years. The fact that the Dept. of Interior Standards is being misinterpreted is a reason to doubt their appropriateness to Charleston. They were drafted in an attempt to apply a "one size fits all" for a frontier nation that didn't have a tradition of historic conservation. Charleston should be writing its own standards that respect the unique character of place and geography that a national standard can't. This city has a tradition of breaking new ground in the field of preservation so why not take the lead again instead of following the path of "anywhere USA".

One more question, why are we teaching new artisans to apply high quality traditional materials and workmanship only to end up outlawing the results of their work as "faking the past"? This is precisely why Charleston should write its own standards and not just copy the national standards which are ambiguous and open to interpretation for communities that are not similar to this one at all. We should also better educate our own "preservation experts" to appreciate good land use planning and conservation practices that respond to common sense instead of egocentric architects or fictional nostalgia.

Before there was a BAR anywhere, a zoning ordinance or even a building code, there was a builder’s experience and common sense, greatly tempered by an understanding and respect for the limitations of climate, geography, technology & financing. Buildings (old and new) whose builders ignored those rules, in a relatively short time, became “land fill”, and rightly so.

Time tested common sense is a “standard” that modern Charleston is ignoring with growing frequency. Neither the Dept. of Interior’s Standards nor the many revisions to the Venice Charter will fix this; only we can. Bad modern buildings are just as bad as cheap quality “restorations” and “historic” knockoffs. Charleston's BAR has been encouraging too much of this in recent years. Common sense is being ignored in the name of meeting “standards”…standards that don’t seem to be well understood by most of those calling the shots to begin with.

Posted by gencon1 on November 26, 2007 at 12:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)

In Robert's previous article on the new preservation plan, he said that the preservation plan was on the City of Charleston Website. I couldn't find it. Does someone have a link to the plan?

Posted by trm2105 on November 26, 2007 at 1:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Gencon1,

Here it is: http://www.charlestoncity.info/dept/cont...

mlm,

Are there "egocentric architects" in Charleston? The work doesn't show in my opinion. Seems that most everything new is at best bland and uninspiring. Charleston would actually benefit from skilled and talented architects that take a stand for their work and not be led around by their nose's by those who have no architectural training at all. When was the last time you referred to you medical attendant as an egocentric doctor?

Yes, Charleston's architectural heritage deserves more from its architects. And its architects should demand more from their clients. Design seems to be of marginal importance, if the discussion is only whether or not new buildings should look historical or abstract. You're right though, bad design is bad, modern or historic.

Posted by Anamoglam on November 26, 2007 at 3:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I agree that architects should demand more of their clients...
I personally have lucked out with some discerning clients, doing a couple of creative designs here and there...
But, it is like throwing pearls to swine in general..
Not that people are swine, but most have no vocabulary to comprehend the need for it.
Europeans demand far more from their designers.

Posted by mlm on November 26, 2007 at 4:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Just as we expect medical doctors to possess the knowledge and skills required of their professions, architects should be trusted to know their craft and not isolated from other considerations (known or unknown to the client). Likewise patients and clients have a responsibility to expand their knowledge and not just "leave it to the experts". That's the beauty of Charleston (a beauty not limited to the obvious). This city has at times shown itself capable of becoming the ideal community where we collectively become important contributors to a larger body of knowledge that no individual or minority of individuals can rule. Unlike in most other cities in the US where the preservation movement was the cause for class elites, oddly as it might seem, Charleston cultivated experts among the masses...to borrow from M. Luther, every person can be an expert on the city's architecture and its preservation goals. Let the market place determine what services an architect can sell and money will buy, just don't force the rest of us to live with the results. Cities are supposed to be conservative, defendable and orderly...that's the first rule of city planning that architects must learn AFTER they are presumed to be licensed as "experts". Some never learn it. I hope we don't decide with this debate to give up our messy 'democracy' of experts because that's what made both our city and its approach to historic preservation unique.

Posted by trm2105 on November 26, 2007 at 6:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The historic movement in Charleston wasn't a cause of the elites? I would have to disagree there. Susan Pringle Frost didn't live on Bogard Street that I'm aware.

The preservation of Charleston's stately homes has largely been the business of the old establishment's descendants. After all, they are the ones that had the familial ties to the buildings. It is doubtful the black community would have made it a priority to preserve the architectural embodiment of their ancestors owners. Also, the creation of the initial Historic District didn't include the most of the boundaries of the original city, but rather the once suburbs along the Battery and to the west.

Regardless, one could argue that the business of tourism has brought disparate groups together, to rally around the historicity of that is Charleston. I think I understand conservative, defendable, and orderly, but even so Charleston was hardly ever conservative or orderly.

I do agree that the market should dictate what design sells. Preserving what we have is fine. That's common sense. You don't have to call it historic to validate taking care of your resources. However, I don't believe that the decisions of a long dead planter should dictate how we design for our current needs and desires. They are much to different.

Posted by mlm on November 26, 2007 at 8:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)

It would appear that some long dead planters understood climate, geography & economics far better than we collectively do today. I never said the elites weren't involved in the preservation movement here. But it was far less elitist that the image we choose to have now. These were the elite of Charleston, mostly in name only. For practical reasons, they enlisted early the support of other groups and vice versa.

It's a little hard to tear down the great house you're living in when you can't afford to replace it. That was a greater justification for preservation among many old family Charlestonians in the 1920's & 30's than any organized effort to embalm the city as a tourist attraction. Susan Pringle was a practical business woman who took possession of a family money pit and figured out how to make it work...financially. A member of the local gentry, she was ahead of her time and knew how to "spin" her work to make it sell better & for a higher price, but she was no sherry sipping dilettante either. She created a market demand in a market that had already collapsed. She could raise an army of ordinary citizens (not just her relatives) who could change public perceptions. This was critical for her to continue to "sell" Charleston & its real estate to a skeptical buying public.

Pringle persuaded Mayor Stoney to go along and at the same time won the contempt of Mayor Grace...more out of political lines in the sand than anything else. In gaining Mayor Stoney's support she "established" a market for authentic "old" for the first time in America. To gain political support for this new market, she had to cross racial, economic & class lines demonstrating that each had a stake in its success. Political factions in Charleston (like preservation & the market place) have always embraced a cross section of the community. They have to in order to survive.

A city like Charleston (which would include most cities in the western world) is by their nature "conservative and orderly". They have to be or they would cease to exist. Fires, epidemics, riots, warfare, economic panics all have shape the rules they adopt over time...in order to survive and limit risks for future threats. Cities by nature don't like chaos or dissonance. Cities are very bourgeoisie. Only the lawless masses or the super rich could love chaos and dissonance. One has nothing to loose and the other is too removed from reality. The middle class (from blue color to blue blood) historically works to limit risk and preserve opportunities to acquire wealth...and from this we get social reform, public schools, health care, public utilities & zoning ordinances (conservative tools for maintaining public order).

Posted by mlm on November 26, 2007 at 8:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You say you don't understand how Charleston can be considered "orderly". It must be our street patterns that have confused the issue. Consider that Charleston is the only American city that was originally laid out using medieval European urban land use principals and that continued adapting and extending them long after medieval Europe passed into history. The plan and its rules worked in a city of geographic enclaves. Only Washington, DC, could match Charleston as a city of regional encampments (part-time resident planters, their retained professionals, associated merchants & tradesmen and finally the domestic servants) all located in one integrated neighborhood. Charleston's odd 'order' of streets made individual neighborhoods well defined, almost self sufficient and even defendable if need be.

This medieval order shaped the egalitarian nature of what appeared to be America's most elitist society. The city was pre-programmed to pull together regardless of class when fate turned against the city. It is its historic design based on a now nearly lost understanding of common sense that in fact caused Charleston to be probably America's most fluid and culturally diverse city throughout most of its history.

The elite of Charleston have always been dependent on other groups for their continuance. It is the promises of shared wealth (and the possibility of access to the elite circles) that made other groups see a value in supporting this symbiotic relationship. No other American city has ever developed anything like this. The city's success as a viable center of trade & commerce has always been directly related to maintaining order & control. The obvious was for to benefit the residences of owners & workers, not to mention as place of business for the profits and wages they hoped to receive. The civic order & conservative image reflected by the city was both to project the city's view of itself and to give outside customers a positive perception of the city's success as a stable place in which to do business. So what's new since Christopher Memminger saw that for downtown Charleston in the 1850's? Not much!

We may be throwing all of this to the winds if we don't understand the historic rules that made the city successful in the past and what it is today. The US Dept. of the Interior's standards can't protect us from our own poor judgment. We are ignoring the rules many dead antebellum planters understood well. You can add to their ranks more than a few just-off-the-boat German shop keepers, a bunch of first generation Greek grocers & dozens of Burke trained brick masons and general contractors, too. All of these "non-experts" must have understood very well what many of today's architects don't. How else did we Charleston get to be Charleston? We should write our own standards...but be prepared for watching sausage being made if we do.

Posted by trm2105 on November 26, 2007 at 10:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

mlm,

you're very informed and i appreciate that. Per your comments:

Yes, the planters designed according to environmental constraints and existing technological advances. They had to, however, I think we could agree that such considerations are not exclusive to the stylistic choices they made. As far as economics, well let's just say they could never have built what they did without the sweat and blood of slavery.

Regarding Frost's efforts, I only meant to highlight the fact that such early preservation efforts were not simply altruistic. However, I can understand such motivations if I personally had stake in such property and history in a place. It is laudable that so much was preserved through her efforts, yet I would venture to say that citizens of Charleston are more concerned with what lies before them instead of in the past.

As far as the nature of cities, I would argue that there is a balance to be struck between order and chaos. Either extreme is obviously undesirable. Your mention of order and control by the elite doesn't sound like a democracy to me. As you know, the ruling oligarchy always sought to suppress insurrection and revolt by their slaves, as well as the lower classes, to maintain "order" and their privileged position. This could hardly be considered ideal today.

Rules are great, but so is invention. Those dead planters did well. We should strive to do better, by all Charleston's citizens. This requires being selective and sensitive to what we choose to preserve and why. I just hope Charleston doesn't loose sight of the opportunity for invention in its quest to preserve the best of itself.

Yes, sausage, it is a lot like building a house, isn't it. But, it sure tastes good!

Posted by Anamoglam on November 27, 2007 at 8:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I wish the region around Charleston would take as much time as the central area on its planning. It has been ignoring the wisdom of the plan in most cases since day one. However, Park Circle and other small villages have some charm...
If only the sprawl could be looked at closer!

Posted by rollo on November 28, 2007 at 12:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)

In 300 yrs the genuine antebellum structures will be gone anyway, the clay brick and tabby mortar are deteriorating at an alarming rate. The question is, how do we design their replacements? The design of a breezeway or a dependency matters naught if the main house cannot be reconstructed to mimic the original. Maybe the Feds would allow mimicry if we spray painted "FAKE" in red on the face of the building.