Victoria Lautman: How would you describe your involvement with architectural preservation?
Robert Bruegmann: I am a historian and critic of the built environment, and as a historian, I’m interested in process and change, but I’m not a preservation activist, and I don’t really want to make judgments regarding which buildings are “good” or not. I’m more interested in why people want to save certain structures, at whose cost and to whose benefit. It seems to me there are plenty of people who know the “truth” about what buildings should be saved for all of us, but there are relatively few people who are able to stand back and question those choices with some detachment. At the same time, so much of our preservation history has been about slapping on preservation laws: “Thou shalt not build this or desecrate that.” But I suspect these laws do more harm than good, putting the financial burden on a single individual or owner, and it always leads to a backlash, challenges to the laws and the perception that those laws are elitist and unfair. No one has any quarrel with designating city landmarks that will benefit the city as a whole, but if the city doesn’t offer any real compensation in return, no wonder there’s a backlash!
VL: How has the preservation movement evolved in terms of what’s deemed important to save?
RB: In the 19th Century it was always monuments to patriotism that were earmarked for preservation-places like Mount Vernon, Jackson’s Hermitage, Monticello-and revolutionary battlegrounds. But that changed in the 20th Century when monuments to High Art took precedence, meaning buildings designed by specific architects, like Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright. More recently, as the preservation movement has attempted to grow and consolidate its base, there’s been a push to save whole pieces of the city fabric rather than single structures. As a result, the number of structures thought worthy of preservation has mushroomed. If there were 50 buildings thought to be eligible for preservation in the last century, by the 1960s there were thousands and now there could easily be hundreds of thousands. There’s been a “50-year” rule of thumb in preservation, which has meant that agencies could designate landmarks only after they were 50 years old or more. But it’s creating a fundamental shift as we begin to re-examine the 1950s, Modernism and urban renewal. All that early postwar architecture that was lambasted by preservationists in the 1960s now seems more agreeable and nicely matured. Look at the Hyde Park redevelopment that was so bitterly decried 30 years ago-now when a place like Harper Court is remodeled, we feel we’ve lost a wonderful, nostalgic reminder of times gone by.
VL: There also seems to be increasing interest in preserving what were considered mundane buildings.
RB: Perhaps, but generally no one thinks about those until the last minute and they’re all but gone, like the earliest surviving McDonald’s and the brouhaha surrounding its possible demise. The same is true with Steel Belt industrial plants, and I find it ironic that Chicago, which was the greatest industrial center of its day between 1865 and 1895, has virtually no organized preservation effort for steel mills and other industrial monuments to that era. Most of those complexes have disappeared before our eyes, and the stockyards, too, are virtually gone, with the exception of an arch attributed to Burnham and Root. This was all part of the essential fabric of our city, but when we read about preservation in the newspapers, all we hear about is saving individual buildings on Michigan Avenue.
VL: What will saving a steel mill or a stockyard do for a city?
RB: This becomes very important when a city positions itself in terms of image and heritage. For example, there’s been a concerted effort to try and erase Chicago’s Gangland Era legacy, even while the private sector has tried to exploit it with tours and such.
The same is true with our industrial heritage-it seems there’s a kind of amnesia about it, it’s not glamorous or pretty, and if we could just forget about it, that would be best. But look at the change in image Pittsburgh contrived. They leveled all their steel mills in the past, but recently decided to try and preserve part of the Carnegie-U.S. Steel complex in Homestead and Braddock as part of the city’s heritage.
And they managed to successfully transmute that industrial image into something positive for the city. Rather than run from it, they accepted and made peace with it, then began to exploit it. Now one of the first things tourists want to see is the remains of Steel Town. We have a little organized preservation of our industrial past here in Pullman, but little else. Consequently, our working-class neighborhoods and industrial areas are generally off the tourist beat, and landmarks are perceived as located on the North Side or in the Loop.
VL: Does recycling a piece of the urban fabric into a home actually preserve it, or just transmute it into something else?
RB: Well, that can be simply a question of terminology, and it also depends on what’s done with the project. Ironically, it’s never called “preservation” if, say, an old mansion is turned into a funeral home. That’s seen more as degradation of the original structure. But if you develop an old loft building into upscale condos, then it’s called “adaptive reuse.” It seems to reflect a class bias in the preservation movement.
VL: How are your somewhat unorthodox ideas greeted in preservation circles?
RB: Any special interest group, like any religion, has to have genuine faith in order to operate effectively, and it often transcends reason. There’s always some annoyance when someone questions that faith, and, as in most religions, if there’s no reasoning behind it and it’s not open to legitimate intellectual searching, it’s in danger of collapsing under its own weight. I’m sure there are some folks who are infuriated by any criticism, but there are others who accept being questioned and are aware that there are “changes in the faith.” Preservation is a constantly oscillating field, and there are inherent contradictions in any human activity.
