Funny, it looks just like all the college buildings I attended in the 70's.
If the preservationists like the style so much, I'm sure there are plenty of other places they can go stare at.
Posted on 11/15/2007 8:19:20 PM PST by Lorianne
WASHINGTON--Most church preservation fights involve saving a building that neighbors think is too pretty to be torn down. This is the story of a church that parishioners think is too ugly to stay.
The Third Church of Christ, Scientist- a six-story, eight-sided concrete behemoth circa 1971 -sits atop a lonely windswept plaza just two blocks from the White House. Church members say it's too big, too expensive, too uninviting.
Plus, it's just plain ugly.
Neighborhood preservationists, meanwhile, see a living testament to the type of 1970s architectural ``brutalism'' championed by I.M. Pei and others. It's so distinct, they say, that it should be passed on to future generations.
Sure, it may be ugly, but that's exactly the point.
For 15 years, church members have battled the preservationists' request that the city designate Third Church a historic landmark, which would prevent any changes to the building's exterior.
The 60-member congregation would prefer to tear down the monolith and possibly replace it with an office building that includes space for a church. With its prime location, church members say money from the deal would allow the church to devote resources to ministry instead of maintenance.
With a compromise between the two sides nowhere in sight, Washington's Historic Preservation Review Board will rule in December on the landmark designation.
David Grier, a Third Church member leading the fight against a designation, said the building doesn't deserve landmark status.
``This isn't us. It's a tomb,'' he said, referring to the concrete walls that show years of collected grime.
There's little disagreement that the building's design can be off-putting. Brutalism, an architectural style of the late 1960s and early 1970s is often characterized by stark concrete shapes and dark imposing forms. It's the kind of architecture that can make passerbys stop and say, ``What the ...?''
Brutalism is ``a style that's hard to love,'' said A. Robert Jaeger, executive director of Partners for Sacred Spaces, a Philadelphia-based organization dedicated to helping churches and communities care for religious buildings.
Bruce Yarnall, operations and grants manager for the city's Historic Preservation Office, acknowledged that plenty of people would like to see the church bulldozed.
``But what about 50 years from now?'' he asked. ``Architectural patterns go in and out of style, just as in some sense fashion does.'' There's value in maintaining some buildings that are no longer en vogue, he said.
Some local preservationists agree.
``Over time, the building became more and more appreciated,'' said Sally Berk, a trustee of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, a local preservationist group that filed the landmark application along with the D.C. Preservation League.
Berk said the church meets the landmark designation criteria in that it was created by a master craftsman --architect Araldo Cossutta worked with Pei's firm -- and exemplifies distinguishing characteristics of architecture.
The church's decision to remain downtown in the aftermath of the riots and upheavals of the late 1960s was ``a symbol of the belief in the viability of the inner city,'' she said.
J. Darrow Kirkpatrick, the first reader, or chief lay leader, of Third Church, said the thought of having something big, brutal and controllable made sense at the time, but the building is no longer affordable. Its vast, dark presence hinders the church's efforts to welcome newcomers.
``We're in the business of Christian healing and redemption,'' he said. ``Shouldn't churches be allowed to follow their mission?''
Duncan Stroik, an associate professor at Notre Dame who specializes in sacred architecture, said the preservationists bear a higher burden of proof for a church built so recently. ``The building should be of very high quality, not just reflective of a certain time,'' he said.
Kirkpatrick said without significant changes, his congregation may not be able to stay in the neighborhood they've occupied for more than 100 years. The cumbersome heating system is falling apart, Grier said, and a new one could cost as much as the building itself. The concrete that has started falling off the building is also expensive to fix. The elevator doesn't work, and changing light bulbs alone costs between $4,000 and $8,000 to erect the necessary scaffolding.
``The preservationists say there's natural light in here,'' Grier said, pointing to the skylights high above the sanctuary. ``But there are no windows. If you shut off the lights and could read the hymnal, you'd have better eyes than I do,'' he quipped.
Kirkpatrick said the darkness and the 300 empty chairs every Sunday prevents intimacy. ``There's no sense or feeling of closeness or light,'' he said.
Mary Wadleigh of Washington is a dedicated preservationist who has attended Third Church since 1973. This time, she said, preservationists have gotten things wrong.
``Preservation is so important,'' she said. ``But as a congregation we have to have the flexibility to meet the needs of the world today.''
Funny, it looks just like all the college buildings I attended in the 70's.
If the preservationists like the style so much, I'm sure there are plenty of other places they can go stare at.
BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE ... what puff, nonsense & ugliness!
I really, really hate these Internation Style buildings.
It looks like every State University of New York campus.
Looks like nothing so much as a military bunker. Needs artillery—incoming.
All the universities and penitentiaries were built at the same time in the 60’s and 70’s...and designed by the same architects. ;)
It looks like someplace you’d go for Carousel when your Lifeclock is blinking.
Same here, funny, the “Congregation” has decided that the building can be demolished and then replaced with more valuable office space...
And “wind swept”?
Geez, the writer’s style is as ungraceful as that neo gothic pile of prefabed concrete...
Agreed. If it were ugly but had some redeeming architectural or historic value, like certain ugly Victorian buildings, it might be worth saving. But it doesn’t. And the quality of construction of these buildings is abominable.
My brother went to school at a university designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. There were few windows, and those that existed were filled with dark glass so the light inside was always gray. It was always surprising to emerge from the gloom and find that the sun was shining, because it didn’t look that way from inside. Being there was like being in the bowels of the Ljubjanka; one became filled with fear and desperation. The Stalinist reference must have inspired the professors in their Marxist-Leninism. Almost from the moment it was erected, this campus showed the pointlessness of its construction and began to leak, creak, and fall down.
I hate being the subject of some architect’s social experimentation and certainly object to paying for the experience.
Bulldoze the damned thing.
Title had me thinking this was an article about hillary
Yep. That corner thingy would make a dandy machine gun nest. I get a lot of feelings glancing at this beast but "reverent" isn't one of them.
Our city has a building just like this.
It’s juvey hall and local jail.
Is it insured? (Hint, hint).
More and more, people don’t have control over their property. Kelo says that the government can take it away from you and sell to private firms, and in this case, a quasi-governmental group tells a church that they can’t get rid of a building that they can no longer afford. That’s just not right. If the preservationist group wants to keep the ugly building, then they should buy it at market value from the church IF the church wants to sell to them.
Looks like the dorm I lived in in college.
As well as the federal court building here.
What is THAT ?....pillbox architecture ?...looks like it belongs on the Maginot Line
Looks like Brutalism was designed to be a gift that kept on giving. Just hope the preservation perps don't try the environmental-impact-to-pigeons habitat angle.
From the looks of that building, Cossutta studied at the B. U. (BUTT UGLY) School of Architecture.
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