Architecture and the Culture Wars

 

I am both fascinated and concerned by the voices outside of my profession who have weaponized the aesthetics of architecture for use at the front of the culture wars. My thoughts on the topic are hardly original as many others, such as Robert Bevan (author of Monumental Lies: Culture Wars and the Truth about the Past), have astutely commented on what is happening. As Bevan has written, a decades-long agenda to promote traditionalist design and architecture under the cover of “beauty” appears to be paying off. At its core, the growing appropriation by alt-right elements of new classical architecture(1) is rooted in traditionalist appeals to nativism and preservation of “cultural identity.”

It's both disheartening and perplexing to see architecture caught in the crossfire of political ideologies. Architecture, a traditional reflection of culture and society, has been co-opted by agendas that extend well beyond the discipline’s bounds. Instead of serving as a medium for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable design, architecture is now too often a tool of propaganda, inflamed by the cauldron of social media.  

Even seemingly apolitical concepts like the 15-minute city have become battlegrounds. Conservative politicians target urban planning initiatives, framing them as symbols of coastal elitism and "wokeness." Misinterpretations fueled by distrust has led to the politicization of mobility in cities.

The unfair tethering of new classical architecture to far-right conservatism prompts reflections on tradition, identity, and urban planning. It’s crucial to note that not every advocate for new classical architecture aligns with the politics of the far-right (nor are proponents of contemporary design idioms necessarily left-leaning). For many architects, the new classical vocabulary is simply a means to craft beautiful and functional structures that harmonize with the needs of modern society. It bothers me that neo-traditional architectural vocabularies have become tainted by political associations.

Predictably, the alt-right has also demonized the aesthetics of modern architecture. The clean lines and innovative designs that define modern structures are portrayed as symbols of an ideology they reject. This demonization creates an unfortunate binary where any deviation from traditional styles is characterized as a symbolic threat to their political beliefs.

Beauty and common-sense design are and should remain apolitical. Architectural beauty—diverse and subjective, traditional or modern—speaks a universal language that should resonate across a spectrum of viewpoints. Common-sense architectural design, driven by practicality and efficiency, aims to create settings that address the basic needs and well-being of individuals, irrespective of their political leanings.

Architects can resist architecture's transformation into a tool for propaganda by maintaining professional autonomy, promoting inclusive design principles, and adopting a strong ethical framework. Education and collaboration with varied stakeholders, including community members and policymakers, are essential to creating spaces that genuinely serve societal needs. Advocating for architectural freedom and staying informed about societal changes enable architects to adapt designs in responsive ways while building a resilient professional community to withstand external pressures. By upholding these principles, architects can ensure their field remains committed to inclusivity, ethics, and architectural freedom, resisting undue politicization.

Perhaps I’m being naïve. Decisions about the location, design, and functionality of public buildings are frequently laden with political meaning. Urban planning, zoning regulations, and the allocation of resources in a city are inherently political processes that shape the built environment. The ways in which buildings are conceived, designed, and used can be implicitly or explicitly partisan in their implications. That moral battle lines may be drawn, or that righteous contempt are potential byproducts of architecture should not surprise me. Nevertheless, I am hopeful we can safeguard the apolitical pursuit of beauty and common-sense design, and I hope architecture can be a bridge that transcends political divides, creating spaces that resonate across multiple perspectives.(2)

(1)   New classical architecture is a catch-all term for a movement that emerged during the late 20th century and draws inspiration from traditional architectural styles. Characterized by a return to historical forms, proportions, and ornamentation, new classical architecture aims to capture the elegance and timelessness associated with traditional architecture, while adapting it to contemporary needs and contexts

(2)   Being as clear-eyed as possible, I do acknowledge that even these seemingly apolitical concepts can be influenced by cultural, social, and historical contexts. What one society deems as beautiful or commonsensical may differ from another, and these perceptions can be shaped by political, economic, or philosophical factors.

 

View Corridors

 
Skinner Butte viewed from the west along 1st Avenue in Eugene. This is not a regulated view corridor. (Google Street View)

View corridors are planning tools used in urban design and city planning to protect and enhance specific views within a city. They are meant to preserve visual connections between key landmarks, natural features, or other important elements of a cityscape. The goal is to maintain or create aesthetically pleasing vistas that contribute to the overall character and identity of a city. In the context of urban planning, municipalities implement view corridors through zoning regulations, building height restrictions, and other planning measures.
 
Many cities blessed with significant natural or built features establish view corridors to protect views of iconic landmarks, bodies of water, mountain ranges, or other significant natural or built features. This can contribute to the overall visual experience of a city and enhance its attractiveness. In many instances, this involves restricting the height of new developments within certain areas to maintain specific sightlines. These regulations can be applied to both public and private spaces, ensuring that designated views are not obstructed by new construction.
 
Vancouver, British Columbia—a city I’m especially familiar with—is well known for its strategic use of view corridors. The city implemented regulations years ago to preserve views of the surrounding mountains and waterfront. For example, view corridors from certain vantage points in the city lead directly to landmarks like the North Shore Mountains and Burrard Inlet. One famous view corridor in Vancouver is along the Cambie Street Bridge, which offers unobstructed views of the downtown skyline and the mountains. The city's commitment to preserving these vistas has contributed to Vancouver's reputation as a visually stunning and livable city.

 

Vancouver view corridor diagram.

Vancouver view corridor B.2.

Seattle’s municipal code likewise protects scenic view corridors toward both natural and human-made features, including mountains and skylines from designated public spaces. The code’s public view mitigation measures strategically control the height, bulk, profile, or location of new buildings to preserve key vistas.
 
What about Eugene? The City of Eugene Site Development Standards do include height limitation areas, whose purpose is to protect views to and from certain geographical landmarks considered to have scenic attributes and are of value to the community. To the best of my knowledge, the Skinner Butte Height Limitation Area is presently the sole example of such an area, though the Downtown Riverfront Special Area Zone incorporates a height regulating plan and view corridor requirements. Fundamentally, Eugene’s height limitation area regulations seek to achieve similar ends as controlled view corridors do in other cities.
 
Skinner Butte is a prominent landmark named in honor of city founder Eugene Skinner. The elevation at the top of the hill is 682 feet above sea level and approximately 200 feet above the surrounding streets. The Skinner Butte Height Limitation Area restricts the maximum height of any building within its limits to 500 feet above sea level. The Eugene City Council recently amended the Skinner Butte Height Limitation Area to increase allowed building heights of up to 530 feet in elevation on specific properties. As I reported previously, the intent is to attract investment within the city’s core, accommodate much-needed housing, enliven the pedestrian experience, and welcome increased density and eyes on the streets. The Eugene Code additionally exempts certain roof structures and architectural features above these height limits.

 

Commonly understood by architects is the human tendency to seek identity and orientation. Nature and history have conspired to endow Eugene with a recognizable and navigable structure. The pioneer citizens formalized the axis between Skinner Butte and Spencer Butte as Willamette Street, and like the ancient Roman cardo, it has served historically as the center of economic and cultural life for the city. The two landmarks bookend the axis. They presented planners with a natural structure about which to organize the street grid as Eugene grew.
 
Bolstering the legibility of Willamette Street as Eugene’s principal north-south axis is thus as important to the city’s identity as focusing upon the preservation of sightlines toward Skinner Butte. We should selectively protect those views, but the reality is it is challenging to fully appreciate how the diminutive butte punctuates the north end of the axis when seen from the south along Willamette Street. Indeed, its prominence is best grasped when approaching from the west, along the north bank of the Willamette River, or when in its immediate vicinity. The view from the top toward Spencer Butte rather than the ones toward Skinner Butte provides Eugene with its signature prospect.
 

Spencer Butte seen from the top of Skinner Butte (photo by Laura Alier, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

 
View corridors play a crucial role in urban design by preserving and enhancing important vistas that contribute to the overall character and identity of a city. Implemented judiciously, they balance the importance of those vistas with the need to accommodate growth and densification. In the case of Eugene, it may be the establishment of view corridors is of less importance or unnecessary so long as the city retains its structural legibility and essential sense of identity through other means.

Architecture is Awesome: #34 Adaptive Reuse

 

The Tate Modern, an example of adaptive reuse (photo by MasterOfHisOwnDomain, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

This is another in my series of posts inspired by 1000 Awesome Things, the Webby Award-winning blog written by Neil Pasricha. The series is my meditation on the awesome reasons why I was and continue to be attracted to the art of architecture.

Adaptive reuse is a process that adapts buildings for new uses while preserving their original features. Adaptive reuse prolongs a building’s life, often retaining major systems, including the original structure, the shell, and even the interior materials. The practice breathes life into old buildings by converting them into something newly useful, whether it is as fresh commercial space, multifamily housing, community centers, mixed-use facilities, or something else.

 

The High Line, New York (my photo)

Wonderful examples of adaptive reuse abound in many cities. For example, the Tate Modern art gallery in London is housed in a building that was formerly the Bankside Power Station, a decommissioned electricity plant. Taking an adaptive approach allowed builders to create a unique and beautiful art gallery. Another noteworthy model is New York’s High Line, which transformed an abandoned section of railroad on Manhattan’s west side into an elevated linear park. Since its opening in 2009, the High Line has become a popular and well-used city icon.

 

Closer to home, The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts converted the former First Baptist Church in downtown Eugene into a well-used performance venue and music school, while the proposed redevelopment of the Eugene Steam Plant is a catalyzing opportunity to provide an iconic community destination along the city’s riverfront.  

The Jaqua Concert Hall in the John G. Shedd Institute, Eugene.

Eugene Steam Plant vision by the deChase Miksis Development.

In communities with a noteworthy heritage of historic architecture, adaptive reuse restores culturally significant sites that otherwise would be left to decay or be razed to make room for new buildings or wasteful parking lots. In too many cities, the loss of such a built heritage has contributed to the systematic destruction of what was a coherent urban fabric in favor of blockbusting, car-oriented development. Adaptive reuse is an effective strategy for countering this detrimental trend.

 

New isn’t always better, especially when viewed through a sustainability lens. By saving countless solid, older buildings from demolition, adaptive reuse capitalizes on the operational and commercial performance of valuable existing assets. It is certainly the most environmentally sound approach to development. Adaptive reuse decreases a building’s potential carbon footprint by reducing the need for new construction, which in turn lessens its embodied energy (embodied energy being the energy consumed during the extraction, manufacture, transportation, and installation of new building materials).  

 

Adaptive reuse can also help contain urban sprawl. When builders search for new construction sites, they often choose land located outside of a city center because of budget friendly considerations. While developers may find the calculus for such development to be favorable, the fallout of sprawl is its externalized costs:  the erosion of community identity, greater fuel consumption, higher public spending on infrastructure and servicing, the adverse impact of lowered tax bases for central cities, and harmful environmental outcomes. Adaptive reuse leverages existing resources and is a powerful tool for rejuvenating established neighborhoods.

 

Adaptive reuse is often cost-effective. While a project to renovate an existing building may require more labor to execute than one built from scratch, the savings in material costs is often significant, especially as the price of new materials has skyrocketed in recent years. Adaptive reuse also forgoes the cost of demolition, which can represent a substantial portion of a construction budget.

 

Skylab Architecture’s new headquarters (image from Skylab’s website)

Adaptive reuse is not restricted to architecture of historic significance and can be a strategy for extending the useful life of many obsolete buildings that have outlived their original function. An excellent recent example is the new headquarters of Skylab Architecture in Portland. The firm chose to creatively adapt two old steel warehouse structures in the city’s NW industrial area (one of them a prefabricated Quonset hut), transforming them into not only its dynamic new workspace, but also as a place to host events for the larger design community.

 

Adaptive reuse is AWESOME because it gives old buildings a new lease on life by repurposing them for uses unforeseen by the original builders, all while retaining many of their historic and most attractive features. The process is an admirably sustainable approach to building that preserves built heritage, reduces sprawl, and reinvigorates the urban fabric.  

 

Next Architecture is Awesome:  #35 Problem Solving

Adding a Touch of Dutch to Eugene’s Streets

The Dutch are renowned for their innovative and forward-thinking approach to urban design, and consequently their livable, sustainable, and safe cities. Their urban spaces are frequently organized along woonerven (living streets), which prioritize cyclists and pedestrians over motorized traffic. The corresponding impact upon the morphology of urban environments and streetscapes in the Netherlands is profound. The prevalence of cycling contributes to aesthetically pleasing streetscapes and encourages mixed-use, compact development. The Dutch cycling lifestyle has become a model for other countries looking to promote sustainable and healthy transportation options and offers a blueprint for creating cities where cycling is not just a mode of transport but a way of life. 

The contrast with America’s car-centric mindset—and with it our unsustainable way of life, urban sprawl, and absence of walkable neighborhoods—could not be starker. A radical paradigm shift is necessary if U.S. cities are to become more sustainable, but helping people understand why prioritizing healthier modes of transportation and development patterns has proven challenging. 

The Netherlands Tourism Bureau has developed an AI app called Dutch Cycling Lifestyle that allows users to reimagine a street by replacing road space for cars with pedestrian pathways, bike lanes, street furniture, landscaping, and/or event-friendly spaces. The online app is accessible to anyone for free. You simply type in an address or select the GPS option to choose a location to be reimagined. The AI then uses Google Street View to create a “Dutch” version of the scene, with four different results produced. The idea is to provide users with a means to show what your own community would look like if planned with happier and healthier streets in mind. 

The app’s default is to entirely abolish accommodations for automobiles in favor of cobblestone-paved pedestrian pathways, tranquil bike lanes, and perfectly manicured plant beds bursting with vibrant colors and fragrant blooms. Every picture is worth a thousand words, which is certainly beneficial when it comes to sharing grand ideas. The more compelling and attractive these images appear, the higher the likelihood the ideas they illustrate might find traction. 

Here are some before and after examples of Eugene streetscapes I asked it to reimagine: 

Willamette Street near E. 26th Avenue, looking north.

Willamette Street reimagined.

West 11th Avenue near Seneca Road, looking west.

West 11th Avenue reimagined.

Chambers Street near W.17th Avenue, looking south.

Chambers Street reimagined.

I’m an advocate for AI imaging tools and their potential to help designers save time and effort, particularly when it comes to communicating concepts that are otherwise a challenge to effectively illustrate. That said, it’s clear the Dutch Cycling Lifestyle app is glitchy. Some of the results are positively bizarre, with wildly distorted perspectives that remind me of stills from the Paris-folding sequence in Christopher Nolan’s movie Inception (Indeed, the website includes a disclaimer that says “Seeing some unusual results? That’s because our AI is new here and he’s still learning.”) Additionally, the app translates images of Eugene low-density streetscapes into misleadingly pastoral tableaus that ignore realities confoundingly at odds with the emulation of Dutch-style development patterns. 

Unfortunately, the current shortcomings of Dutch Cycling Lifestyle undermine its utility. Playing with Dutch Cycling Lifestyle may be fun, but its practical value is extremely limited. It’s patently unrealistic to push a button and proclaim a solution to an urban design problem can be the result. Generating pretty pictures is far from enough. The challenge is vastly more complex, and the solutions are not facile. 

Changing a deeply ingrained cultural norm takes determined leadership and political will. Resistance from those who rely heavily on automobiles must be met with empathy and understanding. Incremental transformations in infrastructure and policy are necessary to shift a populace’s mindset. Such a shift will not happen overnight, but with concerted effort and a focus on the benefits of sustainable transportation, it will be possible to change the way people regard and use roadways in North America. Public opinion can and will evolve once the benefits of that change are evident.