Changing architectural tastes, styles and technologies often combine in the best ways to produce the wonderful places we call our downtowns. Of course, preserving the best buildings of the past and encouraging the best designs of the present are essential strategies to evolving authentic places that attract visitors and investment.
Too often great and useful buildings are torn down without due diligence, or worse, ignorance of their true quality. Currently, a debate is underway in preservation and urbanism circles about the merits of “modernist” architecture, a refined and minimalist style of building that was popular worldwide from about 1930 to 1980. Now, ironically, modernist buildings are “historic,” having reached the minimum 50 year-of-age threshold written into federal historic preservation law.
For many of us who grew up with these modernist buildings, they might seem dated and inadequate for today’s expectations of comfort and decor. A trademark of the style is the artistic and generous sense of glass, so that facades and walls seem transparent and “floating.” Structural steel and reinforced concrete enabled the bold glass modernist skyscrapers and commercial buildings that dominate the skylines of all great American cities.
In rural communities, modernism was translated into common lumberyard materials, often brick and stucco masonry with glass block, aluminum, chrome and sometimes neon accents in signage. New Mexico communities that boomed with post World War II prosperity saw scores of modernist buildings constructed in their downtowns. In residential architecture, modernism was also transformed into popular expressions such as “ranch” style that offered free-flowing and integrated family areas of living, kitchen and dining rooms.
The aesthetics of modernism embracing clean lines and proportions, use of industrial materials, and elegant uncluttered interiors, are still popular, enhanced now with the sophistication and precision of computer-based design programs. The simplicity and purity of the “historic” modernist buildings, as well as their modest scale in rural sites, are vulnerable to the real estate urges to upgrade and expand. Modernist buildings are endangered, and public education programs are needed to spread awareness of their value to the built environment.