Demolition and Preservation Have Costs to Be Weighed

Raksha Vasudevan

Raksha Vasudevan is the Sustainability Associate at the National League of Cities’ Center for Research and Innovation. She blogs a t

Updated April 9, 2012, 11:04 AM

Each morning as I wait to catch my train in Washington D.C., my eyes wander to the waffle slab ceiling that has become a symbol of the city's metro stations. The simple, repetitive form continues to reveal to me the possibilities and limitations of concrete.

Not everyone feels as I do about the stations’ Brutalist design. And there is no telling how the next generation will feel or what they will find beautiful. Beauty is so personal, so intertwined with the ways in which we relate to and inhabit a particular space, that aesthetics becomes a moot point in discussions of architectural preservation.

When questions of aesthetics can't be resolved, creative solutions are needed.

If not beauty, what criterion should we use to determine the ultimate fate of a building? In a society dominated by overconsumption and wastefulness, we automatically look for a quick fix in matters of architectural preservation — demolish or preserve exactly as is.

What is needed is an acknowledgement of the multiple and hidden costs of our choices. For example, what are the costs of demolition for the earth? What happens to the tons of concrete that fills up landfills around the country? Apart from the fact that demolition in itself is financially costly for government, there are social and environmental costs of that we often ignore. And while preservation is not always the answer for a community, the path to determining what is “right” lies in honestly weighing the economic, social, and environmental costs of our actions.

Take, for example, the Tate Modern by Herzog and de Meuron, in the heart of London. Previously an oil-fired power station, today it is home to one of the most popular art museums in the world. The reuse of the building has helped transform the surrounding neighborhood, increased the availability of art to the public, and has become an architectural landmark and symbol in London.

Architecture physically and symbolically manifests our social priorities. Today, it is critical that we redefine how we think of efficiency and waste; and in doing so, actively engage architects, urban planners, and community members to find creative solutions to complex architectural “problems.”

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Topics: budgets and budgeting, design

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