Preservationist Busybodies

Preservationists in the Midtown area of Detroit are aghast at Wayne State University. The school plans to demolish a building designed by the renowned Detroit architect Albert Kahn in order to facilitate the construction of a new research center. The schools' initial use would be to aid in construction traffic while the main building is constructed. It would likely then become a parking lot, at first, anyway, before being used to extend the research facility. Or it may eventually be used as urban walking space.

There are skeptics about long range, however, who note that the sites of other demolished architectural gems such as the Hudson's downtown site or old Tiger Stadium haven't been converted to anything better. Yet there are differences between those sites and the American Beauty Electric Iron building, the one to be raised for WSU's purposes. The fact that Wayne State owns the thing means a lot: if they need to tear it down for whatever legitimate reason (and aiding in construction and viable parking options are legitimate) then no one has the right to stand in their way.

Whoever owns a property has the primary right to determine what to do with it. But what we're really dealing with here is the activity of busybodies who want to enforce their will on anybody as they see fit. In this case, because it is a Kahn building, it should never be torn down.

Baloney. Nothing should be made sacred merely because of the designer, and it isn't as though it's the only Kahn building around, or even his best structure. Yet even if they were all demolished, it isn't as though he would be forgotten. Surely his styles and influence will be remembered in schools and in Kahn's influence on the trade.

Not everything of some historical importance ought to or can be preserved. We probably over preserve as it is. Particularly in instances such as this, where we must wonder why the building wasn't scarfed up by some bunch of Kahn groupies way before Wayne State got it if it were really so important a part of his portfolio of buildings. Likely as not that failed to happen because they don't have the money on their own.

But that doesn't stop them from telling the University what to do with it. There is a word which describes people like that. Hubris.