Restoring History

Milwaukee City Hall after its recent renovation

The city of Milwaukee recently announced that its Milwaukee City Hall restoration project, claimed to have been the city’s largest public works project in the city’s history, finished under budget and on time.  Architecturally, financially, and governmentally speaking, this project was a huge success for Milwaukee. 

However, even though the restoration was a success on numerous levels, the project, not surprisingly, had its opponents as most restorations of historic structures do.  Restorations, many claim, damage and devalue a building’s aesthetic and historic value; the building, in essence, looses its “character.” 

Milwaukee City Hall's bell tower covered in black netting before its restoration

Yet, restorations are often necessary.  Before its restoration, Milwaukee City Hall, which dates back to 1895, was literally falling apart.  The city even had to sheath the building’s terra cotta facade with netting to keep chunks of debris from falling on the streets.

When done well, restorations can restore a historic structure to its former glory.  Yet, restorations don’t always go as smoothly as it did in Milwaukee, fueling the fire for restoration naysayers.  Greece’s ancient Parthenon, for example, has been in a constant state of restoration since the 1930s.  However, when I visited the country last summer, the temple’s marble columns were still covered with scaffolding and probably will be for many years to come. 

The Parthenon's ongoing restoration

Admittedly, restoring Milwaukee City Hall is nothing compared to fixing up the Parthenon; the Parthenon is, after all, a wee bit older.  Yet, the two structures do share one thing in common:  they’re both worth preserving.   

Simply put, we don’t build structures like Milwaukee City Hall or the Parthenon anymore; materials like terra cotta and marble are too expensive and take too long to build for today’s society.  That’s why we need to preserve what we already have.  If we let these structures crumble, with them will go part of our architectural history.

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Remembering the rebuild

Last month, America remembered the September 11 attacks which left a hole in the architectural fabric of downtown Manhattan.  And, even being eight years after the fact, no structure on the actual World Trade Center site has been rebuilt.  Architecturally speaking, there is nothing to speak of.  This may be  a shocking revelation to many, except maybe those New Yorkers who pass the site on a day-to-day basis.  But to people living outside the city (even architecturally conscious Wisconsinites) the rebuilding process has been largely forgotten.  Sure, everyone remembers what happened on that tragic morning, but it seems like the country as a whole has forgotten what’s happening at Ground Zero right now. 

Many assume the rebuilding process was finished long ago; others assume the site is still a ruble-filled disaster zone.  However, neither of these assumptions are true.  In fact, the process is somewhere in between.  Clean-up crews were finished years ago and construction of a memorial and office space has begun, but it just seems to be taking a little longer than most people would like.  So what’s the hold up? 

Initially, feuds between victim’s families, owners of the former World Trade Center, New Yorkers, architects and the city government delayed the design process; some wanted to restore the site to look as it originally did, others wanted only a memorial to be built, while others were only concerned with replacing the 10-million square feet of office space that was lost when the towers fell.  Donald Trump himself even expressed his own personal plea to rebuild the twin towers exactly as they once stood. 

Fortunately, the feuding has subsided (for the most part), and money, unfortunately, has become the main source of contention.  The question of who is going to pay to rebuild a structure that was never expected to have to be built in the first place is still something of a sticky situation.  Arguments ensue over whether a majority of the cash should come from public funding or the current owners of the site, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Regardless of this red tape, construction has begun, slowly but surely.  A memorial outlining the footprints of the former towers is starting to take shape, along with five new office towers and a transportation hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava of Milwaukee Art Museum fame.  Click on http://www.wtc.com/ to see all of the construction plans. 

It would have been wonderful if construction could have been finished in time for the eighth anniversary; afterall, the Empire State building took only a year to build.  However,  rebuilding the World Trade Center is about more than filling a hole in lower Manhattan; it’s also about filling a hole in the heart of the nation, a hole that only time – and apparently money – will heal.