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2010-11-01

Utah's Postmodern Traditions

Modernism in Utah has resurged and is being idealized through a passionate committee within the Utah Heritage Foundation, called Utah Modern.  Hip among metropolitan intellectuals, buildings like the First Security Bank Building (1957) on Main Street and 400 South by Los Angeles based architect W.A. Sarmiento and local architect Slack W. Winburn and the Pacific Northwest Pipeline Building, also known as the Public Safety Building (1957-58), also by local architect Slack W. Winburn are coveted examples.  This retro-infatuation and counter-intuitive effort to preserve Utah’s modernist inventory of architecture, a style and movement which shunned the very idea of preserving the past, warrants a look at its antithesis, Postmodernism, a distinguished and perhaps ridiculed style, as short lived and sparse in Utah as it was poplar and ubiquitous in New York and other eastern metropolises (as well as Disneyland) in the 1970s and 80s.  Postmodernism is not a style of architecture typically associated with the more serious and pendantic tendencies of the Beehive state, nevertheless its influence is evident and noteworthy.

Postmodernism’s posterchild is arguably most epitomized in Robert Venturi’s Guild House in Philadelphia.  The Guild House is in particular a celebration or, perhaps, a mockery of elderly retirement institutions.  Defined by an architecture that glorifies the populist tradition, an anti-utopian realism, abounding in kitsch and wit, Postmodernism in its most simplified philosophical definition was a reaction against the minimalist tendencies of Modernism, and attempted to stir a nostalgic desire to restore symbolism and ornament in architecture.  Venturi’s Postmodernism called for messy vitality and elevated kitsch to new levels. (i) Postmodernism typically carries a peggiorative connotation, however, the stylistic and philosophical tenets of the movement are well grounded and complex in a deliberate and truthful manner.  As Vincent Scully stated in response to Robert Venturi’s architectural treatise “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”:  “Venturi makes us see the past anew.” (ii)



Typically, Postmodern designs were defined by classical appliqués on the modern box, an ersatz festooning with a bold superficiality.  The most obvious festooned box in Salt Lake City, perhaps, was the faux façade of the Crossroads Mall (1974), referencing the original Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI).  Considered America's First Department Store, ZCMI was founded in March 1868 and continued as such until it was purchased by Macy’s in early 2000.  ZCMI’s original three-story brick and cast iron façade emitted a distinctive presence on Salt Lake’s Main Street for nearly a century.(iii)  Having undergone a number of expansions and alterations since its construction in 1876, the original façade was eventually pulled down as a large swath of the downtown core was razed as an effort supported financially by the Mormon Church to revitalize downtown area through one of the first iterations of transposing and stitching the suburban mall into the downtown urban fabric.  Simplified in its decoration, and losing its sculptural depth, the original façade was pasted onto the anti-pedestrian box at the north end of  Main street as a whimsical reference to the original form.  The introduction of the original façade onto the solid street wall of the mall was like the awkward marriage between Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts.  Devoid of windows, the diaphanous façade revealed the solidity of the blank wall behind and in so doing revealed its own ersatz existence.


The wit of the architecture was lost on the fact that the malls displaced the downtown urban fabric and ultimately destroyed the downtown core amid unrealized promises of revitalization.  At the time, the architectural losses were offset in preserving the ZCMI facade fronting Main Street.  This same cast iron façade was recently dismantled and removed as part of the City Creek’s downtown redevelopment project in Salt Lake City.  The highly worn façade has been restored and is currently being re-erected on a new steel structural “box” in approximately the same location as it was before, sliding back in place like a comfortable pair of old jeans.  Unfortunately, the designers have again failed to relate or integrate the original façade into the new construction occurring behind, simply leaving it outside like a dog in the rain. 


In a nearly obscene witticism, the LDS Social Hall Monument at 150 South State Street, replaced the original 1852 structure housing the first theater in Utah and which was later demolished in 1922.  The monument was constructed in the early 1990s as an obvious copy of Venturi’s 1970s reconstruction of Benjamin Franklin’s residence in Philadelphia.  Made of an ephemeral and specter-like steel frame marking the extent of the space occupied by the original form of the building, the architecture recalls Utah’s industrious and culturally driven pioneer heritage.  The nearby inscription on the historical marker notes: 






 
This monument marks the site of the Social Hall, the first recreation center in the Intermountain West.  Built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under the direction of Brigham Young.  Made of plastered adobe walls with native wood floors and roof.  Auditorium 40 by 60 feet, seating 350 persons, stage 20 by 40 feet, dressing rooms and banquet hall in basement.  Dedicated January 1, 1853.  Here the Deseret Dramatic Association conducted many home talent theatricals, musicales and other festivities. Sessions of the Legislature, official meetings, receptions, banquets and other social functions were held here. It was used as theater, library and gymnasium by the Mutual Improvement Associations. In 1922 the building was razed. [iv]

The ersatz monument, in its witty interpretation of the former structure, remains an important marker of place and, culturally, is important in defining the building that once existed.  By creating the monument to mark the former space occupied by the Social Hall, however, the permanence of its absence is confirmed, a fait accompli, denying in a sense its future presence, but by defining its absence it becomes more permanent. 

The environmental comedy inherent in the 87-foot tall sculpture, the Metaphor: The Tree of Utah sometimes called the Tree of Life, in the vast horizontality of the salty desert about twenty-five miles east of Wendover on Interstate-80 is apparent as cars and semi-trailers motor by at 75-miles an hour.  Created by Swedish artist Karl Momen in the 1980s and dedicated in 1986, the sculpture is constructed of concrete and consists of an abstracted square trunk from which six large spheres of varying size faced with natural rock and minerals native to Utah are suspended.  Momen was born in 1934 in Masshad, near the Russian border in Iran, was educated as an architect in Stuttgart and later lived and worked in Sweden as artist and architect.  Momen positioned several broken spheres segments on the ground around the base of the tree and which depict the complete cycle of life from birth to death as decaying fruit disgorging its seed into the fertile ground.  Inscribed on the plaque at the base of the sculpture are the words from Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy.   Based on earlier motifs painted by Momen, his inspiration originated while traveling through Utah to San Francisco on a spontaneous decision to take I-80.  The "Metaphor: The Tree of Utah” was built to bring "bold color and beauty to the stark, flat, salty landscape.”  “From its very inception Momen’s tree complies with the theoretical stances about non-representation and the creation of concrete objects as the only solution to the artist’s dilemma of how to impinge up his, or her, environment.” [v]


Karl Momen self-financed the project and then philanthropically donated the work to the State of Utah in a ceremony attended by then Governor Norman Bangerter, various state dignitaries and a handful of environmental protestors. It is constructed of 225 tons of cement, 2,000 ceramic tiles and literally tons of minerals and rocks native to Utah.

Ridiculed and scoffed at by passing tourists and travelers alike, the Metaphor: The Tree of Utah was described negatively as meatballs, ice cream scoops or coconuts in local and national media after it was constructed. [vi]  Environmental activists have impugned it as artistic intrusion on the desert’s implacable serenity.  It’s unclear how desert serenity is defined, in part due to the neglible visible intrusion the tacit 87-foot tall monument makes in comparison with the din and horror of the traffic speeding along on millions of tons of concrete occupying the desert floor.  As Herman Du Toit points out in his monograph of the Tree of Life:


…it should be remembered that , for Momen the recurring image of the tree was also a veiled reference to concerns with environmental issues that were prevalent during the 1970s.  In Momen’s iconography the tree became a symbol that represented the natural order of all living things – an order that was under assault by rampant industrialization and urbanization. [vii]


The verticality of the tree is in direct contrast to the relentless horizontality of the briny desert environment and in its contrast emphasizes that specific environmental condition and the character of the place.  Herman Du Toit theorizes that, “His intuitive awareness, and striving for, strong figure-ground relationships is no where better expressed than in his construction and siting of the Tree of Utah in the flat, barren desert.” [viii]  He futher explains:

...Like Kandinsky in the 1920s, so Momen in the 1980s combines his love of color, circles, and cosmic space in a personal hymn to the universe; and like Kandinsky, he is very 'romantic' and musical. The inscription on the trunk of the tree is Schiller's Ode to Joy, as sung in the choral climax of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. [x]



Momen’s influences are broad but he is connected philosophically to abstract Russian Contructivism such as Vladimir Tatlin (think Monument to the Third International), El Lissizsky, Aleksandr Rodchenko and others.  Katherine Metalf described the project thus:

The Tree is defined in terms of its proximity to the road that cuts an arrow straight line across the featureless desert.  The “Tree” is to be “read” in terms of these simple but inextricably related elements.  We are reminded of an idea contained in one of the anonymous slogans that was used at the exhibition of Tatlin’s tower in Petrograde:  ‘By realizing the form of the large space, we are overcoming the form.’ [ix]



The majority of viewers participating in the artistic discourse with the Tree of Utah pass by with little understanding of its meaning, history, and impact, and thereby, view it with mockery, as an eyesore and intrusive feature in the landscape.  It is, however, in its intrusiveness, fundamental to understanding the place in which it is situated.  In isolation, the relentless horizontality and relative featureless monotony of the desert landscape fails to communicate its own inherent power and awe.  The contrasting form of the Tree of Utah is the object which promotes a hyper-awareness of the place and, in essence, defines the sense of place.  The Tree is the catalyst, in its wit and messy vitality, that promotes the environmental discourse, resulting in a greater respect and stewardship, for that place.

In contrast to the isolated site of the Tree of Utah, The Triad Center was developed by a trio of Saudi Arabian brothers, Adnan, Essam, and Asil Khashoggi, enriched by their enterprising arms dealerships, and as a sidenote implicated in the Iran–Contra and Lockheed bribery scandals and investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Triad Center is at its heart postmodern, taking historic cues from both the Devereaux House on the Triad Block and the Union Pacific Depot Building on the block to the southwest.  The original three-block concept of the Triad Center, hence the name ‘Triad,’ comprised the block occupied by the current Triad Center, between 300 and 400 West and North and South Temple Streets, and the blocks directly to the south and east.  The plans for these adjacent blocks included a pair of mirrored forty-three story skyscrapers.  The 26 acre site additionally called for three twenty-five story residential towers, a hotel, farmer’s market, ice rink, amphitheater and park, and would be built out at 1,940,000 square feet of office space and 1,430,000 square feet of residential space. [xi]




In 1984 financial terms, the cost was estimated at approximately $410 million and it’s ultimate failure was connected in no small part to Reagan’s recession of the early 1980s.  Construction on the first of three phases began on June 1, 1982 and included the construction of a broadcast house, to house the studios of KSL-TV and KSL News radio, and the construction of a ten-story office building, on the northern side of the project.  Part of Phase 1 included the restoration of the historic 1855 Staines-Jennings Mansion (aka the Devereaux House) which had by that time fallen into serious disrepair after decades of neglect and a tragic fire in 1979. [xii], [xiii], [xiv] Constructed only eight years after the first arrival of the Mormon pioneers in Salt Lake Valley, the mansion was extensively added to and remodeled in the 1870s. Listed on the National Register in 1979, the Devereaux House was the earliest mansion in Salt Lake City, pre-dating the more famous Lion and Beehive Houses on South Temple.  “As a unique mansion in an isolated frontier city, the Devereaux was the setting of many social gatherings that included prominent local citizens and important national and international visitors.” [xv]


Phases 2 and 3 would have seen the erection of the “twin towers,” however, plans for the remaining phases were significantly scaled back. On June 7, 1985 ground was broken for the first thirty-five story office building (originally planned to be forty-three stories), however, financial problems forced a hold on the remaining phases. Excavation had begun and steel for the skyscraper had been delivered on site and within a year the entire development was canceled.  Had they been constructed they would have loomed over the historic Union Pacific Depot like two approaching glacial ice sheets on a hold-out tropical island. Comparable in terms of scope to the scale of the current City Creek project and billed as “Forty-three stories of the most intelligent and sophisticated business space in the city” there was considerable attention on the development in local media. 

Architecturally, the Triad Center, with its ersatz architectural arches and coffers, is in some respects, a failed development, not through malignant intention, but in part through a continued shifting of retail and residential centers in the city’s center.  The failure to construct the two residential towers as part of the overall development, was also key to its lagging and moribund vitality.  The abandoned skating rink heightens the  its abandoned skating rink it becomes a ghost town in the evening as the few commercial tenants vacated the office spaces to return to their homes in the suburbs.  Its recent vitality, due in part to the Gateway development in the early 2000s and the recent occupation of the BYU Salt Lake Center, a downtown satellite business campus, is still a pathetic site.  With historical precedents such as the Triad Center, one hopes against reality that the somewhat ill-conceived City Creek development will develop an immunity to the unwieldy and remorseless economic forces of the market.  The Triad Center is a remnant of Postmodernism’s vanity, of its ersatz proclivity.  In the absence of Phases 2 & 3, there is an escalator structure which was built to connect the various phases, but now serves little or no purpose, like the stairway to nowhere in the house Venturi constructed for his mother in the 1970s. 

The Provo Utah and Ogden Utah temples, were constructed in 1972 and designed by, then, Church Architect Emil B. Fetzer.  Each exhibited a solitary central spire, vaguely reminiscent of post-war temple architecture, but embraced an obvious, yet highly abstract, ornamental program to embellish the exterior, something the immediately preceding temples lacked.  Formally, both consisted of a rectangular massing with soft chamfered corners articulated with alternating attenuated windows within wider solid spandrels, all detached and elevated from its larger orthogonal base through the use of a narrow band of windows recessed from the face of the main block above.  A tall central spire contrasted with the main form like a toothpick through a Reuben. These new Utah temples exhibited formal characteristics anathema to the traditional temple building typology. The new forms boasted of heightened efficiency of the ceremonies within and, therefore promoted a sense of fretful urgency to the work.  Each served a large population center, relieving the stress on the overburdened Salt Lake Temple.



The Ogden and Provo Utah Temples both resemble a futuristic architecture and would greatly influence the architecture of the Washington D.C. Temple (1974), next in line and in design during the construction of the two Utah temples.  Both employed an associative metaphor which is a method whereby one comes to understand the unfamiliar modern building with something that one understands through familiarity. [xvi]  The Apollo Space program depended on the sleek and streamlined Saturn V rocket boosters to propel the astronauts’ module beyond the terrestrial frontiers and into the great voids of space.  The Ogden and Provo Temples captured the same imagery in their architecture with the spires resembling the Saturn V breaking away from the earthly tether atop of pillar of fire and the main massing resembling the billowing exhaust from the powerful rocket boosters.  This familiar imagery was seared in the collective memory of America in July 1969 as Apollo 11 targeted the Moon.  Although the Saturn V symbolic imagery was likely unintended by the architect, the intended symbol of the new Utah temples, the Hebraic pillar of fire and the cloud God employed to stifle the Egyptian army as Israel made her miraculous escape, was very similar.  The Ogden and Provo Temples are unlike any other temple, they are larger symbols, where the architectural systems of space, structure, and program are subordinated and suppressed by the overall symbolic form.  As Robert Venturi alleged: “This type of building-becoming-sculpture we call the duck in honor of the duck shaped drive-in, “The Long Island Duckling.” [xvii]  The Provo and Ogden Utah temples are therefore ducks in Postmodern theory.

Each temple was designed and conceived of as a streamlined futuristic machine with a singular functional motive: to relentlessly churn out ordinance work for the living and dead.  In that regard, each has been highly successful and despite the paucity of architectural acceptance, each has assumed an iconic presence and defined a sense of place. 


NOTES:
[i] Venturi, Robert.  Complexity and Contradiction.  Museum of Modern Art:  New York. 1966.
[ii] Scully, Vincent.  Complexity and Contradiction.  Introduction.  Museum of Modern Art:  New York. 1966 10.
[iii] Martha Sonntag Bradley Utah History Encyclopedia. http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowboys/zcmi.html
Erected 1933 by Young Men’s and Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association & Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association. (Marker Number 20.)
[v] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. 20.
[vi] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city.
[vii] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. 109
[viii] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. 109
[ix] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. P. 19.
[x] Vision in the Desert : the tree of Utah--a sculpture by Momen / Herman Du Toit. 2000.  Agreka Books, Salt Lake city. P. 109.
[xi] Max B. Knudson (1 June 1982). "Saudis, Utahns open Gateway to future". Deseret News.
[xii] "Broadcast House at Triad Center-A Refelction of KSL's Commitment to the Future". Deseret News. 12 July 1984.
[xiii] Max B. Knudson (7 June 1985). "Arab glad he didn't give up on Utah". Deseret News.
[xiv] LDS soon to buy Devereaux House, Deseret News, July 14, 2005.
[xv] http://history.utah.gov/apps/markers/detailed_results.php?markerid=2671
[xvi] Jencks, Charles.  The Language of Post-Modern Architecture.  3rd Edition.  Rizzoli:  New York.  1977. 40.
[xvii] Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour.  Learning From Las Vegas : The Forgotten Symbol of Architectural Form.  Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 1977.  87.

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

2 comments:

  1. The Provo and Ogden temples were primarily, in design, supposed to be a metaphorical representation of the "Cloud by day, fire by night" from the Old Testament account of Jehovah protecting the Israelites as they left Egypt. The original gold/orange-ish spires and glass below the white "cloud"/box represented the fire. The spires were painted white in the late 90's or early 2000's--more synonymous with typical temple design, and thus more acceptable to the public, but in opposition to the original design intent.

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  2. Regardless whether you agree or disagree/support or do not support any of these post-modern architectural buildings/construction, you can't deny that each of them does have a certain presence. In a way, that fulfills the fact that each of them were intended to be something more than just functional buildings.

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