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

[iv] http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=35756 

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

The Birth of Utah’s Automobile Tourism

Writing in 1987, Wallace Stegner argued:

“The principle invention of western American culture is the motel, the principal exhibit of that culture the automotive roadside. The principal western industry is tourism, which is not only mobile but seasonal. Whatever it might want to be, the West is still primarily a series of brief visitations or a trail to somewhere else.” (1)

Driving north into Salt Lake City along U.S. Highway 89, one encounters extant architectural remnants of the recent past nestled along the fringes of the roadway in the Siesta Motel at 3100 South State, the Temple View Motel at 3060 South State, the Spiking Tourist Lodge at 2862 South State, the Alta Motel Lodge at 1910 South State, the Zion’s Motel at 1829 South State, the Capitol Motel at 1749 South State, the Wasatch Inn at 1424 South State, and the Uptown Motel at 1181 South State. Some motels developed off main routes into Salt Lake such as the Colonial Village Motel at 1540 South Main Street. These building types represented a new mode of lodging, unquestionably a direct result of the democratization of automobile ownership in America during the post-war years and of the Western zeitgeist as described by Stegner, distance and space, both resulting from Western aridity. (2)

Motels represented a counterpoint offspring to traditional commercial hotels popular through the first World War, which were typically located in congested downtown commercial cores and lacked adequate and convenient parking necessitated with the rise of the automobile. Beginning in the 1920s, automobile travelers and tourist frequently squatted off the roadside and earning the nickname “tin can tourists,” and the phenomenon increased during the depression era years of the 1930s. As a result, and in an effort to prevent uncivil vagrants, municipalities began dedicating areas as “automobile camps,” imposing entrance fees and fees for various amenities. In Denver, for example, the local fairgrounds were converted annually into an immense tent city, called Rocky Mountain Lake Park, to accommodate the automobile tourists. (3) The traveler provided their own accommodations. The automobile camps eventually evolved into cabin camps and, according to Architectural Record in 1933, were “one of the few ‘booming’ building sectors of the Depression.” (4) The cabin camps represented an effort to de-urbanize the nomadic experience by imbuing architectural folklore into the experience. These temporary and often poorly constructed cabin camps eventually gave rise to an upgraded building type which sidled up to the architectural terms “cottage and court,” evoking a sense of quaintness and comfort on the edge of the frontier.

The first cottage courts consisted typically of single story detached structures and were ideally located off of major highways approaching urban or populated areas. The cottages were typically arranged around a U-shaped court with a narrow drive path, a feature derived entirely from functional necessity to facilitate in-and-out traffic. Parking typically was located adjacent to the cottage in an attached garage, although this arrangement eventually evolved, with the individual cottages separated by attached garage units, thus forming a continuous facade. (5) In addition, there was typically a centrally located but separate office building that included a private apartment for the motel manager. “Architecturally, cottages were made to look like little suburban houses in order to enhance their appeal for the middle-class tourists and the traveling businessman.” (6) The continuous façade was a feature that distinguished the motor court from the cottage court. While the cottage courts were joined together, the individual buildings were freestanding and, therefore, the architecture evoked a sense of individuality and home. The motor court was typically a single building under a single roof line with one long continuous porch structure. A yellow page advertisement in 1948 under “Motor Courts” touted the Utah Motor Park at 972 South State and 1901 South Main as featuring “Phone and garage with each cottage” and “Complete privacy.” (7)

The term motel is, in fact, an American neologism, a contraction of the words hotel and motor, which appeared sometime between 1920 and 1925. (8) The alternative term which never really took hold was “autel,” a contraction of auto and hotel. The first official appearance of the motel as a building type was Arthur Heineman’s Milestone Mo-tel, in San Luis Obispo, California in 1926. (9) After World War II, the word motel was used to describe the new motor courts. (10) The motel would continue to evolve, culminating in massive multi-story developments clinging to the edges of America’s Interstate Highway’s, in essence, a suburbanized version of the central city hotel which was in effect the very lodging type that gave rise to the motel in the first place.

Some of the first motel prototypes were found in Salt Lake City, such as the Colonial Village Auto Court, constructed in 1937 at 1530 South Main Street, during the depths of the Great Depression. The Colonial Village was constructed on Salt Lake’s Main Street and, interestingly, not on State Street, the designation Highway 89 assumed as it passed through Salt Lake City. Typically motels would have been constructed adjacent to major arterials entering urban areas, which may have been the case, it just suggests a shift in emphasis to Highway 89 later during the 1940s.

As one of the first motel building types in Utah, the Colonial Village Auto Court followed the general trend of the Auto Courts, specifically single story structures joined together by attached garages arranged around an interior court with a narrow drive path. The office was located in the first building as one entered the complex of cottages and this deviated slightly from the prescribed plan but was a condition subject to site requirements. The main court area was located in the rear portion of the site in a quadrangle area reminiscent of Jefferson’s Academical Village. Originally this was a landscaped area meant to evoke a bucolic sense of the country.

Later, in the 1950’s, the area was enhanced with the ubiquitous motel amenity, the swimming pool. The Colonial Village Auto Court’s pool featured a deck made to look like a ship at sea, one wonders if weary travelers drunken on Utah’s summer sun ever lost their sense of place, smelling the salty briny air wafting off the landlocked Great Salt Lake, and believed they were at sea. The Colonial Village Auto Court later changed its name and its sign to the Colonial Village Motel. With its white picket fence, the Cape Cod styled residences with quaint colonial revival detailing such as shutters, chimneys, cornices etc, all evoked a romantic sense of home. A postcard published in the late 1930s advertised “Delightful Accommodations for Visitors in Center of Scenic America.”

That sense of home was always the most appealing feature of the Colonial Village Motel. From the back of a postcard postmarked 1951, “36 Modern Colonial Cottages – Quiet – Cool and Shaded,” and the restaurant next door at 1518 South Main, The Doll House, was advertised as “Home Style Food and Homey Atmosphere.”

The swimming pool was eventually taken out and replaced with parking as the motel has transitioned from overnight stays to short-term and weekly tenures targeted at low-income individuals, unfortunately a national trend, to maintain economic viability.

Motels began to gain footing in Salt Lake City in 1944 with the Zee’s Utah Motel at 1301 South State Street. This was the first official motel listed in the Salt Lake City Polk Directory. The inclusion in the Polk Directory signaled the legitimacy of the building type in Salt Lake City as these new forms attempted to distinguish themselves from the traditional urban hotel and from the motel’s close sibling, the motor court. By 1948, there were two listings in the local Polk Directory (Zee’s was omitted for unknown reasons but reappeared in later publications) the “Boulevard Tourist Lodges” at 1457 South Main and two locations of the “Harold F Roberts” located at 411 North 2nd West and 825 East 21st South. By 1949, there were eight listings under Motel and Hotel, and in 1951, twelve listings under Motel. The number consistently increased in subsequent publications and began leveling off in 1960 with ninety-nine listings under Motel. The local trend in Salt Lake followed national trends of booming motel construction between 1928 and 1961, which increased from 3,000 to 60,951.

The early Motels in Salt Lake City were meant to evoke a romantic sense of tourism, sometimes in a cheap and campy manner. The Casa Blanca Motel at 1489 South State Street was designed to mimic a Spanish hacienda, and in the 1949 postcard, it had all the key features of the Cottage Court, a U-shaped drive, central office, individual cottages joined via garages, and a streamlined path for the automobile as evidenced by the artists depiction.

The Mission Motor Lodge at 855 North 200 West was designed in a Spanish Colonial style, one to coincide to the adjacent Warm Springs. The entire ensemble, with its Alamo-esque parapet and stuccoed facades with the clay tile door canopies, was finished out with a veritable bell tower. The garages recalled liveries and so as to not confuse the tourist, however, the American Flag was proudly displayed atop the domed campanile.

The Utah Motor Park at 972 South State, was the epitome of the early motel building type. In a 1948 Yellow Page ad in the Polk Directory the “125 Beautiful Cottages” of the Utah Motor Park featured amenities such as “Phone and Garage with Each Cottage,” “Restaurant in Connection,” “Modern Public Laundry,” and “Playground for Youngsters.” The Utah Motor Park was built sometime in the late 1920s, a postcard from 1929 shows a fledgling landscape around its centrally located Clubhouse with the block “U” atop each gable. The Utah Motor Park was simple in its approach, it was a home away from home. The iconic Wasatch Mountain loom large in the distance.

The Pilot Café at 1726 West North Temple, was located near the airport, and was a later evolution of the early motels. It featured a continuous roof line, yet with individual walk-up entries to each cottage. The bulky mass of the towers at the ends and the center gave it a sense of a pan-opticon prison yard, easily seen and observed from the central tower, where the manager ostensibly was quartered.

In time, motels became more complex, large conglomerates, requiring acres of parking for the hundreds of rooms. The counterpoint to the Colonial Village Motel was Covey’s New America Motel, which occupied an entire 10-acre city block at 500 South Main Street in Salt Lake City, in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. The motel featured 320 rooms with air conditioning, radio’s and TV’s according to the 1948 yellow page advertisement in the Salt Lake City Polk Directory. As part of the national Best Western motel chain, this eventually became the Little America Motel and in the 1970s, was expanded to an unbelievable 850 rooms by constructing a large multistory tower, and becoming the Little America Hotel, the premier hotel in Salt Lake City and an ironic culmination to the building type that began modestly as a quaint cottage.

As the demand on Utah’s Highway systems increased in the 1930s, both for transient families en route to a better life in the west, and for those adventuresome Americans experiencing the new phenomenon of automobile tourism, in the “Center of Scenic America” the roadside lodging developed in parallel with the developing road systems, and a new economy emerged. Utah’s major automobile route ,US 89 was originally created in 1926, and entered the state at its southern border through Kanab and winding northward through various pioneer colonies such as Orderville, Panguitch, Salina, Gunnison, Ephraim, Manti, Mt. Pleasant, Fairview, Nephi, Springville, Provo, Pleasant Grove, Lehi, through the Salt Lake Valley and Salt Lake City, and then finally through Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington, Ogden, Brigham City, and Logan to name a few before exiting Utah and making its run through Idaho to the Canadian border. It was along this major automobile route that the motels developed most abundantly from the 1930s through the 1940s. While other routes in Utah were key in the development of motels across the state such as Highway 6 through Price, Highway 189 through Heber City, Highway 40 through Vernal, and Highway 191 through Moab and Price, US 89 was the spine on which all other highway systems were built.

 Motels along these routes were numerous. Kanab, being adjacent to the Grand Canyons north rim, was home to a large population of motel development, and came to be known as “Little Hollywood.” Parry Lodge was founded in 1931 by three brothers: Whitney, Chauncey, and Gronway Parry and has hosted some of the biggest names from the golden age of Hollywood including John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Olivia De Havilland, Gregory Peck, Maureen O'Hara, Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Robert Taylor, Anne Bancroft, Dean Martin, Lana Turner, Clint Eastwood and Barbara Stanwyck, to name a few. The Parry Lodge was a typical Cottage Court motel with the central office (Parry Lodge) and surrounding cottages set in a quaint and comfortable setting. Surprisingly, these are the very features that make it a viable business today.

Some motels have remained vital, still drawing on the relatively unchanged landscape of the early highway system and its modest traffic flow to and from western attractions. These motels have remained somewhat immune to the competition at the larger interstate motel developments. A drive along the southern path of Highway 89 attests to that. However, elsewhere, motels are demolished, abandoned, or reused as transient short term lodging, typically for lower income individuals as demand diminishes for the quaint off-road attractions, replaced by larger national chains which obliterate the economic viability of the mom and pop motel. Most of the roadside motels have had to assume new uses. The Springville Motel at 282 North Main Street in Springville, for example, has altered it business scope and is now the Springville Motel and Apartments. Unfortunately, it’s lost the quaint feel and instead evokes a sense of difficulty and deficiency.

The Seagull Motel at 325 North 200 West (US 89) in Salt Lake City is a good example of the future fate of the building type, although it is not an optimistic one. In 2007, construction was initiated to adapt the motel into ‘urban condos,’ however the 2008 recession jolted the project to a halt and the site is in now abandoned and falling into serious disrepair with little or no hopeful future.

Notes:

1.  Stegner, Wallace. The American West as Living Space. p. 23.
2.  Stegner, Wallace. The American West as Living Space. p. 27.
3.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 31-35.
4.  Quote taken from Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 39.
5.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 42-43.
6.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 43.
7.  Polk Directory, Salt Lake City, 1948. Buyers Guide.
8.  Merriam Webster’s College Dictionary, 1991 Edition.
9.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 18.
10.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. 45.
11. Polk Directory, Salt Lake City, 1944. Zee’s Utah Motel at 1301 South State Street, Tel. 6-0802 was the first listing for a Motel.
12.  Jakle, John A., et al. The Motel in America. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996. Table 1.2 p. 20.
13.  http://www.parrylodge.com/

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

The Dilution of the History at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City

The block currently housing Trolley Square was previously the site of the L.D.S. Tenth Ward Square, designated by Brigham Young on February 22, 1849 as one of the original nineteen wards in Salt Lake City. Architectural remnants of the Tenth Ward can still be found near the Trolley Square block. According to the historic marker located at 410 South 800 East:

"…only the Tenth Ward Square retains the buildings which served the settlers’ spiritual, economic, cultural and education needs. Still standing are the 1873 meeting house, the first building used exclusively for religious purposes; the third schoolhouse, built in 1887 and one of the earliest known designs of Richard K. Kletting, prominent architect and Mormon immigrant of 1883; the late Gothic Revival church constructed in 1909; and the Tenth Ward store built in 1880."  (1)

The Tenth Ward was originally bounded by Sixth East to the west, the foothills to the east, Third South to the north and Sixth South to the south. The ten-acre block Tenth Ward Sqaure since served as the states’s first fairgrounds and more prominently as the Utah Light and Railway Yard when Union Pacific and Southern Pacific President E. H. Harriman selected the site for a $3.5 million investment to construct the Mission-Style trolley sheds and maintenance buildings in 1908. By 1914, with its state-of-the-art trolley system and network of tracks, more than 144 trolleys served the Salt Lake Valley, and as far north as Bountiful and Centerville, from the site. The system utilized 146 miles of track and was the premier transportation system in the state. With the advent and rapid dissemination of the automobile, however, the trolley lines were phased out and displaced by a more economical and seemingly agile modern bus system in 1945.

By the early 1970s the trolley sheds were in a state of serious neglect, their early prominence and architectural detail disguised by a coat of shameful yellow paint, applied by the Utah Transit Authority and Utah Power and Light Company, co-owners of the block and used as a bus storage facility. (2)

The archaic trolley sheds were saved from demolition in 1972 by local developer Wallace A. Wright, Jr. The iconic structures were scrubbed of the off-putting hues and transformed into a destination market-place, resembling similar adaptive reuse projects such as San Francisco’s Ghiradelli Square and Boston’s Faneuil Hall. Wright’s attention to detail and reuse of architectural elements from turn-of-the-century relics in constructing its stores created a truly unique ambience and would eventually endear the place to the local residents and mark the site as an important historic Salt Lake City icon. Following the renovations, the newly redeveloped Trolley Square was immediately registered as a historic site by the State of Utah in 1973 and later included on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. It remains one of the most visited and recognized historic sites in Salt Lake City.

Trolley Square has successfully served the high end retail market since the early 1970s and, more recently, in an effort to maintain its viability and, ironically, in the wake a tragic multiple homicide on February 12, 2007, announced a $60 million dollar expansion including renovation of the existing structure and the additions of nearly 185,000 square feet of space. The expansion required the demolition of the historic Sand House building, located on the northeast side of Trolley Square and which recently housed a Wells Fargo Branch, where the construction of a new 40,000 square foot Whole Foods Store is forcefully underway. The development of the entire Trolley square block is evident as the historic trolley sheds and maintenance buildings progressively recede into the shadows of the larger structures obscuring the views to the historic buildings and into historic site. The loss of the historic Sands Building is evidence of the developer’s economic priority to wring out every possible dollar from the site and their concurrent devaluation of the fragile historic asset.

The lack of creativity on the developer’s part to work within the existing historic context will ultimately diminish the force and success of the project. It will lose its quaint and endearing connection and sense of place with the local residents while its historic character is lost in the struggle with its new oppressive sibling. In a recent article in Salt Lakes alternative newspaper, City Weekly, Alan Barnett, lead reference archivist at the Utah State History Archives, stated in reference to the Trolley Square expansion: “It’s not the end of the world, but it’s one more thing that sort of erodes our community.” (3)

Given the sensitive historic nature of the proposed expansion, the project was scrutinized by the Salt Lake City Landmarks Commission beginning in 2007 as the developers, Trolley Square Associates, LLC, presented plans petitioning the commission for a Certificate of Historic Appropriateness. During the initial meeting, the Historic Landmarks Staff recommended approval of the application with a number of recommendations including, among others, extending the ground level windows on the east elevation of Building C closer to the ground to create a knee wall consistent with the store fronts of the existing buildings, that the parking level of Building C have two cutouts per wall section and that the cutouts are similar in dimension to existing second story windows on the historic buildings, and that the section of wall on the west elevation of Building C include some design feature or artwork that creates a visually interesting terminus to Trolley Lane.

The Landmarks Commission is bound by the Design Guidelines for Residential Historic District in Salt Lake City when reviewing proposed development projects in historic districts. The word “similar” permeates the text in this guiding document as it attempts to describe the architectural relationship between new construction and existing historic buildings. Paradoxically, that same document, in Chapter 11 “New Construction in Historic Districts” states:

"Rather than imitating older buildings, a new design should relate to the fundamental characteristics of the district while also conveying the stylistic trends of today. It may do so by drawing upon basic ways of building that make up a part of the character of an individual historic district. Such features upon which to draw include the way in which a building is located on its site, the manner in which it relates to the street and its basic mass, form and materials. When these design variables are arranged in a new building to be similar to those seen traditionally in the area, visual compatibility results." (4)

However, stylistic trends of today are not deemed compatible and the Landmarks Commission regards compatibility as Post-Modernist folly. The shortsighted views of the Historic Landmarks Commission have diluted the existing historic character at Trolley Square with ‘compatible’ new construction. The site has become a bland and prosaic mix of old and new architecture. New construction in historic districts is so handicapped by compatibility restrictions that there is no conveyance of “stylistic trends of today.” The misguided efforts of local landmark commissions to maintain historic character is at the heart of the loss of that very character.

In an oblique statement from the developer in April 2007, the project was described as retaining “all of the elements that have distinguished it in the past…” (5)  Similarly, Jerry Hunt, co-founder and president of Blake Hunt Ventures, the development partner for Trolley Square Associates LLC stated:

"There’s a lot of emotional attachment to Trolley. What we wanted to do from the very beginning…is not take away from Trolley but really add some other components and dimensions to it. We think it’s a wonderful project and had great ‘bones.’ We just wanted to enhance it and add to it." (6)

Salt Lake's Historic Landmark Commission approved the expansion at Trolley Square at the September 5, 2007 meeting by a 5 to 1 vote and construction began in 2008. In an almost laughable report by the Ogden Standard Examiner under the title: “Trolley Square gets a modern update while still preserving most of the historic feel” the expansion is described in terms of historic compromise:

"Although many residents of Salt Lake City are saddened by the loss of the ability to view the historic architecture from the street, the new construction is, in general, sensitive to the historic landmark as it incorporates many of the historic elements, such as archways, into the architecture of the new buildings. This type of historic compromise is sometimes required in order to keep historic structures viable for modern living."  (7)

There is, in fact, little sensitivity in the design of the Trolley Square expansion. The article continues by describing the requirement by the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission to include “appropriate architectural style of the new buildings to blend appropriately with the historic architecture.” (8)   The appropriate architectural style of the new buildings required by the Landmarks Commission provoked the dilution of the historic mass and scale, materiality, façade elements, rhythm and spacing, and overall architectural character. In a word, the historic buildings no longer possess their idiosyncratic style due to a false and cheap imitation. The white concrete arches of the original entrances to the trolley sheds are shamelessly adapted and copied throughout the project, resembling a throwback to McDonald’s retro-arch. The new buildings are clad in a distressed red brick, one to match the effects of sandblasting, a process imposed on the trolley sheds during the 1970s renovation. The most disturbing element in the development is, ironically, the glorification of the automobile with the new eye-popping semi-circular concrete ramp providing access to the parking structure above the Whole Foods Store. The ramp is sited on the most prominent portion of the site on the corner of 700 East and 500 South and will compete with the iconic water tower in visual prominence. The only elements missing on the ramp are pulsating neon lights. Why the decision was made to park the cars above the store and not to dig out a traditional below grade parking structure is beyond my capacity to imagine. Perhaps it was to display the true nature of the project as a homogenous surburban shopping center, as Alan Barnett feared. The above grade parking structure stinks of a Walmart-like distrust and dislike of existing context. No longer is Trolley Square telling the story of its history as a train shed, but now it is just a glorified automobile shed. As such, Building C, the largest building on the complex is unnecessarily tall at 38 feet 8 inches, with the entrance feature reaching 45 feet. But, keep in mind, it’s not as tall as the existing trolley shed building to the south and, therefore, its compatible. The original hierarchy of the site is, however, completely lost as a result. Whereas, the trolley shed building fronting 700 East was previously the primary building on the site (Building D in developer parlance), Building C has now assumed that role because it is 8 feet longer along 700 east and sits roughly 30 feet closer to 700 East than Building D. Its façade does not in any way continue the consistent rhythm found in Building D, in fact its façade is so disjointed and disconnected, one is left wondering how many designers were involved in drafting the lengthy elevation. At a typical 1/8” architectural scale, it would require three 42” wide sheets to capture that façade.

The Landmarks Commission’s tacit approval of these elements is perplexing. They speak of rhythm and continuity, yet shut their eyes and plug their ears when confronted with the very issue. In all their deliberations, there is little discussion of the façade of Building C and its relation to existing context, especially its relation to the significant historic façade to the south (Building D) and its detrimental impact. As a commission, they were much more concerned with the creation of an interior courtyard and the ‘partially’ intact views of the historic buildings from the surrounding streets.

As requested by the Landmarks Commission, the developer enlisted the help of ZUM LLC, a digital rendering company, to produce images of the final project. (9)  The rich blue sky and the crowds of happy people with their bulging shopping bags inhabiting the site can’t disguise the awkward relation between old and new architecture in the background. In each of the images, there is a messy layering, with the existing structures peering out from behind the bulk of the new, like chained and caged animals. In an evasive manner, the developers never rendered the principal elevation of Building C, the behemoth on 700 East. They were more gracious though in the animation sequence, providing a three second window of the east elevation from a camera positioned on a helicopter doing a high pass about a mile to the north-east.

The expansion project is nothing short of historic encapsulation, an analogical method of abatement for asbestos and lead in historic buildings. By covering the threatening materials with new, the threat is encapsulated and neutralized. There is no difference here, except that what is being covered and obscured is a valuable asset to the community and source of a valuable sense of place. Trolley Square will lose its appeal in the effort to eke out every last dollar from the site. Ironically, the adaptive reuse and preservation of Trolley Square’s viability as a market place in the 1970s will be the lynchpin that assures its eventual destruction, for as they say, “this type of historic compromise is sometimes required in order to keep historic structures viable for modern living.” (10)

1.  http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1417, from inscription on historical marker at 410 South 800 East, Salt Lake City.
2.  General information gathered from: http://www.trolleysquare.com/history.php
3.  http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/print-article-10572-print.html
4.  http://www.slcgov.com/CED/HLC/content/Design_Guidelines_Book.asp
5.  Trolley Square launching renovation Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Apr 12, 2007 by Jenifer K. Nii Deseret Morning News
6.  Trolley Square: Shopping mall is undergoing spiffy $60 million renovation. Brice Wallace Deseret Morning News Published: Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007
7.  Standard Examiner May 12, 2010.
8.  Standard Examiner May 12, 2010.
9.  http://www.zumllc.com/
10.  Standard Examiner May 12, 2010.


© 2010 Steven D. Cornell