The Life of American Cities: October 12, 2014

One Good Street Per City…Is It Enough?

Recently Ogden’s 25^th Street was named as one of America’s Ten Best Streets by the American Planning Association.  A well-deserved distinction, Ogden’s 25^th Street has long been a favorite of mine, along with other great Utah streets like Provo’s Center Street, Brigham City’s Main Street, Park City’s Main Street, along with most of Utah’s smaller central towns like Helper, Gunnison, and Panguitch, to name a few. 

Most of the examples of good streets in Utah towns and in American towns and cities in general are the result of cyclical economics.  These streets were originally the commercial centers of the cities and towns we call home.  They were more than just centralized business locations, they were the town centers, the civic characters of cities and were the heart of communities.  Most originated prior to the automobile, and thereby were centrally located for pragmatic reasons; they were the “walkable” and “walk toable” centers of the communities.  All the services necessary to support daily living in a neighborhood node or a small community were found in these civic centers, and as a result they were filled with people.  Over time, as first the streetcar and then the automobile came onto the scene, the centers were stretched and pulled apart as fundamental services were displaced.  Over time, investment in the centers waned and many fell into disrepair and neglect.  People ceased visiting the centers due to the lack of essential services which only further eroded the character of these bygone places.  People began taking an interest again in the 1970s, and what all these great streets have in common today is a huge public and private investment over the last 40 years to revive these civic centers.  Much of the reason they are great today is due to the fact that when they were forgotten, they were truly forgotten and the original structures were abandoned and left alone. 

But 40 years of intense investment to still have the root of the original problem exist is demoralizing. These streets are quaint and cute, but they are really just a fake image of their former selves.  It’s as if the original owners moved out or were forced out and were replaced with absentee landlords.  Now, it’s not my intention to criticize the businesses that exist on these streets because in many cases they are locally owned businesses, but drugstores have been replaced with optometrist offices, nickel and dime’s  with high-end bike shops, department stores with law firms, grocery stores with lingerie shops, and sporting goods stores with overpriced restaurants. In other words, the basic services that used to exist on these streets no longer exists, instead boutique shops line the streets because nothing is capable of competing with suburbia’s big box retail outlets. Habitation on these streets is typically limited to evenings, weekends, and holidays when it feels good to stroll down the paths of a great place.  I would argue that Ogden’s 25^th Street is a great street that is dedicated to the automobile and it is really only great from Grant Avenue to its Union Station terminus.  That seems to be the problem. 

But the larger issue is that our American cities have one great street, one great place, and it rests on a terribly fragile foundation.  As long as our cities are dedicated to the automobile we may have to be assuaged with having just one great street.  Until we revolt and start imposing on our cities a “walkable” and “walk toable” landscape, that will be what we are left with.   Take a walk down to your Main Street, USA, inhabit the place.  Walk it.  Use it.  Demand the need for it.  Start your own revolution to make American Cities great, one street at time, not just on one street, but the whole city.

The Life of American Cities: October 4, 2014

Having just returned from a two week excursion in Italy seeing such places as Venezia, Roma, Firenze, Milano, and five beautiful coastal villages built impossibly on the craggy cliffside abutting the Ligurian sea called "Le Cinque Terre" (Riomaggiore, Manorola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso), over the next 2 months I will write a blog about my experiences, my reminiscences, my biases, and my readings of the life of my American city, Salt Lake.  In the course of my blog, I will include my experiences of other American cities I have visited in the past, namely New York, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Charleston, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Austin, Buffalo, Spokane, Indianapolis, Seattle, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, to name a few, as well as some better known Utah cities such as Ogden, Provo, St. George and some lesser known examples like Springville, Orderville, and Saratoga Springs.  In addition, I will be looking closely at another American city I will be visiting in November, Savannah, Georgia. 

The Life of American Cities: October 3, 2014

I spent 25 minutes walking one way to the nearest coffee shop (not located in a convenient store) from my house.  I passed 3 bikers and one pedestrian, and this is rush hour, 8:00 am on Friday.

South Salt Lake and the Quest for Civic Identity

The City of South Salt Lake relishes a rich history, more than the current physical structure of the city invokes.  When the pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, settlements were quickly established on the fertile strip of land flanking the river flowing out of the Wasatch mountains to the east, later named Millcreek, as irrigation ditches were dug, and the valley's finest farms, orchards, and dairies were established on the flat alluvial landscape.  The plan for Salt Lake City's blocks ended at 900 South (today 2100 South).  The area to the south of Salt Lake's southern edge to present day 2700 South, was referred to as the "Big Field," where the pioneers cultivated their needed crops in the abundant fields. Originally, the area was made up of three distinct unincorporated areas: Millcreek, Central Park and Southgate and the area continued to be sparsely populated agricultural land, with parcels allocated in five- to twenty-acre units, until about 1870. Around that time, local businesses began to develop  including Husler's Mill, built about 1865 on the banks of Millcreek onTerritory Road, which is today's vehicular behemoth, State Street.

Husler Mill, ca. 1921

Other private, noteworthy developments of that era include Winder Dairy and Calder Park. Calder Park was established in the 1860s by George and mary Calder, clearing the well watered land with oxen, planting grass and trees and creating a lake from a natural spring to be used for boating spanned by a picturesque bridge.  The proprietors continued to develop the park installing a dance pavilion, racetrack, ball park, a carousel, and other attractions.  The park passed through different ownership including the Rapid Transit Street Car Company which ran the park from 1891 to 1902 and extended streetcar service to the park along 700 East installing electric power throughout the park. At its peak, Calder Park was attracting over 100,000 patrons per season.

Wandamere Park 1911

The LDS Church’s Granite Stake assumed ownership in 1909 and changed the name to Wandamere Park and, presently, after being acquired by Charles Nibley and donated to Salt Lake City is today known as Nibley Park, a municipal golf course, and but a shadow of its former self.

The area continued to grow and develop.  Near the turn of the century, development of infrastructure began with major dirt roads being covered with slag from nearby smelters and the construction of public buildings such as schools and churches.



State Street looking south from 2100 South



Miller School and Mormon Church, 3300 South, ca. 1910

Two of these structures remain as historical landmarks. The Scott School was built in 1890 on the northeast corner of 3300 South and 500 East. With various additions made over the years, the schoolhouse evolved to become part of Granite High School, and currently functions as the Pioneer Craft House, owned by the City of South Salt Lake, and continues to play an important educational and cultural role in the community.  In 1899 the Catholic Church built the Saint Ann's Orphanage and church on the south side of 2100 South between 400 and 500 East. The orphanage was adapted into an elementary school in 1955 and remains as one of the premier private educational institutions in the Salt Lake Valley.

St. Ann's Orphanage, ca. 1910.

The Granite Tabernacle was built by the Mormon Church in 1903 on the northeast corner of 3300 South and State Street. The Granite Tabernacle was considered one of the finest tabernacles, with a tower rising 133 feet and a dome arching seventy feet over the assembly hall that seated 2,500 people. Unfortunately, the landmark building was demolished in 1956 and the site is today imperiously occupied by a Megaplex theater.

Granite Stake Tabernacle, ca. 1910.

In 1936, several area businessmen formed the South Salt Lake Businessmen's Association to address the issue of using septic tanks or open cesspools which drained into local creeks, and decided to put the issue of incorporation to a vote. Against strong opposition, the vote passed on September 28, 1938, and the City of South Salt Lake was incorporated. The sewer was built for $462,000 using mostly pick axes and shovels. The City of South Salt Lake was the result of a pragmatic collaboration by forward looking business owners to provide sewer treatment and municipal water services to the businesses and residents living in the shadows of Utah’s capital.  The founding of South Salt Lake is thematically tied to secession, given the unwillingness and lack of commitment on the part of Salt Lake City to respond to growing needs, the city fathers set out to create a community to serve the residents, businesses and farms populating the area in an effort to create an individual civic identity and community.

City of South Salt Lake Landmark

So what’s happened since that time?  South Salt Lake’s history quietly eroded away being overrun by a monotonous landscape filled with Salt Lake’s leftover industry.  South Salt Lake has lost numerous historic buildings and landscapes and is now segregated from communion with Salt Lake City and its own west side, cut off by Interstate-80 and I-15.  The hub of the most traversed intersection in the state, the “Spaghetti Bowl,” filled with a complex array of on and off ramps, rushes travelers through the city at enormously high speeds.  In addition to the mid century transportation infrastructure, South Salt Lake is the site of a large commuter transit hub, the Central Pointe station connecting Sandy-Salt Lake and the Salt Lake-Daybreak line. 

As the city has developed over the 20^th century, a disproportionate commitment to industry and business earned the city the moniker “City of Industry,” to the detriment of its city character and negation of diversity.  South Salt Lake’s borders are diaphanous and ill-defined, existing chaotically as a carpet haphazardly rolled out from Salt Lake City along State Street. 

As the City embarks on their journey into the 21^st century, a visionary mayor and city council are attempting to build a sustainable and livable community atop the existing framework of disjunction and fracture, “a city on the move.”  Mayor Cherie Wood asserts, “Those who live here realize that these city lines contain all that could be desired in a community.”  While the statement is an exaggerated attempt to sell the city to business and residents alike, there is an element of truth to the statement.  The more accurate statement would be that “these city lines could contain all that could be desired in a community.”  There remain mountains of work to do.  One effort that has languished in the poor economy is the Market Station project, a large scale mixed use development centered around the light-rail transit hub at Central Pointe. In addition, by 2013, a street car line is expected to run along an existing rail line just south of 2100 South (the northern border of the city) from the Central Pointe TRAX station to the Sugar House neighborhood.  These progressive developments are pointing the city in the right direction, however there needs to be a centralizing force, a project which coalesces all of these important elements into one shared whole.

Proposed Market Station, 2100 South and Main Street

To that end, the most significant component of that vision is the effort on the part of the city leaders to establish a city center, a symbol of the community.  Rather than redefining or inventing a symbol for the community, the city has set its sights on historic Granite High School, recently vacated by the school district due to declining attendance and shifting demographics.  The opportunity to purchase the property presented itself and the city of South Salt Lake embarked on the road to acquisition by putting the decision to the voters of South Salt Lake in a $25 million dollar bond proposal. 

Granite Senior High School, 1934.

Home to one of the highest per capita violent crime rates in Utah, the status quo of South Salt Lake is so ingrained in the voters’ minds that they necessarily reject any proposal geared toward improving their community, creating civic identity, and establishing a sense of place.  South Salt Lake lacks any identifiable city center, physical or symbolic; and no, having a City Hall housed inside a billboard off of I-80 does not count.  The Granite High Bond was regrettably defeated, 1006 against to 1001 for. 

City of South Salt Lake City Hall, as viewed from I-80

The Granite High bond was an opportunity to create a long needed identity for the city, a civic center, a place to gather and commune, a democratic agora where citizens and politicians interact on equal terms.  The historic Granite High School would have become an immediate community asset, yet the voters in South Salt Lake have passed on a promising opportunity and must accept continuing second tier status.  Most businesses opposed the bond, citing poor economic times, a shortsighted vision, negating that South Salt Lake would become a more attractive business center as a real community is established.

Artist rendering of redeveloped Granite High School Campus

So to a missed opportunity, a reiteration of the fight song of the Granite High Farmers is warranted:

“When sight and sound of the campus

Fade in the long, busy years

Yet will return in our memories

Echoes of old songs and cheers.

You, of the field, track and diamond,

Fighters for clean victory,

You who love the fair, square sport,

You'll hear the song of the "G".

Go it Granite, go it Granite

Hear the battle cry;

Go it Granite, go it Granite

Yours 'til we die.

She will remember, you'll not forget her

Though you are far away

She is calling, calling to you ever

Honor the grand old "G"!”

© 2011 Steven Daniel Cornell 

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 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