ive Preservation Howard County credit for
compiling a "Top Ten Endangered Sites" list. Its
systematic process for identifying and possibly
rescuing historic sites might avoid fiascoes that
jurisdictions such as Baltimore County have
experienced over precious sites worth saving. The
Howard list includes Blandair, a 17-room mansion
whose former owner refused to buckle to the
Columbia juggernaut, even as the new town
emerged around the building and its 300 acres. Also
placed in the endangered category are the Guilford
Pratt Truss Bridge, built a century ago to carry
B&O Railroad trains, and the Woodlawn slave
quarters, a small, poorly maintained 1840 stone
building at the Ellicott City-Columbia border. It
would be hard to argue against putting such historic
structures on the preservation list. That's not the
case with one of the top-10 selections: the Columbia
Exhibit Center. Oddly, the preservationists think a
building celebrating its 34th birthday deserves
historic protection. That notion is laughable. It
threatens to make a joke of Preservation Howard
County's otherwise farsighted idea. The Exhibit
Center, at the edge of Lake Kittamaqundi, has
important contemporary significance. It was
designed by Frank Gehry, now a world-famous
architect. Columbia's opening in 1967 drew
international attention and more than 100,000
visitors to the center. The group says the building
symbolizes Howard County's transformation from agricultural to urban.
Members fear it will fall victim to urban redevelopment. But while the center
may be important, it's not necessarily historic. You can't seriously mention the
Exhibit Center in the same breath as the William Paca House in Annapolis or
the 18th-century Georgian brick home of Owings Mills founder Samuel Owings
- a house recklessly demolished in 1996 in Baltimore County. Preservationists
sometimes place too much importance on a building's age and believe that
every old structure, no matter how insignificant, is worth saving. But endurance
isn't the only factor for determining historic importance. The preservation group
needs to amend its Top 10 list, perhaps placing the Exhibit Center on a
secondary roster of significant buildings. Then the group would be able to make
much stronger arguments for saving Howard County's truly historic sites.
Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun
And PHC's response...
Letter to the Editor May 21, 2001
The Sun (Saturday, May 19, 2001 Editorial) raises the interesting
question of, "How could the Columbia Exhibit Center, built only 34 years
ago, be historic?" Merriam Webster defines historic as "Famous or
important in history. Having great and lasting importance." In other
words, "historic" implies more about a site's great and lasting
importance than it does about a site's age. Preservationists have
recognized that saving the "recent past" is an important goal of
preserving a historic context. The National Trust for Historic
Preservation's current endangered list includes the San Anita Racetrack
in California, which was built in the 1930's and noted for its elaborate
Art Deco exterior. Recent additions to the National Park Service's
list of Historic Landmarks (the highest "historic" designation available
nationally) include the First Christian Church built in the 1940's in
Columbus Ohio, as well as a series of Visitor Centers built during the
same timeframe as the Columbia Exhibit Center.
The Columbia Exhibit Center is significant to our County from a heritage
perspective. Howard County changed forever with the birth of Columbia,
and the Columbia Exhibit Center, in many ways, represents that birth.
The "downtown" Exhibit Center was the unofficial gateway to the new
community. For long-time County residents, this was their glimpse of
the future. For many prospective residents, the exhibits in the Center
were their first introduction to Howard County's past. James Rouse was a
pioneer in his concept of a new design for community living. The
Exhibit Center could be considered as much of a gateway to this pioneer
effort as was the Cumberland Gap a gateway for earlier pioneers.
Just as Rouse was a pioneer in community planning, he was also prescient
in his choice of architects. The Columbia Exhibit Center was designed
by noted architect, Frank O. Gehry. Mr. Gehry is the acclaimed designer
of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa Spain, and the recipient of the
prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize - the Nobel prize of
architecture. The Guggenheim Museum in New York opened the "Frank Gehry,
Architect" retrospective this past week. The New York Times in its
review of the retrospective states that it "goes far toward dispelling
the anger that has restricted our age from acknowledging artistic
greatness in our midst." A recent article in the Los Angeles Times
proclaims that "Few architects have attained the raw technical skill
that Gehry has over a 40-year career. Fewer still have created a body
of work that so fully encapsulates the transition from one historical
era to another." Howard County residents are indeed fortunate to have
such a fine example of early Gehry architecture, which most certainly
will be of "great and lasting importance."
Preservation Howard County firmly supports the vision that history is as
much about looking forward, as it is about looking back. Our "Top Ten"
list supports this view by having sites from the 17th, 18th, 19th and
20th centuries. We look forward to developing plans that seek to
preserve each of these endangered sites and we encourage interested
citizens to join us in this endeavor. For more information, visit
www.preservationhowardcounty.org or call 410-465-5011.
Sincerely,
Mary Catherine Cochran, President
Preservation Howard County, Inc
