Los Angeles Times Writer speaks to Conservancy in Berkeley

May 22, 2015

The architectural critic for the Los Angeles Times discussed the historical preservation movement in California, saying that it has become slow and reactive and how it can get back ahead of the curve of public taste. Hawthorne, who grew up in a Julia Morgan house in Berkeley, makes the point that the digitalization of information for a younger generation makes the cycle of taste move even faster. He featured several case studies including a guest house for the Hearst estate by Julia Morgan on the Hearst/Davies beachfront estate. There the pool was retained, along with restoration of the guest house, and a large glass pavilion like building or the Annenberg Beach House is not a bad contemporary addition to one side of the pool. He had several points to make including comments about Post Modern buildings of the 80's and 90's...which one concludes are abit of a mish mash.

The greatest loss in LA seems to have been the old Ambassador Hotel on Wiltshire Boulevard where 6 of the first ten Academy Award ceremonies were held. It was demolished and replaced by a high school, which echoes the architecture, in a dismal fashion. in 2004. The Frank Lloyd Wright Moore house was razed three years ago. The Hollyhock house is now owned by the city and has been restored. The Michael Graves Portman building was threatened but has managed to survive extinction. The Pomona Tower on its campus, the most distinctive building, is threatened with destruction.

The point which was compelling is that the public tires of a building after usually 35 years and razes it when the building is 50 as it has fallen out of favor. .He says we lose the buildings when we stop paying attention to them and someone else comes in and tears the building down. Invariably a decade later, the action of demolition is regrettable, as new interest has been stimulated in the architect, as is the case in the instance of Kenneth Roach, whose building by the coliseum was razed in New Haven, though the UN Plaza tower in Manhattan is still admired. Another case in point is the architect Mario Botto who currently interests students of architecture. He was the architect of the original SFMOMA. In its new expansionism, and when it is due to open in 2016, the interior stairwell designed by Botto will have been removed. . This architectural feature is one in which students are now deeply interested. SFMOMA is an example of a building which hardly lasted 15 years. He also cites the Berkeley Art Museum building, which was only about 20 years old, and now is being abandoned with no real idea about how it will be used in the future.

Hawthorne studied with Vincent Scully at Yale, and he wrote the piece about Julia Morgan, when she was awarded the Gold medal last year, post humously. He quotes Scully regarding the loss of the Penn Station in Manhattan: "One entered as a god, and now one scuttles in like a rat." I reminded him that Manhattan had more success in saving Grand Central, and about the renovation of the station in Washington DC and asked him where does the beautiful restoration and preservation of the LA train station fit? .

The lecture was given in a room off the main lobby, which has the appearance of once serving as a chapel. Like the rest of the club, it had vintage charms.