Architectural perspective

One thing that travel accomplishes is to give one a fresh perspective on an issue that’s facing the community at home.

I recently returned from the richly historic and charming city of Santa Fe where the residents, merchants, city planners and developers are struggling with how to keep the city looking old and picturesque for the tourist trade while satisfying the innovative forces that are driving architects and designers. Sound familiar to Sarasota or Venice residents?

Within the large historic district of Santa Fe there are only two permissible building styles, Pueblo and Territorial. The first kind of edifice is made with adobe and is rustic and rounded with small windows and flat fronts. The second (post 1847) is made of brick and wood and often combines pueblo and Victorian styles.

When painting a downtown Santa Fe structure one must choose from 30 approved earthy paint colors and no building, except for a hotel, can ascend to over three stories. This strict code means there are photo opportunities aplenty for visitors and it has provided Santa Fe with a genuine sense of place that is envied by other tourist cities. Its architecture is almost a brand.

Santa Fe officials are now extending the historic district and thus expanding restrictive codes. Many architects are balking, insisting that the vernacular architecture of the past, while it was successful in responding to the climate, topography and to the limited available building materials of bygone days, has turned into kitsch.

Civic leader Garrett Thornburg, who awards an architecture prize each year, thinks it isn’t even good kitsch. Quoted in Santa Fe’s Trend magazine, he notes: “You don’t stop progress…with fake adobe. If you walk around the Plaza, count how many buildings are of brick with a fake stucco cover. Disney does it better. The Disney-fication of downtown Santa Fe: enough already!”

He goes on to say that in the historic cities of Copenhagen or Amsterdam, “when a 1650s building falls down, they don’t try to create a fake one. They build something new.”

In another of the magazine’s interviews, Alain de Botton -- who has written the book “The Architecture of Happiness” -- discusses how Santa Fe might preserve its authentic character without stifling creativity.

“The challenge is how to avoid bland modernity and kitsch," he said. "By kitsch I mean construction in a style that has cut itself off from its authentic roots, which has stopped responding to functional requirements, which is disconnected from the reality around it.”

Botton goes on to conclude: “My general notion is that buildings in Santa Fe should continue to be built in traditional materials but in evermore adventurous and contemporary forms or shapes.”

In the young city of Sarasota, our vernacular or historic architecture is probably Florida cracker, Mediterranean revival and more recently Sarasota school of architecture (SSA). Should we be preserving any or all of these styles as we envision new public buildings, schools and private homes? Or should we be advancing adventurous concepts and promoting building materials that better respond to a sub-tropical, beach-rich community in the 21st century?

If we embrace the new do we concede our sense of place? Does the architecture of Sarasota even describe or evoke a genuine sense of place? As heated debate continues in this town at all levels about preservation, adaptive use and new design, it’s reassuring to realize that other cities are grappling with the same issues with the same intensity.

Other places have lamented the loss of their Lido Beach Casino, Ringling Towers and SSA beach houses on Lido Shores and Casey Key. Other cities are trying to come up with vast sums of money to convert significant buildings as we debate converting Paul Rudolph’s Riverview High to some alternative use. Citizens of other cities are looking at modern buildings such as the Herald-Tribune and either wondering if such a monstrosity belongs in a quaint downtown area or asking why such a bold and beautiful enterprise took so long to get here.

Whatever Sarasota citizens believe or decide about buildings that rise up out of our sand and limestone, the conversation about regressive versus progressive architecture is one worth having. When we argue about it, vote on it and passionately care about the architecture we live and work in, we are creating our own unique sense of place.