Even under the best of circumstances, adding modern architecture to historic buildings can be very challenging. And in less than skilled hands, modern additions have ruined landmark structures and historic context. We can all think of notoriously bad examples of new versus old architecture, of incompatible buildings pitted against each other in an unhappy relationship.

What's more, two people can see the same addition to a historic building and disagree strongly. Where one sees brilliance, another sees disaster.

What standards do we use in judging whether a new addition to a legally-protected landmark is appropriate?

This article provides a brief overview of relevant parts of the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, the standards that are typically used by landmarks boards across the U.S. when evaluating additions in the context of historic architecture. The article outlines some of the major trends that have developed over time in the interpretation of those standards. Included is a description of a new exhibit at AIA Seattle that includes a variety of projects that have been built in response to the Secretary's standards and similar standards from other countries.

Additions to Landmark Buildings: Historic Precedents

The history of architecture is full of famous examples of additions to pre-existing landmarks. To name a few: Maderno's façade transforming St. Peter's in Rome; the U.S. Capitol and its various re-workings; more recently, Charles Gwathmey's controversial additions to the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Some additions clearly defer to the older landmark. Others refer to it, but choose not to defer. And many additions in history have essentially obliterated the original landmark.

At other times, new architecture has joined forces with the old to create a new (and greater) architectural whole. Examples include Bernini's grand colonnade at St. Peter's and (I would argue) Pei's additions to the Louvre.

Development of the Secretary of the Interior's Standards

Attitudes towards historic architecture in the United States began to take a positive shift in the 1960s. Significant landmarks preservation laws were first enacted at that time, but only after many great landmarks (and huge swaths of historic districts) had been lost.

It's interesting to note that the development of landmarks laws was spurred along by the public outcry following the loss of one prominent landmark (Pennsylvania Station) and in response to a proposed office tower addition to another landmark New York train station (Grand Central).

Since 1976, the Secretary of the Interiors Standards for the Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings have been developed by the National Park Service for use in evaluating proposed rehabilitations of, and additions to, National Register historic properties. The Secretary's standards have been adopted by many city and county preservation review boards for similar use in implementing landmarks ordinances at the local level.

First used to accompany new Federal tax incentive and grant programs benefiting historic properties, a principal use of the Secretary's standards is in evaluating proposed projects in order to approve those projects for rehabilitation tax credits through the Federal Preservation Tax Incentive Program. In that capacity, the Secretary's standards have been used to evaluate the rehabilitation of over 30,000 historic properties in the U.S., involving more than $27 billion in private rehabilitation investment.

Standards and Additions to Historic Properties

The standards are made up of ten basic principles to be followed by those planning rehabilitation work of or additions to historic properties. They include guidance on the replacement and repair of historic features, the change of use of historic properties, and preservation of archaeological resources.

The Secretary's standards #9 and #10 are the standards that concern us here. These are crucial for those involved in the design, construction and review of new additions in the context of protected historic properties.

Standard #9 is of central importance. It reads: "New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment."

Standard #10 reads: "New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired."

Reading the Tea Leaves: Interpreting the Standards

The generalized language of the Secretary's standards allows for an extremely wide range of interpretation. This is good (it leaves lots of flexibility to fit the standards to local conditions and specific circumstances), but this wide range of possible meanings is the source of much of the discussion and disputes when local landmarks authorities attempt to impose the standards in connection with new additions to historic buildings.

Interpreting whether or not a proposed addition to a landmark building is "differentiated from the old" and "compatible with the massing, size, scale and architectural features" of the historic architecture is something of an architectural Rorschach test.

Two reasonable people can look at a proposed addition to a historic property, read the Secretary's standards, and then disagree completely on whether or not that proposal meets the standards. It's no surprise that there is a tendency to bring preconceived individual notions and preferences to the table when evaluating proposed additions to landmarks. This can lead to frustration on the part of applicants and has contributed to legal challenges to landmarks board's decisions.

Evolution Theories on Additions to Historic Properties

Beyond individual preferences, the standards have in some ways been interpreted by the majority of reviewers in one manner during a particular period, and then due to evolving theories and practice over time, those same standards have been interpreted by the majority in a substantially different way.

In the early decades of the modern movement in architecture, prior to the existence of widespread landmarks laws, architects often designed buildings that simply ignored the existence of adjacent historic buildings. The apparent assumption was that these old buildings would eventually be demolished in the brave new world of modernism.

At the time when the Secretary's standards were first widely applied, in the 1970s, 1980s and beyond, many architects designed additions adjacent to or within historic architecture to mimic the look of the adjacent historic architecture. This was an improvement over the worst additions of the past, where the historic landmarks suffered as a result of overly aggressive and inappropriate interventions.

But all too often these new, historicist additions were executed in a flat and unconvincing manner, with inferior materials, especially when juxtaposed with the real thing.

Recent Trends

Increasingly in recent years, architects have attempted to use clearly modern architecture in making additions to historic properties, to unambiguously set the new additions apart from the preexisting architecture. And the intent behind the Secretary's standard #9 is to do just that, to differentiate the historic architecture from the modern architecture. But many of these recent projects attempt to go beyond mere contrast.

In the best examples of this trend, architects have responded to, and attempted to reveal, underlying principles in the adjacent historic architecture, not simply mirror the surface appearance of the historic architecture.

More and more, architects in the U.S. (and around the world) are seeing historic building fabric as a rich resource for making new, modern architecture. Historic architecture is revered as a cultural "found object" that can be mined for meaning, as well as a great counterpoint to sleek modernity.

Many of these recent projects involve architecture that is undeniably modern but that respects and attempts to shed light on the old, without nostalgic references or mimicry. This is an emerging new development in the interpretation of the Secretary's standards. It is also an important development not only for modern architecture but also for the continued vitality and retention of historic buildings and historic districts.

Not surprisingly, designers working in cities with a large number of historic structures have been grappling with the interplay of modern and historic architecture for a longer period, more so than in newer cities such as Seattle.

Architects such as Carlo Scarpa, with his restoration and additions to Museo Castelvecchio (beginning in the 1960s) and his Banco Popolare di Verona (1970s), both located in Verona, Italy, paved the way for a new generation of architects working in a modern idiom, yet exploring ways of positively engaging historic architecture through modernist means.

Norman Foster's Carre D'Art in Nimes, southern France, built in the 1980s and 1990s, produced an unabashedly modern building set within the dense fabric of a historic city center. Foster's modern landmark is strikingly juxtaposed with a well-preserved 2,000 year old Roman temple.

There are many other projects built in Europe and in the northeastern U.S., especially, dating from the 1990s up through today, that have continued developing a newly enlightened modernism in the context of historic properties.

The AIA Seattle Exhibit, May 2003

A new exhibit in Seattle shows a wide range of new architecture built in response to preservation standards, including the Secretary's standards and similar standards in place in Europe and Canada. "Both/And: Building Modern in the Context of Historic Architecture," the May exhibit at AIA Seattle Gallery organized by the AIA Seattle Historic Resources Committee, focuses on projects from Seattle and other cities that involve this interplay between new and old architecture.

Experts assembled for a panel discussion scheduled for May 15 will consider the exhibited projects as a departure point for observations on attempts to approach this challenge.

The exhibit puts a new spin on Robert Venturi's famous use of the term "both-and" in describing an architecture of complexity and contradiction. The exhibit will include recent architecture that involves "Both" modern and historic building "And" something new: a unique chemistry that results when architectural elements from clearly different eras come together, creating an energized visual, spatial and cultural experience.

The "Both/And" exhibit includes a sample of significant projects from architects working in Europe and other U.S. cities, including Bernard Tschumi Architects (New York/Paris), Foster and Partners (London), Coop Himmelb(l)au (Vienna), Saucier+Perrotte (Montreal), Kohn Pederson Fox (New York), Dan Hanganu and Provencher Roy (Montreal), Schwartz /Silver Architects (Boston), Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (Wilkes Barre/Pittsburgh/Seattle) and Ann Beha Architects (Boston).

The Seattle area projects included in the AIA exhibit include work by Weinstein A|U, Suyama Peterson Deguchi, Weber+Thompson, Miller|Hull, Schact/Aslani Architects, LMN, Jaso Ludviksen, Mahlum Architects, Designs Northwest Architects, Delmer Cox, Heliotrope, Callison Architects, Stricker Cato Murphy, BjarkoSerra Architects, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, and a UW student thesis project by Daniel David Malone.

The Future Use of the Secretary's Standards

It is fair to say that the application of the Secretary's standards (and similar standards) over the past thirty years has led to a gradual increase of preservation's sophistication in the United States, both on a technical level and on a theoretical level.

The continuing use of modern architecture in designing additions to historic properties is, by definition, an evolving and dynamic trend. As modern architecture evolves and changes over time, so too will the application of the Secretary's standards and so too will the architectural character of the additions. That seems appropriate and consistent with the history of architecture.

One goal of architecture at any given moment in history is to produce new landmarks that speak to that time and place. Increasingly, the Secretary's standards are interpreted in a way that encourages the use of modernism as an expression of our time in the history of architecture, while respecting the architecture of the past.

AIA Seattle and the Historic Resources Committee encourage all readers to visit the "Both/And" exhibit at the AIA Seattle Gallery, May 1-May 30, 2003, and to join the May 15 panel discussion at the Dome Room, Arctic Building, from 4 to 6:30 PM. Panelists include Ann Beha FAIA (Ann Beha Architects, Boston), Peter Bohlin FAIA (Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Wilkes Barre and Seattle ), Ed Weinstein FAIA (Weinstein A|U) and Karen Gordon (Supervisor, Historic Preservation, City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods). Contact AIA Seattle at (206) 448-4938 or visit www.aiaseattle.org for more information.

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