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Restoration vs conservation vs extreme wabi sabi
The scaffolding and netting recently came off the Orpheum Theater here in San Francisco after being covered up for months as they worked on the exterior of the building. I thought it looked pretty great, so I called it to the attention of a friend of mine who has been involved in the restoration business. She had already seen it and didn't think much of it.
Rather than a full restoration, they had basically stabilized the decorative elements and given it a shiny new coat of paint. This got me thinking... what doesn't?
When it comes to Seattle's King Street train station or our City Hall, I'm all in favor of full tilt restoration where the building ends up looking just as it did when new, or perhaps a little better, as it has to adjust to new building and accessibility codes.
But I don't object to what they did with the Orpheum, which I am going to call "conservation" without looking up what the actual technical terms should be. To the untrained eye (mine) the decorative elements look great and thanks to the work they just did, will probably be preserved for another generation. If I were to notice a little deterioration in the carvings, I would not be displeased. Rather, my wabi sabi tendencies would kick in and I would appreciate seeing the flaws, how time and weather were completing the work of the original designers and craftsmen.
At pier 70, where I showed you the photos of the old cranes I wish would be preserved, I am torn between loving the dilapidated condition that has reigned there for decades -- what I am calling "extreme wabi sabi" -- and the desire to fix it up just enough to live again as part of the productive built environment. I wouldn't mind if a building or two were restored to the way they looked at the end of the 19th century, but I would rather see a mix of old and new. Of laser-cut, powder coated steel next to steel so rusted it looks organic.
By a very strange coincidence, I had to brave the local Nike Store to buy socks this morning. I say strange because it's the day after I walked past the Orpheum again and started thinking about this, but also because the reason I needed to shop is that the laundromat washer or dryer ate most of my socks -- or something, I still have no idea what happened to them. (There's nothing unusual about losing a sock or two but I think there were either two or three pairs in that load of wash.) Being suddenly sock-less in San Francisco, I thought, "Oh, an opportunity to buy those low cut socks I've been thinking might be more comfortable." So I did.
The Nike Store here is in an older, pretty nondescript, building just off Union Square. When Nike acquired it they gutted it and left it a fairly bare industrial looking space with the steel reinforced concrete ceilings, and all their utilities, sprayed black. (If my memory serves, which I'm beginning to doubt what with my socks escaping, this is actually a remodel from their original store design.)
I really like what Nike has done with this space but I now need a fourth term to describe it... radical minimalism? Perhaps what was there before was lovely, but I don't think I was ever in the building and I tend to doubt it. Some buildings don't require restoration or conservation. For example Trinity Plaza on Market street and that motel on Van Ness at Washington begged for demolition and I'm happy to see they got that. I just wish they had used explosives. (Just recently I've seen photos of the stunning Victorian house that was on that corner of Washington and Van Ness before the motel, which makes it even worse... though I have to admit that a house like that on that corner would be a poor use of the location.)
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