Madison, Meet Frankfurt

Back in October my mother, one of my cousins, and his wife were in town. We were walking down State Street when we ran into a guy making molds of the terra cotta facade of the Castle & Doyle building. My cousin is a docent at the Chicago Architecture Foundation so he asked the guy why he was making those molds. He replied that the building was to be torn down and the facade to be reconstructed. The look on my cousin's face said it all. He didn't have to say, "What a shame. It's such a beautiful building."

I explained to him the plan for the 100 block of State Street devised by Jerome Frautschi and his wife Pleasant Rowland which involves tearing down historic buildings not only State Street but also the north side of the 100 block of West Mifflin.

I thought of this incident when I read how Frankfurt has decided to go about reconstructing the Altstadt or Old Town. The Old Town is the old city center and was the downtown, essentially, for a long time starting in the 8th century.

The approximately 7,000-square-metre area in the heart of Frankfurt's old town will now be reconstructed on the basis of the original blueprints of the quarter. Once completed, it will comprise nearly 30 townhouses, eight of which being exact replicas of their historical predecessors...Various historical eras and styles are on display here, the reconstructed walls and bronze sculptures representing Roman times, the High Middle Ages and the typical design of the imperial palaces of the time.

In an effort to recreate a typically vivacious urban quarter, the buildings to be developed will feature residential space on the upper floors and shops, pubs, offices and restaurants on the ground floor. The design of the buildings, meanwhile, will resemble the style of the original constructions.

After a municipal jury had recommended a more modern development of the area in 2005, Frankfurt's citizenry raised its collective voice, demanding reconstruction of the site according to its former historical style.

It'd be nice if Madison had such an attitude for the Square and its immediate environs, including State Street. Frankfurt is a modern global city with plenty of skyscrapers yet the citizens there have decided that a certain area will have a very different look, one that preserves part of the city's long history. Here, the intersection of Mifflin and Fairchild Streets is poised to lose all historic character. In addition to the Overture Center, we're going to have the Central Library redux:





If Frautschi and Rowland get their way, there will also be this:





I would rather look at rusted fire escapes from the Overture Center lobby than that.

The last corner is slated to be home to a new joint museum for the Historical Society and Department of Veterans. (And because museums here apparently aren't important enough to have a building dedicated to them, there will also be office space for rent and retail space as well.) While there is no design yet, I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that it's going to be a glass monstrosity like its neighbors on the adjacent corners.

While much of the Frautschi/Rowland plan is wonderful, I'm not keen on continuing to push for downtown Madison to resemble a suburban office park.

Regardless of how this particular plan pans out, I hope that this incident starts more conversation about downtown's historic buildings. As this Wisconsin State Journal article notes, the historic buildings on State Street that would be affected by the Frautschi and Rowland plan aren't in the greatest of shape:

For the most part, time has been unkind to the vacant commercial spaces and apartments on the historic 100 block of State Street, where W. Jerome Frautschi and his wife, Pleasant Rowland, have proposed a $10 million redevelopment.

A tour Monday of vacant spaces in six buildings revealed a mix of interior conditions ranging from usable to irreparable decay.

It's not time that has been unkind to the buildings, it's the owners. What's the point of a community's desire to keep historic buildings if the people who own them are content with letting them decay? If that handful of buildings on the 100 block of State Street range from usable to irreparable decay, then surely more farther down the street are in similar conditions. Just look at the Orpheum. A push is being made to relight the marquee but I don't believe there to be any such plan to replace the seats which predate the invention of the wheel, fix the areas of the walls and ceiling where plaster has fallen off, and so on. State Street is supposed to be the city's "premiere" shopping/arts/dining district with its historic charm yet parts of it are threatening to become the next wave of Ruin Porn a la Detroit.

I personally would like to see downtown retain what's left of its historic look and feel. But that means not only that we need to stop razing historic buildings, but also that they must be maintained instead of letting them rot.