Category: Mid-Century Modern

Charlotte council to vote on three preservation projects

The Cohen-Fumero house, designed by Charlotte architect Murray Whisnant

The Charlotte City Council at tonight’s meeting is expected to vote on designating three buildings as historic landmarks. The first is the Cohen-Fumero House. Read more about it at the PlanCharlotte article, “Can Charlotte learn to love Modernist homes?” 

For Charlotte, it’s an unusual selection:

  • First, it’s in East Charlotte, not a part of the city that’s been graced with many landmark buildings.
  • Second, it’s a mid-century Modernist home, an architectural style that while attractive to a younger, hipper population around the country, doesn’t get the love from the more traditionalist sectors in Charlotte, a city with a comparatively large bloc of traditionalist sectors.

But in its favor is this: Landmarking historic properties is easier in parts of the city that are not seeing intense development pressure. That’s why so many historic properties in uptown were wiped away; the dirt under them was too valuable for new development.

Some personal disclosure here: I’m friends with the original owners, artists Herbert Cohen and Jose Fumero, who in the 1950s and 1960s hosted much of the Charlotte “Creative Class” in their living room for Sunday dinners. They’ve been together for something like 50 years, which in itself is worthy of note. And I’m friends with the architect who designed the house for them, Murray Whisnant. Whisnant, a Charlotte native who also designed the Rowe Arts Building at UNC Charlotte, has been a creative force in the city for decades. 

The other two properties are mills: The Defiance Sock Mill in the Third Ward neighborhood, and the Louise Mill, built in 1897 in the Belmont neighborhood.  Charlotte is (finally!) seeing an impressive collection of renovated and adaptively reused mills dating to its textile-industry past. Among the notable projects:
Atherton Mill in South End, Highland Mill in NoDa, the Charlotte Cotton Mill uptown, and Alpha Mill in uptown/Optimist Park. (I’m not sure where one neighborhood ends and the other begins.)

To see the reports on the historic properties on tonight’s City Council agenda:
Click here for the Cohen Fumero House.
Click here for the Defiance Sock Mills.
Click here for the Louise Cotton Mill.

Modern architecture — Oh, the terror!

This may explain why I, and many other people, aren’t so fond of Modernist-style buildings. We’re instinctively reacting with fear.

(See my previous posting about the Mid-Century Modern home tour this weekend. Link is here.)
I stumbled on this piece from Fast Company about how surroundings shape our minds and bodies. Among its interesting tidbits: People instinctively prefer objects with rounded edges (think of arches, for instance) over sharp-edged objects (think of most 20th-century buildings, such as the Westin hotel in Charlotte, shown above, with the NASCAR Hall of Fame in the foreground). The theory is that it has to do with hard-wired fear of sharp objects.
Memo to architects designing libraries: High-ceilings in rooms encourage you to think more freely and abstractly.
And memo to minimalists: Clutter increases the “memorability” of a place. As the article says, “A generous scattering of objects generates a fondness for the place.” (But I’m pretty sure that doesn’t include dirty socks or last night’s grease-splotched pizza box.)

Mid-Century Modern: Charlotte’s bulldozer bait?

If you think Mid-Century Modern is outdated and ugly, and ought to be torn down, you’re probably over 45.

The nonprofit group Historic Charlotte has put together a Mid-Century Modern home tour this weekend, (here’s a link where you can see a list, a map and buy tickets) featuring 17 homes built from the 1950s to 1970s, to try to show everyone why a lot of younger people are interested in preserving and living in houses from that era. It’s part of a whole month of celebrating Mid-Century Modern.

The houses range from modest to impressive, and with local architects Murray Whisnant and the late Jack Orr Boyte among those represented.

It’s an architectural style and era not beloved around here – until recently. Diane Althouse, executive director of Historic Charlotte, told Tuesday night’s Civic By Design forum that buildings from the era are in greater risk of demolition than others in Charlotte. And of course, we know virtually everything here that doesn’t have preservation in its deed restrictions is at risk of demolition.

Here’s a measure of how unpopular this modern architecture is. Last fall, in an unprecedented move, the City Council in a 6-4 vote, rejected a move to name a 1957, Jack Boyte-designed house in the Cloisters neighborhood a local landmark. The owners wanted the designation; the city-county historic landmarks commission wanted the designation, the state preservation office had concluded the house was eligible. Usually the council doesn’t have a problem, if the preservation experts say something’s worth designating, and the owners concur. But council members just said they didn’t think the house was very attractive.

If you’re old enough to think Mid-Century Modern is ugly, you’re probably old enough to remember when Victorian-style buildings were being demolished because they were “too ugly” and far too many treasures were lost.

I confess to some ambivalence about Modernism. As generally carried out, it’s too bleak and stark. One modernist building amid older, ornate buildings is sleek and elegant. A whole city (or even whole city block) of nothing but square angles, bare concrete and cold glass would be depressing. But the point of preservation isn’t only to preserve buildings we think are pretty. It’s to ensure that eras aren’t obliterated.

And it’s worth pointing out that buildings from this era are coming to be treasured and sought-after. I know of several people who are specifically looking to buy homes from that era.