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October 08, 2008, 02:55 PM ET
Saarinen's Law School at U. of Chicago Once Scorned, Now Saved
A Wall Street Journal article discusses the legacy of an Eero Saarinen building at the University of Chicago and how that building was saved from demolition. The building had problems that would plague any outdated Modernist structure: poor lighting, accessibility problems, bad acoustics, dismal settings.
“No wonder demolition was at one point considered,” writes Joel Henning. “And it didn’t help the Saarinen complex’s chances for survival that when the law school determined to improve its physical plant in the 1990s, mid-century Modernist architecture was largely scorned. … When Prof. Douglas Baird — one of the few Saarinen champions involved in the school’s modernization program — reminded his colleagues that, for all its shortcomings, this was still great architecture, he recalls that their response was, ‘Are you crazy?’”
But the building was saved — in part because renovation was a third of the cost of new construction. Mr. Henning praises the renovation for the way it lightens and enlivens the building while retaining the character of the original design. The architects, OWP/P, first started working on the renovation in 1993, and Mr. Henning quotes Saarinen himself on the appropriateness of a lengthy project: “The practice of architecture,” said Saarinen, “has to be measured in elephant time.”
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