News

November 14, 2007

Last fall, CIA’s Reinberger Galleries hosted The HOME House Project, an exhibition of environmentally friendly and affordable single-family housing designs. This weekend CIA continues the conversation with two events pondering environmental responsibility versus historic preservation.

Recently, permission was granted to demolish the The Ameritrust Tower, a 36-year-old, 29-story, 280,000 square foot building in downtown Cleveland. The large modernist building was designed by world-renowned Bauhaus-trained architect, Marcel Breuer with Hamilton Smith in 1967, and completed in 1971 as the Cleveland Trust Co. Building.

The decision to not reuse the building has raised questions about what constitutes an historic landmark, and what environmental responsibilities we share when it comes to demolishing or reusing buildings.

Artists, architects, and the sustainability community have an opportunity to discuss and consider the intersection of landmarks and green buildings, historic preservation and modernism in architecture. Several events will be held this month in support of the discussion.

Visit CIA on Saturday November 17, 2007 to engage in the discussion:

Saturday, November 17, 2007 4:00pm @ Cleveland Cinematheque: Bauhaus in America: a film by Judith Pearlman followed by a panel discussion with Cleveland architect, Peter Van Dijk and Associate Professor of Art History at Kent State University, Carol Salus, moderated by Christopher Diehl, Director, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative.

What Would You Do With The Breuer Building (from Ingenuity 2007) will be displayed in the hallway of the CIA Building for those who missed it or would like to view it again -- the show features 27 entries from Australia to Italy with several local architects offering innovative thoughts.

These events are a part of a series sponsored by a collaborative of educational and commercial institutions in Cleveland including Doty & Miller Architects, D.H. Ellison Co., Peter Lawson Jones, Recent Past Preservation Network, Richard Fleischman Architects, Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Robert Maschke Architects, Inc., Process Creative Studios Inc., Jim Rokakis, Schmidt Copeland Parker Stevens with assistance from Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland Institute of Art, Judson Manor, The Sculpture Center, Intermuseum Conservation Association, AIA Cleveland, Kent State University Art History, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, Cleveland Artists Foundation, GreenCityBlueLake, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Studio Techne Architects.

"I think it's important that artists, architects, preservationists and sustainability advocates understand how their work is a continuation of the Bauhaus, of which Marcel Breuer was one of the leading lights," Marc Lefkowitz, Web Editor of GreenCityBlueLake.org says. "Some would argue that the Bauhaus stressed individuality over the collegial design approach before it, and, that was used to justify a lot of monolithic office towers. But, the original Bauhaus existed to bring artists in contact with the world by looking at form with a critical eye, and by understanding how craft and hand skills are essential tools. So, a skilled painter and wood worker like Breuer could follow a natural path and design spaces that were comfortable for living and work. That's part of the legacy of the Breuer Tower, which has a unique design, and arguably, should be reused."

For more information on other events in the series, visit http://www.gcbl.org/green-modern