Cleveland City Planning on Breuer Teardown

Submitted by Susan Miller on Tue, 05/29/2007 - 23:17.
06/01/2007 - 08:00
06/01/2007 - 11:01
Etc/GMT-4

The City Planning Commission meets at 9am to decide the fate of the Breuer Tower.

Peter Lawson Jones at Meet the Bloggers to get up to speed...

We need a show of strength to save the Tower!

Architects and professional preservationists will probably stay away.

Citizens must carry the day.

Location

City Hall, Room 501
601 Lakeside Avenue be there early to sign in
Cleveland, OH
United States
( categories: )

professional preservationists?

I didn't know we had any around here. What do they do?

they restore... I think

Very funny Tim!

Do you know someone who would head up a newly organized preservation org, cause restoration might not be enough to stop the demo.

Go to this - then come to the Inner Circle to discuss

I would really love to go to this but I need to open the Inner Circle for an open house at the old Hough Bakeries Complex, on Lakeview in East Cleveland. Read more about it here! If you care about historic preservation and maintaining the best fabric of our community, go to the Breuer meeting, and then come over to the Hough Bakeries to discuss the meeting and plan next steps - have a Hot Sauce Williams BBQ lunch! Anyone going to both activites will get a cup of coffee, pop or beer on me.

Disrupt IT

So what happened at the Breuer meeting?

I wasn't able to do the Breuer meeting and host the Star Open House... so what happened at the Breuer meeting?????? I haven't seen anything reported.

Disrupt IT

Marc wrote it up

Marc wrote it up at GCBL. That's a (very modern) wrap.

I have been researching the history of Breuer in Cleveland -- how we got to have his presence here. So far dead ends, but I'm following a hint about Severance Millikin. Anyone know anything about him?

I found the annual report of Cleveland Trust Company which gave me great images and the fact that it was to be a $30 million building. According to Mary Swindell in a 1971 article in the Cleveland Press, the building of the Cleveland Trust Tower was overshadowed by the CMA addition -- built at the same time. Breuer was busy in Cleveland then. He is quoted in the same article as saying, "Cleveland leaves a substantial impression. It's easy to see that this is a hard working town. The buildings are heavy, impressive. You do have some interesting landmarks here. One of the best, I believe is the old Cleveland Trust bank building that we're building on to. We preserved it beacuse it's neoclassical design would be impossible to duplicate today."

I thought that it was interesting to find mention of Breuer in an article in the New Yorker reviewing Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, Zaha Hadid's Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio.


Photo: Hélène Binet

"Hadid has managed to give the building a hint of formal, institutional grandeur without making it feel formal or institutional. It is reminiscent of the work of Rudolph; of Marcel Breuer, who designed the Whitney; and of Edward Larrabee Barnes’s Walker Art Center in Minneapolis." -- Paul Goldberger read more

Not surprising that Cincinnati is more modern than Cleveland. They push the envelope with dance, too. More by Hadid. The commissioner's didn't go far with their search for new work.

MOCA and CIA went farther and promise some interesting designs to add to our built environment. Foreign Office Architects for MOCA and MVRDV for CIA. Interesting that Cleveland Trust was sold to Ameritrust who razed the building's at the northwest corner of Public Square to build their office tower which was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox -- the commissioner's architectural team of choice with RP Madison of Cleveland. But it never happened (society bought Ameritrust, Key bought Society) and instead we have surface parking telling a tale of missed opportunity. The never ending tale of Cleveland’s built environment. One miss after another.  Building's razed that we miss and buildings planned  that never materialized.

I read that, but it is in the past

I saw that and was going to link to it as it is a good overview and list of upcoming events, all of which should be on our calendar, but it is from June 1 and there aren't any additions since the meeting, so I'm still wondering if there is any news from the trenches?

Disrupt IT

be there June 8 at 8 AM

For the vote on the Breuer demo and the presentation from RP Madison you have to be at 601 Lakeside room 216 (Council Committee Room). Public comments and testimony will be taken at that time. There could be litigation following the decision by City Planning if they deny the demo. Be there.