Preservation Issue #4: Compatible Juxtaposition

Marathon Development and the Historic Trust have used the term “compatible juxtaposition” to describe one of the guiding principles for their proposed development.  It’s gotten a fair amount of ridicule from the public for its oxymoronic composition.  But it is unfortunate for another reason, because it reveals the Trust’s lack of understanding of historic preservation.

You see, “juxtaposition” is a term of art in the preservation world.  The everyday usage of the word - to place two different things next to each other - doesn’t quite cover the meaning in preservation.  In historic preservation, Juxtaposition is a technique for approaching new construction on or near historic buildings that is meant to both differentiate the new work while also revealing/emphasizing what is significant about the historic building.  But it takes more than just making the new construction different.  It requires a firm understanding of what is significant about that historic building or site, and then emphasizing that significance through doing something different in the new construction.  It is not just any difference, but a very certain kind of difference.

For example, if it is significant that a building is tall and skinny, the new construction could be purposefully designed to be low and wide.  The key to Juxtaposition is differentiating the elements of the historic building that are significant because that helps emphasize and preserve their significance.

Mother Joseph purposefully chose a formal architectural style for the Academy.  She chose it to emphasize the importance of the poor to whom the building and site were dedicated, giving them the kind of building usually only enjoyed by the wealthy and powerful.  And a key element of that formal architectural style ais how the building sits on the site, especially its prominence.  It stands apart and above its surroundings, dominating the site and the landscape.  This is as key to its architectural character as the brick and Georgian windows.

And this is where the proposed development fails at Juxtaposition.  The proposed buildings are larger, taller, bulkier, and more massive than the Academy.  That certainly makes them different, but that difference contradicts the Academy's prominence rather than highlighting it.  The proposed buildings would supplant the Academy as the most prominent building on the site; that’s not Juxtaposition .. it’s contradiction, negation, destruction.

If approved, the proposed development would would relegate the Academy to a secondary building in an “urban campus.”  This is only made worse by the way that the proposed development would cut off important views to the Academy and physically cut the Academy off from downtown.  This kind of “juxtaposition” relies on destroying an architecturally and historically significant aspect of the Academy’s architectural character.

And this is important, just because the proposed development may not be damaging the physical aspects of the building does not mean that it would not still damage the historical or architectural aspects of the building.

And so, the Trust’s plan to create an “urban, mixed-use campus” is really flawed at its foundation.  It’s not that development on the site is inherently incompatible, but that development would need to be done carefully and conscientiously in order to preserve the Academy’s prominence, and a campus conceptualization does not do that.  The very nature of the Academy’s architectural character is incompatible with relegating it to just one of multiple buildings on a campus.

And so the Trust’s  very vision for the Academy site represents a profound lack of understanding of the Academy’s nature, history, architecture and significance.  How can they preserve what they don’t understand?


And don't forget to sign the Petition if you haven't already!