Curation and Categories: Public Art, Historic Landmarks, Bond Steering this Week

There are a few commission and committee meetings this week it might be worth mentioning. The Public Art Commission, Historic Landmarks Commission, and Bond Steering Committee all meet, and they show biases and blind spots.

Taste-making and Gatekeeping in Public Art

Last month

Today, on Wednesday the 16th the Public Art Commission meets and they'll be considering several items of public interest:

• The 50th anniversary of the Civic Center and what we now call Peace Plaza
• Public Art for the new Public Works building in progress
• Councilor Stapleton's proposal for street murals and intersection art
• An update on the Acid Ball Eco-Earth restoration

There is no meeting packet, no Staff Reports, there have been no minutes published for over a year, and the "selection committee" for the art at the new Public Works building is operating a little covertly. It's not the most important thing, but it's strange thing and not very public-minded.

No published minutes or packets for an entire year

With the kerfuffle over the unauthorized mural on Turner Road, as well as the enduring popularity of the Acid Ball Eco-Earth, the Public Art Commission should give more thought to the word "public" in their name. They don't have to give up a curatorial role entirely, but they should want to engage public tastes more than they currently do, and they should want to make their conversation more public.

Erasing Significance of Transportation

The Historic Landmarks Commission meets on Thursday the 17th and while the meeting agenda itself doesn't have anything to note here, the recent HLC newsletter on green buildings does have something worth comment:

When historic buildings are rehabilitated and reused, their existing energy and climate footprint is maintained instead of being sent to a landfill. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has done some amazing studies on the environmental impacts of new construction in relation to reusing historic resources...

While looking at their findings, I learned that renovating an Elementary School in Portland, OR has 10% fewer impacts on climate change than new construction. It would take that same new Elementary School 16 years to overcome “the negative climate change impacts related to the construction process”...

Finally, and most hauntingly, I learned that one billion square feet of buildings are demolished and replaced each year. Sending old materials to landfills and extracting new material for construction...

As we face a climate change tipping point, it is essential that we remember the revitalization, reuse, and rehabilitation of historic buildings is more than just preserving where history happened. It could also be making sure we have a livable and vibrant future.

On several local discussion groups, a recent article "Stop Fetishizing Old Homes: Whatever your aesthetic preferences, new construction is better on nearly every conceivable measure," occasioned comment. The author was a little contemptuous of old buildings, but did have a point:

If you live in a Boston triple-decker, a kit-built San Jose bungalow, or a Chicago greystone, your home is the cheap housing of generations past. These structures were built to last a half century—at most, with diligent maintenance—at which point the developers understood they would require substantial rehabilitation. Generally speaking, however, the maintenance hasn’t been diligent, the rehabilitation isn’t forthcoming, and any form of redevelopment is illegal thanks to overzealous zoning.

There is too much curation in Historic Preservation, privileging aesthetics and stylistic "integrity" over function.

We have a similar problem at the level of "neighborhood character." Do we privilege look and feel? Or do we prioritize the housing function of residential districts? Preservation often serves exclusionary ends.

The kind of analysis in the newsletter omits our biggest source of emissions. Locally transportation is the greatest local source, 53% of them.

This is very similar to the problems with LEED and other building certifications. The analysis stops with the building envelope and does not account for the social dimension of commerce and life. In using the building, people and things must come from, or move beyond, the limits of the building and often this movement is a very large source of emissions.

Altogether we elide auto transportation impacts in our Historic Preservation scheme. Sometimes future or non-resident travel is considered in the move to protect incumbency privilege, but transportation as a whole, and transportation by residents or immediate neighbors, is not considered as a source of emissions and a candidate for reductions.

At the moment the HLC is not integrating very well with the Climate Action Plan. In the latest draft of the Plan from December 2021, "save all the buildings" does not play a role. Less polemically, "reuse old buildings" is not a very large part either.

Little on reusing old buildings

Above all, preserving the land use patterns of our 20th century fossil fuel era is not at all sustainable, however quaint or wonderful they might seem.

From here, it looks like we need to rebalance on Historic Preservation, and be more selective: Fewer instances of preservation with greater and more concentrated support resources, rather than more preservation with support spread thinly among all. Focus on individual listings of outstanding significance, and ditch the districts. And focus on better narrative history and analysis and less on curating stylistic integrity in minor buildings.

Conflating Autoism and Active Transport

And on Friday the 18th, the Bond Steering Committee meets and there is in the preliminary survey a real problem with the way transportation is framed. Traffic flow and safety get lumped together, but flow increases speed which diminishes safety. New streets, new capacity for cars, and sidewalk repair or creation on existing streets all get lumped together in one category. We need to make finer distinctions between kinds of transportation "improvements." Many improvements for drivers do not help those on bike or on foot. Expansion vs repair is an important distinction.

We need to stop lumping flow and safety

And stop lumping new streets and old sidewalks

Things for drivers and things for walkers different

I understand a little of the need for bond sweetener. The whole thing has to pass in order for the good stuff to happen.

But it would be helpful for the City to start separating things that induce more driving from things that actually reduce driving. Lumping them together as minor shades of difference in a general "transportation" category is counter-productive.

Instead of seeing walking and driving as fungible kinds of mobility, we need to see travel choices as carbon creating or carbon reducing. There are likely other categories in thinking about the bond that need revision also. We should frame it up for the 21st century, not the past century.