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Tower Power
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The Marcel Breuer-designed Ameritrust Tower’s days were numbered when the ink dried on Cuyahoga County purchase agreement, local preservationists argue. The 28-story modernist office tower rose in 1971 at E. 9th Street and Euclid Avenue as an addition to the neoclassical 1908 Rotunda Building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That makes the tower eligible for federal rehabilitation tax credits if preserved, a savings to the county of $20 million compared to building new, according to one estimate.
It's not enough to convince two of three county commissioners that the tower can be reconfigured—its floor plates are currently too small to consolidate the county administrative offices. Knowing that, the county’s ownership all but sealed the tower’s fate.
This week, Metropolis Magazine shines a national spotlight on the rush to demolish the Breuer Tower, the only high-rise building designed by one of America’s most prominent Early Modern architects. The county promises to build a LEED-Silver Certified building in its place, arguing that energy savings justify new. But, as national preservation expert Donovan Rypkema recently told a Cleveland Restoration Society audience, preservation is the very definition of sustainability. Rypkema states that a new building, even a 'green' one, costs 15 times more in the energy equation because it has to account for the embodied energy of its and the old, demolished building’s materials.
Buildings are testaments to what our culture values; tearing them down is easy, but it robs the city of its ability to tell the story of how our values grow and change. GCBL reader Steve McQuillin has started a forum discussion about saving the Breuer Tower, offering some background on the building, and an opportunity for you to weigh in.
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Commissioners to discuss fate of Breuer Tower this Thursday
Marc Lefkowitz Says:Just received this message from Cleveland Restoration Society:
Commissioners to Discuss Breuer Tower Fate
The Cuyahoga County Commissioners will be discussing the demolition of the Marcel Breuer-designed Cleveland Trust (Ameritrust) Tower at their next meeting, to be held tomorrow, March 29, at 11:30 a.m.
The meeting will take place at the Board of Cuyahoga County Commissioners Chambers, 1219 Ontario Street, 4th Floor, Cleveland and is open to the public.
Review the meeting agenda (the Breuer Tower is on page 5).
If you cannot attend the meeting, please consider calling or e-mailing your position on this important matter directly to the Commissioners before Thursday morning's meeting:
Commissioner Jimmy Dimora (mailto:CNJCD@cuyahogacounty.us)
216-443-7180
Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones (mailto:CNPLJ@cuyahogacounty.us)
216-443-7182
Commissioner Timothy F. Hagan (mailto:CNTFH@cuyahogacounty.us)
216-443-7181
Breuer Tower on the front burner
Susan Miller Says:Thanks for sharing this and for bringing it back to the front page. Lest we forget that these are the very same commissioners who were waving the banner of art so very few months ago... and now want to use the cover of sustainability to get an expensive new structure. Pshaw!
The Design Rag has the largest collection of content on the issue. Anthony Hiti gave a wonderful historic review and backstory on Breuer at the Ohio City Library a couple of Sunday's ago. I have asked him to add a sentence of two to his power point, so we can post it for all to see.
Where's the Preservation Society (Cleveland Restoration) on this? Probably the same place they are on the Coast Guard Station! Nowhere. Silent. Dumfounded into submission. Come on kids lets's find our teeth! We should at least step into the ring for this building! We need to find out who has sent letters to the editor, who has blogged about it and link all that stuff together and then email it to those who care and those who don't even know it is in danger. We need a petition, a groundswell of support. I'd hate to see this wonderful structure end up with the fishes in Lake Erie dumped near the old stadium.
My son, who has an increasing appreciation for architechture from living in Chicago since September, was stunned to hear that the Tower might come down. "What? Are they nuts?", he asked. "When you have great buildings, why would you tear them down?" "I don't know", I answered. "Just guys who have bigger egos than vision capacity, I guess."
Also check out the discusion at realneo.us on the issue here.
Taxpayers for a green Breuer Tower
Marc Lefkowitz Says:Apparently, there's a nascent citizens' movement to halt the demolition of the Breuer Tower. Posted on Design Rag, they're called Taxpayer's Against Waste. Their brochure hits on the $20M projected savings through a 'green' adaptive reuse:
"The tower’s curtain wall could be retrofitted with a modern, energy efficient wall system like environmentally responsive building 'envelopes' widely used inEurope ."
Sounds cool. Can anyone explain how this works or provide a specific example from Europe?
Building Envelopes
John McGovern Says:Harvard / MIT site http://www.buildingenvelopes.org