Modern Snapshot: Southwest and Mies’ MLK Library

A couple of shots from Sunday.
Saint Augustine Episcopal Church, 1966, by Alexander Cochran of the Baltimore firm, C, S & D, Inc. Nice example of a saddle roof. Tiber Island apartment building (Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon) can be seen in the back.

The corner of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library by Mies van der Rohe.

A Tour of Southwest

More than 50 years ago, Southwest D.C. underwent a massive transformation, representing the largest urban renewal project in U.S. history. The project covered 113 blocks, more than 450 acres and led to the relocation of more than 20,000 residents. Amid new development in the area, the question is how should the mid-century modern architecture of the original renewal effort be protected and preserved. On Oct. 4, the D.C. Preservation League and DOCOMOMO held “Southwest DC: Renewal at Risk,” a walking tour of the key projects from the 1950s and ’60s. Eric Jenkins, an architect, associate professor at Catholic University’s School of Architecture and Planning and River Park resident, led the two-hour tour of the area, which he described like the “Lower East Side up until the 1950s.” Jenkins said roughly 25 to 30 percent of the mostly working-class people came back to Southwest after the massive renewal effort.
In his AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., G. Martin Moeller Jr. writes that while many urban renewal projects have “come to symbolize indiscriminate destruction of neighborhoods (squalid though they may have been) in favor of drab, soulless superblocks … much of the redevelopment in the Southwest quadrant was of unusually high quality, avoiding the pitfalls that plagued many such projects elsewhere. Notwithstanding the sensitive social issues surrounding the genesis of such endeavors, several of the housing developments in Southwest are among the best works of large-scale urban architecture of their era.”
These are the very projects the tour focused Read More >

D.C. Preservation League to Hold Trio of Modern Events

The D.C. Preservation League is holding a trio of modern-related events in the coming months. The League’s DC Modern Fall 2008 programming kicks off this Saturday (Oct. 4) with a walking tour, “Southwest DC: Renewal at Risk,” which will focus on the area’s urban renewal projects from the 1950s and ’60s and is being cosponsored by the preservation organization DOCOMOMO. A reception before the tour will held at the Thomas Law House and is sponsored by the Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon-designed Tiber Island Cooperative Homes, one of the developments built as part of the urban renewal. Tickets are $20 for non-members, $10 for members.
The second event ($20 for non-members; $10 for members) will focus on the designation and future preservation of modern buildings and sites within Washington. The panel discussion, “Evaluating the Significance of Modern Structures,” will be held on Nov. 20 in one of my favorite MCM buildings in D.C., the 1965 Pan American Health Organization building (see below) by Uruguayan architect Roman Fresnedo Siri. The building is located at 525 23rd St., NW. I’ll have a more on this building in an upcoming post.

The third event, originally scheduled for Oct. 15 at the Mies van der Rohe-designed MLK Library has been postponed until February 2009. The event will focus on a recent study cataloguing mid-century modern buildings in Washington and the importance of modernism to the development of the city.
Make sure to click here for all the details and registration form.

Southwest: Tiber Island and Carrollsburg Square

As part of the urban renewal efforts in Southwest during the 1960s, the Redevelopment Land Agency selected a design for a mix of middle-class housing in the form of high-rise buildings and townhomes connected by a web of open spaces by the local modern architectural firm of Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon. The result: Tiber Island and the Carrollsburg Square Condos. Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon won an American Institute of Architects award in 1966 for Tiber Island. Here are some of the homes for sale in the communities:
Tiber Island:
429 N ST SW #S-806 – 2/2 – $675K
Carrollsburg Square:
363 N ST SW – 2/2 – $399K – Carpet needs to go in this one, which is open Sunday, Feb. 24, from 1 to 3 p.m.
333 N ST SW – 2/2 – $349K
329 N ST SW – 2/1 – $345K – Nice hardwoods in this one.