HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-20-2016 Public Comment, Schmidt1
To:Maier, John Paul
Subject:RE: Agenda Public Comment
From: Richard Schmidt [
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2016 3:46 PM
To: E‐mail Council Website <emailcouncil@slocity.org>
Subject: Agenda Public Comment
Re: Ancient Aqueduct discovered on construction site.
I urge you to preserve this artifact in toto, in situ, just as was done with Mission era building remains at Palm
Street parking garage site.
Please see attached letter for details of how this might be done.
Thank you.
Council Meeting: 09-20-2016
Item: Public Comment
Dear Council Members, September 20, 2016
It saddens me to read in the Tribune that city staff see no good reason to preserve the
one-of-a-kind downtown aqueduct built by Chumash mission workers that’s been found
on the site of the previous public parking lot now being developed by the Copelands.
If the reports accurately reflect staff’s indifference, I am not only saddened, but horrified
at the change such attitudes indicate has taken place since the city was less dominated
by “professional” staff.
These aqueduct fragments should be preserved in situ, and, with your leadership,
they CAN be preserved in situ. To do otherwise would show the city’s great
disrespect for our community’s actual history.
Let me tell you a story of the last time something like this happened – during the
construction of the Palm Street parking garage.
Archaeologists were called in to do a thorough investigation before construction began.
The public, at least, was unprepared for the wealth of stuff they uncovered. At one point
they began uncovering remains of mission-era building foundations no record had led
them to expect to find. The press recorded what was going on, and the fence around
the site was designed so it facilitated public perusal of the extensive excavations (unlike
the present site where it’s difficult for the public to so much as look in). It was
anticipated all this stuff would simply be destroyed, for garage plans were such that it
would need to be destroyed.
At that point, yours truly – fresh in his new role as an architectural historian at Cal Poly –
came forth with an idea that made a lot of sense to him. Good cities are historically
layered cities. (We had, at that time in our collective cultural history, come to reject the
notion that new is always better, the idea that whole swaths of cities ought to be
destroyed and rebuilt, one of the unfortunate perversions of “modernism” that had
clearly failed humanity as well as culture.) This principle of preserving historical layering
has been recognized since ancient times. For example, when Pericles rebuilt the
Athenian acropolis in the 5th century BC, a point was made to preserve glimpses of the
then-ancient Mycenaean-era walls by including niches in the fancy new walls that
exposed the historical past’s stonework beneath civilization’s latest accretion.
(Caption: Akropolis. The 5th century BC rebuilding included “windows onto the past” –
like the niches visible at right side of photo which exposed then-ancient constructions.)
I had also recently visited a remarkable window-onto-the-past designed by the
modernist architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in Philadelphia, Franklin
Court, where they created physical windows onto the foundations of tenement buildings
Ben Franklin and his family had built in the back yard of the family home. Franklin Court,
now a unit of the National Park Service, thus exposes again what had been long
covered over, and adds meaning to our understanding of the past.
(Caption: Franklin Court. Concrete forms shade glazed openings through which visitors
may look down onto remnants of a previous layer of Philadelphia’s history, while
overhead, steel frames trace the outline of a building that once stood there.)
Armed with a couple of 35mm slides, one of each of these examples, I showed the
Council how they could create something lasting and positive from what was planned to
be a historically destructive process at the parking garage. I explicitly urged them to
study and follow the idea that Venturi-Scott Brown had developed so well, since it was
clearly an easy adaptation to our situation.
I wasn’t prepared for the reaction I got. The city attorney said “Let’s do it.” Dave-the-
Pave Romero, then city engineer, said he thought it a good idea, though it would cost a
parking space, but he thought the loss worthwhile. Mayor Dunin was smiling, as the
matter had been disturbing him. With a bit of discussion, a decision to change course
was quickly made, and some of the old building remains were not only left in place but
were put on public display (and some others were “preserved” beneath sand slurry). (I
think the design itself could be better, and also the maintenance, but I’m happy with the
preservation aspect – the genuine stuff remains, and better display of it is a conceivable
fix in the future.)
Once the aqueduct is gone, it’s gone forever. That should not happen.
I urge you to respond with the imagination your predecessors did, and to require the
aqueduct be preserved. There are many ways it can be incorporated into a slightly-
altered design for the Copelands’ hotel. Let’s do it.
Sincerely,
Richard Schmidt