Architecture critic notes drawbacks to Salt Lake plans

New Yorker magazine architecture critic Paul Goldberger has two reservations about the plans to revitalize downtown Salt Lake City.

First, he said, the capital city's wide streets do not invite walking. Pedestrians don't feel a part of a dense and exciting urban fabric. (Goldberger didn't come out against a proposed skybridge because, it seemed, he didn't feel there was much vitality to lose.)

Second, with the new City Creek Center, blocks of buildings will be constructed at the same time. He worries about a theme park atmosphere.

Truly vital cities grow in layers, he noted. "In a city, time becomes visible ... a continuum."

He said that buildings from a variety of periods, standing next to each other, add depth and resonance and enrich the experience of our own time. He said he is concerned that more original buildings within the City Creek complex are not being saved.

Goldberger spoke at the Salt Lake City Main Library Thursday, kicking off the Utah Heritage Foundation's first-ever Utah Preservation Conference. The conference continues with classes at Ft. Douglas today and the Foundation's annual walking tour on Saturday on the west side of Salt Lake City.

Goldberger, who has been dean of the Parsons School of Design and who won a Pulitzer Prize for architectural criticism when he worked for the New York Times, reminded Utahns that the current design of the City Creek Center is better than it was originally. And, he added, it is an improvement over the malls it replaces.

He also noted that Rockefeller Center in New York City was built all at once and it works beautifully. He added that Salt Lake City is healthier than many cities he has seen in that there are not a lot of parking lots and vacant lots. The number of people who live downtown is increasing and will grow even more with the City Creek project and that is also healthy, he said.

Goldberger also talked about historic preservation in general. He said preservation is so widely accepted now that it is in danger of losing its cutting edge. It comes under question from the young and avant-garde. Preservation must redefine itself, he said.

Preservationists must now move from saving individual buildings to saving communities. If you save one building and the rest of Main Street decays, he says, then preservation has nothing to do with real life. Now that preservationists have saved a lot of important individual buildings, they need to think about saving ensembles of B-plus buildings, maybe even ensembles of C-quality buildings.