Adaptive Re-use

by Erik Hare

My daughter asked an innocent question as we rode past on the bus. “Dad, what are they going to do with the Schmidt Brewery?”  It seemed like a simple question, so I gave her a simple answer.  “Turn most of it into condos, I think, maybe a hotel in some of it and whatever they can come up with.”

As usual, the simple answer was only the lead-in to the more complicated question.  “Why is it that warehouses and industrial sites become houses and houses become museums?”

Well.

It’s true that in Saint Paul, a lot of warehouses have become what we know as Lowertown, the section of Downtown full of artists’ lofts and some other very cool living spaces.  At times it seems that any house that once belonged to a famous person becomes a museum of some kind, the property of an organization dedicated to preserving and protecting it.  But is this just the natural progression of things?  Does the chain continue, with the old Science Museum turning into a business school that didn’t make it, possibly winding up a warehouse someday?

All of these wacky things are nothing more than examples of Adaptive Re-use, the process by which an old building that seems worth saving finds a purpose in a changing economy.  The condo boom was a great gift to historic preservation at times, allowing Saint Paul to keep old buildings that are well built landmarks even after they outlived their original purpose. 

In a good real estate market, just about any building that is sound can find a new use.  That’s not true anymore, so a lot of graceful brick structures are going into mothballs.  They can’t stay untended forever, so we’re going to either have a recovery or a major burst of creativity.  Our Union Depot, for example, is a beautiful Beaux Arts train station that may yet see use again as a, get this, train station.  But for many buildings, we’ll have to be more creative than that.  We got buildings, what you need ‘em for?

This can get out of hand, of course.  One of the tenets of modernism was that buildings no longer had to be built in traditional forms.  Many cities have churches that look like office buildings or apartments that look like office buildings because there was a time when architects felt free to express themselves.  They wound up making a lot of things look like office buildings, which seemed to miss the point.  Now that this is the twenty-first century, we don’t have to be modern anymore and people prefer that their houses look something like houses should.  When all the warehouses become homes that basic idea gets turned on its head.  In a way, it’s kind of modernist.

Adaptive Re-use needs to be done carefully so that it’s not a major violation of architectural  sensibilities, but it’s the most important tool available for those of us who want to keep our landmarks and the sense of community that they represent.  These are hard times, but we can always find ways to cope.  Perhaps we can turn a very large brewery into something really great and fun, with or without condos.  We certainly  love the building and have a lot of creativity.

Something good will happen.  Perhaps we can skip the middle part and go straight to museum.  Anyone want a really tall space to showcase something fun?