Marty Hylton had no idea his pet project would have such legs.
"Modernism at Risk," an exhibit of photographs and text celebrating the cultural significance of five examples of midcentury modern architecture, has come to Sarasota after 20 stops around the globe since it opened in September 2009 at the University of Florida in Gainesville. It is booked for another year, at least.
"The interest has been much greater than we anticipated," said Hylton, an assistant professor of interior design and historic preservation at UF. He researched and wrote the exhibit panels with a grant from the World Monuments Fund. "A lot of the interest is coming from designers, not just preservationists." (GALLERY? CLICK HERE)
It is now hanging at Home Resource on Central Avenue in Sarasota's Rosemary District through at least April 30, and likely longer than that, said Michael Bush, owner of the store that specializes in modernist and contemporary furnishings. The exhibit is sponsored by Knoll Inc., the leading manufacturer of such furniture. Home Resource is the only Knoll-authorized retailer in Florida outside of Miami.
The exhibition has more than two dozen large-format photographs by Andrew Moore. The World Monuments Fund started the initiative in 2006 to show the role architects and designers play in helping save endangered modern buildings.
Hylton also helped organize the first national symposium of Docomomo-US, the national arm of the group Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement. The symposium concludes today with a talk on the book "Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction," at 1 p.m. at Home Resource.
The store will also be the venue for a talk, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, by Hylton on the "Modernism at Risk" exhibit.
"Modernism is the defining movement of 20th century architecture," writes Hylton in an exhibit panel. But he adds, "Despite their importance, significant modern buildings are often routinely demolished, inappropriately altered or left to decay."
Explaining the preservation message of the exhibit, Hylton said, "Lewis Mumford, the architecture and social critic, said we reject our fathers and embrace our grandfathers."
"Modernism at Risk," an exhibit of the World Monuments Fund and sponsored by Knoll Furniture, is on display at Home Resource on Central Avenue in Sarasota's Rosemary District. Riverview High School, demolished in 2009 and seen in this large-format photo by Andrew Moore, is among the buildings chronicled. Curator Marty Hylton of the University of Florida will speak about the preservation of modern architecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, 2013, at Home Resource. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 4-17-2013.
As such, baby boomers might be inclined to love the original Sarasota High School building, built in 1927 and designed by M. Leo Elliott, or the 1920s boomtime houses of Dwight James Baum and Thomas Reed Martin, while their children might be more inclined to treasure work in the 1950s and '60s by Paul Rudolph or Marcel Breuer. Rudolph and Breuer are featured in "Modernism at Risk," the former for the only building in the exhibit to have been demolished, Riverview High School.
"Victorian architecture was disliked and disregarded and destroyed, and Art Deco buildings in South Beach before it became a national historical landmark district," said Hylton in 2009. "But I can't help but wonder ... that there might be something else going on with modern architecture; that people don't find it as accessible.
"Maybe the lack of ornamentation makes people say it's factory-like. In some instances, the social agenda that was very strong in modernism, especially since it was born in Europe, and as it was first introduced in the United States — maybe some people found that off-putting."
Another mistake that champions of modernism make in attempting to preserve the buildings of the 1950s and '60s, Hylton said, is that often a building's architectural significance is promoted above its social and cultural importance. This was the case with the Rudolph-designed Riverview High School, which was demolished in 2009 after a long fight to save it.
"This show has five case studies," said Hylton, including Riverview High. "In comparing Riverview to the Grosse Pointe (Mich.) library, which has been saved, the difference is that ... once the public was involved in discussing the fate of this Marcel Breuer-designed library, they ended up focusing more on its cultural and social significance, which resonated more with the community.
"We tend to, in putting together the arguments to save these buildings, focus a little too much on the architectural significance."
Hylton worked on the exhibit with Lorrie Muldowney of the Sarasota County History Center. "My research focuses on preserving post-World War II school design," said Hylton, who is collaborating with Muldowney on a book that will feature the Sarasota public school program (1953-60) under Phil Hiss, the schools superintendent at the time. Hiss hired Rudolph and other Sarasota school architects to design school buildings. The book is expected to be published in spring 2014.
"Given the negative outcome with Riverview, I would like to help — anyway I can — to raise awareness about the significance of Sarasota's modern architectural heritage," said Hylton.
Besides preserving architectural artifacts with cultural significance, the preservation movement has found new meaning.
"If you look the history of preservation in the past 50 years," said Theo Prudon, who gave the keynote address at the Docomomo-US symposium on Thursday, "people in the early part of the movement saw themselves as progressive, in the sense of quality of life. We have sort of lost that zeal.
"With the rise of sustainability as the new cry that we all gather around," said Prudon, president of Docomomo-US and adjunct associate professor of architecture, planning and preservation at Columbia University, "that preservation should be back into the main frame again, because at the end of the day, there is nothing more sustainable than what you already have."
