The ‘Iconic’ and ‘Everyday’ Mid-century Modern: Shifting Attitudes Towards Repair and Preservation

This paper engages in a critical analysis of how mid-century modern buildings deal with issues of repair, maintenance and preservation. Recent Conservation Master Plans (CMP) prepared for two modern institutional buildings are used to illustrate the differences in approach. One, an iconic structure by Paul Rudolph had a larger burden of care than another building of middling distinction designed by a local Canadian architect. Consequently, greater liberties were exercised indecisions regarding day-to-day repair and eventual replacement of materials in one than the other. An analysis of architectural trade catalogues from roughly the 1940s to the 1970s provides a backdrop to this discussion and to the larger issue of the acknowledgement (or lack thereof) of the fallibility of modern materials.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.106.83

Volume Editors
Amir Ameri & Rebecca O'Neal Dagg

ISBN
978-1-944214-15-9