If you’ve spent any amount of time in buildings with historical significance (and you probably have), you recognize that such structures are more than the sum of their physical parts. The confluence of design, material, and human action that occurred in those buildings allow you to step out of time momentarily, and experience how past generations imagined the combination of form and function as they created a built environment.
Now, imagine those same buildings with solar panels on the roof. Does that take away from the experience?
The New York Times‘ Green Inc. blog dove into that question this morning, and attempted to dissect a hot debate among preservationists. From Al Gore’s Nashville mansion to a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed cottage in Wisconsin, the preservation community is wrestling with “where the line is between acceptable and unacceptable green improvements.” Entries into the debate include:
- Architecture critic Blair Kamin’s speech to the Michigan Historic Preservation Network on May 15.
- National Trust for Historic Preservation president Richard Moe’s speech to the US Green Building Council late last year.
- Priya Chhaya’s May 20th post on the NTHP’s PreservationNation blog.
The act of preservation is green in and of itself, no doubt. Is that enough? Does incorporating green technologies designed to reduce energy use, or provide electricity from renewable sources undermine a building’s historic character? You be the judge… let us know what you think in the comments.
Image credit: Bill Fitz-Patrick and whitehousemuseum.org
May 27th, 2009 - 4:24 pm
[...] Read the rest at the Sundance Channel’s SUNfiltered blog. [...]
May 27th, 2009 - 5:51 pm
Yes, solar panels can be added to an historic building, as long as the design is sensitive to the building’s character. People don’t generally object to adding things like electric wiring, telephones, or running water to historic buildings that originally lacked those amenities, so why should solar panels be different? As for visible changes, 19th-century lighthouses (for example) aren’t any less historic if their lamps are powered by electricity rather than whale oil.
May 30th, 2009 - 4:56 pm
I think solar panels can be put on any building large enough to hold them. I think the new more efficient and more economical solar panels should be used to offset energy costs anywhere that they can be put. Arranging them so that they are generally out of the visitor’s line of sight that should be where they are installed in historic or artistic architecture.
It’s time the government began aggressively subsidizing such clean alternatives to people that use them.
Sincerely,
Brian Scott Applegate
June 30th, 2009 - 3:33 am
Duh. That’s like asking “should they have upgraded to electricity and indoor plumbing?” It is a natural progression. Just because a structure is old does not mean that it cannot be modernized. Every building ever erected is “historic” in some way. With age comes beauty. Even the most beautiful women could do with a little sprucing up in their latter years. It does not detract from the beauty, it only enhances it. Solar panels would be less unsightly than the old television aerials from days gone by. Old structures are less efficient than new ones so it makes sense to power them with renewable energy.