As incredible as it seems, the Park Service is attempting to demolish Richard Neutra’s 1961 Cyclorama Building at Military Gettysburg National Park. Citing maintenance and mechanical problems as reason for the proposed removal of the building, the Park Service has denied National Historic Landmark status to Neutra’s work, though other Modernist buildings administered by the Service have been granted that protection. What’s going on?
What seems to be at work is the “vision” of Park Service officials who evidently subscribe to today’s theme-park principles when designing tourist facilities. Plans are afoot for 39,000 square feet of elaborate, pseudo-historical structures that will contain a 6,000-square-foot shop, and a 250-seat café. The Neutra building, located on a small rise overlooking the battleground at Gettysburg, is scheduled for demolition in 2007; the rise is to be returned to an unbuilt condition.
A view from the grounds of the Cyclorama Building shows
that present-day structures are clearly visible from the battlefield,
negating arguments that history would somehow be better served by
demolishing Neutra's work. Courtesy mission66.com, © 2003
Boris Starosta.
Protests on both sides of the controversy have been vociferous. Neutra’s son Dion Neutra, who still runs the architectural practice bearing his father’s name, has showcased the building and its plight on his Website. Architectural historian Christine Madrid French has joined the fray, devoting several highly informative webpages to the situation, and spearheading an online petition drive to save the Cyclorama Building through public outcry.
As hard as opponents of the demolition have worked, there is also a movement that is working to be certain the Neutra building comes down on schedule. Their main focus seems to be the “restoration” of the battlefield to a mythic condition supposedly approximating that of 1863, a specious concept at best. Plenty of present-day structures nearby preclude any illusion that the Civil War is still going on, and no one seems to advocate bringing in a supply of blood and gore for the sake of accuracy. “There are other Neutra buildings; there is only one Gettysburg Battlefield” is one rallying cry. It makes very little sense; the new buildings and their parking lots will likewise be on battlefield land.
Unfortunately, there is a diminishing number of Neutra buildings; none is as unique as the Cyclorama Building. It houses a mammoth 1883 painting of the Battle of Gettysburg, and sits upon the very vantage point from which the painting was done. Settled serenely and unobtrusively onto the landscape, it not only graces the site, it serves as a bridge between yesterday and today, turning the battlefield into a palimpsest, where various layers of time can be seen to influence and compliment each other.
A bust of Abraham Lincoln, not original to Neutra's
design, looks out over a serene environment that may last only two more
years. Courtesy mission66.com, © 2003 Boris Starosta
If the Park Service proposal is realized, all this and a great deal more will be lost. The proposed new mega-buildings are to be built and operated by a non-profit organization, which supposedly will turn them over to the Park Service when a certain level of revenues repaying their cost has been attained. The network of privately-owned tourist services in the area is likely to suffer much the same fate as a cluster of Mom-and-Pop stores next to a Wal-Mart. And fifteen million dollars in public funds have recently been pledged to jump-start the project, although the original proposal was to have the new buildings and their huge parking lots funded entirely by private enterprise.
What is worst about all this is that the National Park Service is the entity overseeing the National Historic Landmark program; the very bureaucrats who are supposed to be protecting the Neutra building are actively seeking its demolition. Even though other NPS buildings of Modernist design and lesser importance have been granted landmark status, something seems to have gone awry at Gettysburg, so that a bureaucracy and private enterprise can work hand-in-hand to destroy an irreplaceable national treasure.
The Park Service’s assertion that the mechanical and maintenance problems of the building are reason to remove it flies in the face of accepted historical preservation principles; Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” has been structurally challenged for decades, yet no one would want it torn down. Quite a lot closer to the Park Service’s turf, the White House was ready to collapse into its own basement until President Truman ordered the reconstruction of its historic fabric on a frame of modern steel girders in 1948.
Neutra's detailing at the Cyclorama Building is exquisite,
but doomed to destruction if sufficient public outcry cannot be mustered. Courtesy mission66.com, © 2003 Boris Starosta
The problems at the Cyclorama Building can and should be overcome; there will never be anything like it again. There is no bringing back 1863; we can only respect the enormity of what happened then. Hopefully, Richard Neutra’s masterwork can be saved, to remind new generations of another time in history, a time when America’s faith and optimism were unbounded, a time when the public good was served by Art, not Mammon. Those who wish to demolish the Cyclorama Building in the name of a theme-park approach to Gettysburg's history miss the entire point of the structure. Its Modernism measures the distance humanity has traveled from the hatred, injustice, and polarization that spawned the Civil War, a journey our nation has yet to complete. Period-style structures cannot do that; they can only simulate a past from which America is still struggling to be freed.
The author wishes to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of architectural historian Christine Madrid French, whose book on Modernist buildings of the National Park Service, Mission 66, is to be published in 2005 by Balcony Press.
SOURCES
The following links served as sources for this article, and are highly recommended for further information about the Cyclorama Building and its plight.
For Dion Neutra’s history and photographs of the Cyclorama Building, visit:
www.neutra.org/gettysburg
For Chris Madrid French’s history of the Cyclorama Building, and the petition that will help to save it, visit:
www.mission66.com/cyclorama
To get an inside glimpse of the National Park Service’s efforts to demolish the Cyclorama Building, visit: www.nps.gov/partnerships/gettysburg
The photography of Boris Starosta encompasses 3D and stereoscopic imagery, commercial and stock photography, scientific photographic illustration, and nudes. To see more of his work, visit:
www.starosta.com
All photographs presented in this article are the property of their respective owners.
