Utah Heritage Foundation

Free Photography Workshop

Utah Heritage Foundation will hold a workshop teaching the basics of architectural photography in preparation for our For the Love of MOD Mid-Century Modern Photography Contest.  Taking place in Memorial House in Memory Grove Park (485 North Canyon Road, Salt Lake City) on Saturday, February 6 at 10:00 AM, this workshop will be taught by retired University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning Professor Peter Goss.  The workshop is free and is open to the public.

On Wednesday, the UHF staff took the tour that is offered by the Public Safety Department of the facility they are citing as decrepit.  As we see many older buildings, historic and not, savable and not, as part of our work, we were curious to see what the building really looked like on the inside.  And to my knowledge, none of the staff had been through the secure doors of the police station for any other reason so we needed the official escort!

This was truly a good chance to see, plain and simple, that this is a building that needs upgrading.  Systems are worn out.  Windows and their seals are tired.  Upgrades are needed.  And it can happen but not while such an intensive use is inside the building working round the clock 365 days a year.  It's a tough situation for the city and for preservation.  But we've seen tough cases before get solved and there is great architectural expertise in Salt Lake City to help move this forward.

Another bit of good news is the the city has begun to move forward with possible designation to the National Register of Historic Places.  We think the building has eligibilty to be listed, and with designation could open up the possibility of using the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit in the future redevelopment of the building for a new use.  It also shows a great deal of faith in the future preservation of this building and in the city's modernism movement on behalf of the city and Mayor Becker to invest in this designation.

Read SLC Police Hope Seeing is Believing by Katie Drake in the Salt Lake Tribune. (Photo courtesy of Salt Lake Tribune)

Of course it would take more than fairy tales to bring the Public Safety Building back to a new use.  But as we are opening the discussion for this building that we believe has historic, architectural, and economic value to the city, let's close our eyes and imagine what could be.

What do you envision?

Read the Salt Lake Tribune's article - Save SLC's ‘ugly' Police HQ?

On the passing of Donald M. Stromquist last week, we should recognize the outstanding contribution he, and his late wife Jane, made to us in Utah.  First of all, let me say what great people they were, raising a successful, smart, and grounded group of three people.  And how they did that when they were balancing family life with great architectural sensibility is beyond most of our knowledge and comprehension.  As most of you know, the Stromquists hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design their house in Bountiful's North Canyon.  When they ran out of funds, Donald finished the house with his own hands and practical experience as he had built things since he was 14 years old.

For many years, Jane led vocal campaigns for practical planning, good design, and better public process.  Donald, the tall, dashing presence was right there to back her up.  Sometimes without many words, but  just the right words and his appearance would set the tone.

But Donald's life was filled with purpose, which meant making something.  After many years in Pittsburgh, the Stromquists returned to Salt Lake City and purchased the Culmer House on C Street, a grand Victorian era house near Cathedral of the Madeleine.  They proceeded over the next decade to restore the entire property by their own hands, much of it by Donald, including his rebuilding of all the intricate wood bookcases and removing and restoring every wood window in the entire house.  It was truly a labor of love.

In the late 1990s, their beloved Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house was offered for sale again and they bought it back.  After another restoration project, this time to the property they originally built, they moved back in.  Donald hosted Utah Heritage Foundation at the Stromquist House at our first Preservation Council event in 2000, and his great charisma was as much a part of the event as the house.

There a

Utah Heritage Foundation Position Statement on the Public Safety Building

September 1, 2009

Utah Heritage Foundation supports the Salt Lake City Administration and Public Safety officials in the November 2009 election campaign to fund a new public safety complex.

On June 25^th, Utah Heritage Foundation began a new era.  The launch of Salt Lake Modern has called all those who have a passion for retro, streamline, and the recent past.  The opening event at a Stephen Macdonald-designed, Japanese-influenced house near the University of Utah drew an eclectic mix of passionate people from across the valley.

Salt Lake Modern is dedicated to preserving, protecting, and promoting the Salt Lake region's mid-century modern architecture.  As a part of Utah Heritage Foundation, SL Mod functions as a committee to promote awareness of such works, document the architects who created them, and showcase the functional design philosophy behind them.

You can help get Salt Lake Modern off to a great start in two ways.

1)      Join Utah Heritage Foundation as a modern member;

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We wait a long time for this much news for historic preservation in Utah.  What a great way to start Preservation Month for 2009, which annually comes in May.

The UHF Historic Homes Tour in Yalecrest this Saturday features 9 area homes - from Bungalows to Tudor Revival elegance.  It will be a great day to see a wonderful neighborhood in bloom.

Buy tickets here.

News links:

Charles Phoenix's Retro Slide Show Tour of America is the Opening Night feature at Utah Heritage Foundation's 2009 Utah Preservation Conference on April 30, 2009.  The program begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Salt Lake City Library's Auditorium and is free and open to the public.

In 1982, Phoenix moved to Los Angeles and began a career as a fashion designer. He also busied himself with hobbies that included collecting and trading vintage cars and other mid-century treasures.  One day he unexpectedly stumbled across a box of old 35mm family and travel slides in a thrift shop. Soon collecting other people's old slides became an addiction that changed the course of his life.

His passion for mid-century American culture combined with his thrift-shop fortune of vintage 40s, 50s, and 60s slides developed into crowd-and-critic-pleasing live performances including a show of his best slides.  Audiences on both coasts are delighted by Phoenix's unique ability to point out the hysterical and historical, the ironic and the iconic.  In 2004, Phoenix added tour guide to his repetoire, giving tours of Downtown Los Angeles and providing uncanny analogies to Disneyland.

On Sunday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that a whopping 285,000 people strolled through the Body Worlds exhibit before it closed its doors on January 11^th.  No doubt, The Leonardo brought a fabulous exhibit to Utah and it may be a sign of things to come.  Aside from the hoards of people that rushed the gates on the last weekend, I hope patrons leisurely strolls amongst plasticized bodies were intermingled with fond glances of remembrance around the fabulous historic building that the exhibit occupied.  After all, this may have been the first time the public has been back in the former library building since it closed in 2002.

For me, Body Worlds was a chance to also showcase a little remembered period of architecture for the public and how a potential new tenant - The Leonardo - would be stewards if given a lease on the building.  The former Main Library - built in 1964 - could be considered our city's newest historic building.  The Keeper of the National Register determined that it is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in mid-2008 for its distinctive period architecture and use of local materials.  Its original design concept of a floating concrete cube exists intact.  The interior of marble and panelized walls, ceilings with leaflights, and a modern escalator show the clean lines of design of the era.  All of these character defining features are important in the building's preservation and stewardship.

The Leonardo is now packing up the Body Worlds exhibit and moving onto their long-term plans.  But they and the City have agreed to leave the building in the pre-exhibit, National Register eligible condition by replacing the leaflights, removing all interior and exterior signage, and repainting the interior the original white color and restoring the original wall surfaces.