Preservation Heroes
Illinois, Indiana Societies Guard Architectural Heritage

by Craig Barner

What region of the United States can boast of its architectural heritage more than the Midwest?

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Design luminaries with local, national and worldwide reputations honed their craft and created new architectural languages here, including Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Other inspired architects also turned to the Midwest's wide expanses and industrial and commercial centers for their palette.

Sadly, elements of the Midwest's cultural heritage are threatened with the wrecking ball. Uninformed residents pass important structures every day, uneducated city officials fail to protect these buildings and unscrupulous developers seek demolition permits.

For instance, in Chicago, Sullivan's and Dankmar Adler's 17-story Schiller Building that housed the Garrick Theater - a structure on Randolph Street that defined in 1892 what a proud and soaring thing a skyscraper could be - was lost in 1961 to a parking garage.

More recently, the demolition of Alfred Alschuler's neoclassical Chicago Mercantile Exchange was completed in 2003 and remains an empty lot on Washington Street. (The new Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center opened at 30 S. Wacker Drive in 1983.)

But the Midwest has some dedicated organizations fighting against the cultural destruction of Midwest cities, and two of them recently received national attention for their triumphs.

In September the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust for Historic Preservation gave its Trustees' Award for Organizational Excellence to the Chicago-based

Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. The LCPI's $7.5 million bid in 2003 for the under-auction Farnsworth House, the Mies van der Rohe-designed steel-and-glass residence in Plano, Ill., was cited in part for the honor.
David Bahlman, 60, is president of the LCPI.

In addition, J. Reid Williamson Jr., the recently retired president of the Indianapolis-based Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, received the National Trust's prestigious Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award, which is named for the late heiress whose experience in preservation began with the restoration of the du Pont house in Delaware in 1924.

Before coming to Indiana, Williamson, 70, served as executive director of the Historic Savannah (Ga.) Foundation.

The National Trust summed up Williamson's preservation career as "indisputable evidence of superlative achievement."

"These two organizations have been around a long time, and they are experienced and effective," Richard Moe, president of the trust, said in an interview. "They are among the best preservation organizations we have in the country."

The honors motivated Midwest Construction to take a look at these organizations' history, philosophy and preservation strategy.

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