As the saga of Dallas City Hall continues, it has captured the attention of preservation groups concerned for the fate of I.M. Pei’s iconic work of brutalist architecture.
This week, the World Monuments Fund, the New York-based advocacy organization, has included city hall on its “Irreplaceable America” list, a group of ten endangered places that “have shaped the nation’s unique history on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”
In its statement, the WMF called the building “one of the most significant works of civic architecture and modernism in America,” and noted that “pressure from private developers and inflated rehabilitation estimates create an immediate risk of abandonment or demolition.”
Other places on the WMF list include the folk art Watts Towers in Los Angeles; the colonial houses of Newport, R.I.; the smallpox hospital on New York City’s Roosevelt Island, designed by James Renwick; and the Wright Brothers historic site in Dayton, Ohio.
A special designation was given to the National Park Service, in light of “mounting pressures, including staffing reductions, chronic underfunding, a growing deferred maintenance backlog, and increasing climate risks that threaten both historic resources and visitor access.”
Last week, Preservation Dallas, the local advocacy group which has spearheaded the campaign to restore Dallas City Hall, placed the building in the top slot of its own 10 most endangered buildings. The other sites on the list are the Belmont Hotel, DISD Bond Schools, the old Dallas Morning News headquarters, city-owned historic properties (including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Kalita Humphreys Theater), Oak Cliff’s Kovandovitch house, Cole Manor Motel, Hotel St. Germain, Garvin Cemetery and the 10th Street Historic District.
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