the Future of the Ripple Effect
Will architectural preservations ever rule the world?
By Gabriella Castillo
By Gabriella Castillo
As thoughts float back from the past, I never noticed those loud creeks that ascended from those ancient wooden floorboards of my studio apartment. Of course nobody seems to take notice of that when you’re six and darting out the door with only one shoe on, but between the cracks that separate each board individually is an opening to a portion of history from generation to generation.
Neighborhoods or communities you may stumble upon in San Diego preserve a wide variety of cultural differences within its architectural roots. Slowly, but noticeably architectural development either holds, changes, or removes the culture of a place. As life goes on, you begin to see concrete giants that conquer the once well known quaint victorian residences that are becoming rare to these local neighborhoods. Instead of waiting for abandoned residences to be overtaken by architectural developers, the city has found ways to twist those rough condition properties into eye catching neighborhood jewels. However, our government needs to regulate structural changes to these homes so that historical values remain true to their original time. Well preserved neighborhoods can be found in the community of Kensington, Bankers Hill and North Park. Many of these celebrated areas, rich to San Diego’s history are identified for their architectural preservation movements. Many of the residences within Kensington offer an eclectic mix of characteristics of San Diego’s historic neighborhoods influenced by Spanish Colonial Revival, Monterey, Cottage Prairie architectural styles. “Historic properties—residences in particular—definitely need historic preservation and stewardship. The elements and connections from the past calls for the structural development status,” explained Gabe Selak, an archivist at the San Diego Historical Center. It embodies that San Diego possesses trends in a variety of ways which indicates that we as a society we have to be mindful to the modifications. Victorian House.. Condos…Victorian House.. Apartments. Around San Diego I often notice many residential structural changes and think twice about the decisions they made to create something new. Visualizing the development changes in our neighborhoods changes my perspective. When I look over these buildings and see new development, I wonder what we lose: all of the stories, the roots of San Diego, the art and craft of architecture. All of that is replaced with expensive concrete monsters. “Demolishing buildings and changing them defeats the entire purpose of preserving our primary roots,” Gabe explained. But, focusing on the creations of new architectural development will not preserve what is here and won't help save San Diego’s culture; it will only destroy it.
“Remember when you were younger and we used to take walks around the neighborhood? Hundreds of times you would ask me about the history of the victorian houses around us. I always found the preservations of these houses to be beautiful and was always baffled to see the one apartment complex on the corner. I am astounded to see what architects can do to demolish residential housings for the concept of income. And in most of these neighborhoods that is what it is beginning to be.” What’s incredible about San Diego’s cultural DNA is that we can depend on the residents who live here for the truth. Elizabeth Castillo mother of two, managed three renovated victorian residences in Bankers Hill for the full length of 12 years. Although she is not a professional of the residential architectural history of Balboa, she knew the history of the homes such as what buildings were there and what buildings used to be there. She described San Diego’s culture as developed by many different trends mixing together, which included residential neighborhood development. She brought something very interesting to the table that I never really cared for when I was younger, but I now realize that it creates who we are and what San Diego has become and is becoming. It’s always good to see contractors and owners preserving what creates San Diego and the historical part of San Diego and I have an appreciation to the people who do that. Demolishing and creating new high rise apartments and condos in San Diego is detrimental to San Diego’s historic architecture, but it also adds to the growth of San Diego’s cultural movement. “Authorization of historical preservation within San Diego is critical when creating something that will benefit the community,” Gabe explained. Properties within San Diego are selected and approved by the neighboring communities. There is a historical preservation board within San Diego that reviews the historical properties by the background of how the building was used. Over the years, many of these properties do not get preserved from not knowing more background knowledge about the property. There are about 1500 site properties within San Diego County that currently lists either on their own label description of historical preservation or as their own part of the districts jewels. “ Repairing and preserving what is here is something to think about when creating a community. Take in that San Diego’s culture consists of the new and old. But when not preserving these old houses and businesses and sticking to one thing, does not give appreciation to San Diego’s primary roots.” When I heard about this and how the buildings were created I had a hard time thinking about how many buildings in San Diego should've been preserved instead of being torn down and created into concrete monsters.
I went to the Old Town community and visited the Whaley house that was provided by SOHO San Diego, an organization that helps to preserve San Diego’s historic architecture. SOHO taught me how they have evolved over the years. They make sure to preserve what’s left of historical development, while adapting to the environmental changes around them. They also capture the time of redevelopment of historical preservation and changes put into the society so far. SOHO began as a small group that was committed to saving victorian houses which is now one of the largest organizations in California. They emphasize on the value and find the significance of all of San Diego County's historic sites and cultural landscapes. The Whaley house is a good piece of information that is a part of San Diego's cultural DNA because it was one of the first homes to be built in that area. Even though it isn't a part of Balboa park, it holds cultural information and has been preserved just like the smaller communities around Balboa park. Around the San Diego community, many residential architects put in efforts to preserve things that need to be preserved all over San Diego. Residential areas around Balboa park are being mixed with the new trend of "tactical urbanism" which is more or less throwing a splash of paint over historical homes that needed work. Unfortunately, this tactic has been more and more frequent. There is minimal effort applied to preserving homes that are historic to San Diego. Even more so, a horrific trend of demolishing historic homes and turning them into tacky condominiums has become more common as well. What will be left of San Diego’s historic residential architecture if money hungry investors continue to demolish them or cover their history with cheap paint? San Diego’s Architectural movement has and always will be influenced based on the biases of the public's perspective. It is our duty to try and preserve what is left. Not only are San Diego’s residential architecture part of San Diego’s DNA, it is also part of San Diego’s history. Each home has a story of its own and its the people who live here who should try and preserve what is left. Indeed, modernizing older homes is sometimes a necessity in today’s society, but we should at least put effort into keeping some of San Diego’s history. If not, the history behind San Diego’s historic homes will be nothing more than an article or photo on a tourist website. |