“Among my many fond recollections of Jim Fitch is the memory of him in all his dignity—which at the age of sixty was impressive—standing on a chair during a rally against the Lower Manhattan Expressway. He was happily stunning his rapt and motley audience by telling them that the district which the highway would demolish –the district now known as SoHo—was an architecturally splendid piece of the city and that preserving it from destruction was a noble cause….Jim broadened preservation by emphasizing that the fabrics of entire neighborhoods or districts were worthy of being cherished.” From the message from Jane Jacobs read at the memorial of James Marston Fitch in May 2000.
Regarded as one of the founding fathers of historic preservation, James Marston Fitch, a Greenwich Village resident for more than 30 years, was an editor at Architectural Forum in 1948 with an office next to Jane Jacobs. Recollecting the start of a lifelong friendship with Jacobs, he wrote:
“As members of the editorial staff of the most dynamic journal of the day, we were willy-nilly at the center of many controversies. As it turned out none was more pregnant than the consequences of urban renewal….Being an architect my concern was principally with the physical fabric; not being an architect, Jane’s concern was principally for the people whose lives were being disrupted. The result of this exposure in my case was the creation of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the Columbia University School of Architecture. The result, in Jane’s case, came sooner and was much more explosive. It took the form of a book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities.”
Fitch’s Columbia program, along with his books, put preservation on a professional basis and his students became a task force in spearheading the preservation movement around the United States. Preservation fulfilled Fitch’s sense of history and his regard for continuity with the past, yet at the same time he was a dedicated modernist with a functionalist esthetic. He would surely have applauded the new Historic Districts Council Design Awards program which focuses on contemporary alterations of old buildings and historic neighborhoods. The Awards Ceremony on March 7 was followed the next day by HDC’s annual preservation conference, entitled “New Design + Old Places”, which featured presentations of their designs by three of the awardees, and a panel discussion: “What is Good Design? Appropriateness and Context.” Each of the winning projects demonstrated in its own way that current needs for modern construction could be met while allowing for sensitivity to context that ultimately enhances both old and new. The award winners included the restoration of Brooklyn’s Robert Moses era McCarren Pool and Bathhouse, the insertion of modern structures on the South Street Seaport’s historic Front Street, and the Weeksville Heritage Center, a new museum building adjacent to and respectful of a 19th century African American freedman’s community.
As a modernist and a preservationist with a strong sense of esthetics, Fitch would surely have appreciated the tact with which each of these projects was carried out, each an example of good design in itself while harmonizing with and even revitalizing the neighborhood context. A modest Fitch Foundation, founded while he was still alive, attempts, through awarding small grants to mid-career professionals, to further an understanding of architectural history and an approach to preservation that considers, as Jane Jacobs said, the fabric of an entire neighborhood.
Martica Sawin
Art historian and critic, Martica Sawin is the author of many books and articles on modern and contemporary art. She was the editor of James Marston Fitch :Selected Writings on Architecture, Preservation and the Built Environment, W.W.Norton, 2006.
