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Should the White House Move?
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Sunday, September 11, 2005
# Editor's note: The following passages are excerpted from a recent General Assembly hearing regarding the possibility of moving the Museum and White House of the Confederacy from Court End.
Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources:
History is a continuing story. The challenge and the opportunity looking forward is to grow and change while doing right by our historic assets and our communities so both can thrive. It is certainly not to relegate our downtowns to the texture-less, the history-less, and to try to gather up our history and move it to convenient, false enclaves . . . .
[Museum director Waite] Rawls noted that preservationists believe historic buildings should be moved only as "a last resort," but he did not understand that phrase. "Last resort" means to avoid an imminent threat of destruction from demolition. It's a salvage strategy when preservation in place is simply not possible. This is a preservation term, not an organizational one . . . .
However compromised the setting, the White House is not under threat of demolition . . . .
For an example of a building whose setting has been changed and compromised -- one with confounding access and parking problems -- we need to look no further than the State Capitol. Although it has the nice advantage of being surrounded by a varied but good collection of works of architecture, it was designed by Jefferson to be experienced as a distant and lone temple on a hill, visible for miles around at a time when Richmond's "downtown" was then little more than a rough-and-ready village by the river. How many years has it been since we could see it clearly from the James, or for that matter, from a greater distance than a street's width from Capitol Square? No one is proposing to move the Capitol.
. . .
Cynthia MacLeod, superintendent of the Richmond National Battlefield Park and the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site:
I would like to acknowledge the gravity of the situation; indeed, the current setting of this National Historic Landmark structure is shockingly altered from its historic setting. That said, the proposed cure of moving the structure would be a treatment sure to cause even more harm to the White House of the Confederacy. Relocation cannot guarantee financial viability as a house museum. The pragmatic arguments hold as much weight as the philosophical one against relocation . . . .
In my search for other landmarks that have been moved, I found none that parallels this situation. When buildings are moved, it is usually to avoid actual demolition. Sometimes it's been a merely rich person's whim. Historic landmarks all over this country coexist with settings changed from their historic appearance . . . .I do know something about managing historic resources with compromised settings -- almost all of the Civil War battlefields in the Richmond area have been compromised in some way by incompatible construction on their borders or within their boundaries. Some are only remnants of what they were, but we value them, and they are touchstones of national history in their places. Visitors appreciate that authenticity.
The location of the White House of the Confederacy is of such importance that relocating the building would undermine its historic integrity and destroy much of its authenticity. A new location, especially one distant from the Capitol Square neighborhood, would be potentially confusing or misleading to visitors . . . .
[We need to] understand that there is not a single silver bullet solution. As I said earlier, relocation will not guarantee financial viability. And it would be an expensive, embarrassing gamble if it failed. The proposal would cost tens of millions, any fraction of which sum would be better spent for an endowment for operations of the museum. The proposed cure for this valuable landmark is so extreme as to effectively kill the ailing patient . . . .
Please do not help turn a tragedy into a travesty.
Other actions can help the situation: (1) Richmond and Virginia can do better for this landmark by putting a moratorium on high-rise construction in the immediate neighborhood. And (2), other similarly situated institutions can work together to improve operating efficiencies.