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Show r5- 31 -- J-1 hi ii If-1 Ji.i t, pringL.-" - - - , tiBBm-rf, Contrasting styles of architf0MaUj)dK'hg on left and Lower Hills Building. It is the philosophy of ilfie Historic District Commission and the Planning Department, said Planning Director Bill Ligety, that the histr75jigqf4nges that take place in Park City should be apparent through its architecture. i I nuiiill iihl oi Jrign id! io J'jsbud 1qt nori 1b naibiiilj ji boliio'. Main Street m I dings t ni nwit lit,!!? 11 I reflect new philosophy by Christopher Smart What was good then isn't necessarily good now. That is the feeling among planners plan-ners as Park City changes its philosophy on architecture. architec-ture. The national debate between be-tween constructing replicas of old buildings in historic districts, or ones that are contemporary but "sympathetic" "sympa-thetic" to the old structures, has swungjjn.avor of!(the latter, according to aficjii-tects aficjii-tects and historians. With the coming of the Lower Hills building, which is sandwiched between two replicas the 614 Main Street building and what used to be Frankies that swing is being be-ing demonstrated in Park City. But it was just 1981 when the Rocky Mountain Kitchen, a replica, opened its doors to accolades from the community, according to Mike Barnes, a member of the Silver Mill development partnership who built it. Between the time that building was planned and now, philosophies have changed on what should be built in Park City's Historic District, Barnes said. He points to the Silver Mill Mall as evidence. According to Barnes, the original plans for that structure struc-ture were not greeted with enthusiasm by the Historic District Commission. Those plans called for a group of clustered buildings designed to copy existing buildings on Main Street. He said the Historic District Commis-sion Commis-sion suggested that 1 the ; Silver Mill partnership use ; a contemporary design. As a .f f;.riV tnfiil result, a mtfdernlook'ihg mall will beUilt 'oni Main Street instead."1 -i''11 "'? ' Barnes said his partnership partner-ship still f receives c'ompli-, c'ompli-, ments oh the Rocky Mountain Moun-tain Kitchen building. He said he thinks people like the old Main Street look but the planners and commissioners seem to like contemporary architecture. There may have been changes . in building philo- past three or four years. But, according to City, Planning Director Bill Ligety, the mainstream of thought on historic preservation has been moving away from replication for a much longer period of time. Ligety explained that the National Trust forfHistoric Preservation and vthe Na-1 tional Park Service, which is ; charged with funding historic histor-ic sites, share the philsophy that replication debases authentic au-thentic buildings. The creation crea-tion of Park City's Historic District Commission, about 2 J4 years ago, could have been the point when local building ideals began pivoting pivot-ing toward contemporary and sympathetic architecture, architec-ture, Ligety said. The Rocky Mountain Kitchen Kit-chen was approved before the inception of the Historic District Commission and although it isn't authentic, it does use traditional building , forms and does not try to trick an observer into thinking think-ing it is something that it isn't, he said. Ligety couldn't extend the same compliment to the original plans for Silver Mill's Main Street -Market place. Those original blue-" blue-" prints looked like the brown-' brown-' stone architecture of the eastern United States, he said. The original architecture architec-ture of Park City, with its roots as a mining boom town, was simpler and built more in response to shelter needs. Replica tive architecutre is seldom done well, Ligety said. Usually replications "sort of look old but the specifics aren't true." The detract from the originals and confuse people as to what old Park City was, he said. Architect Richard Brighton Bright-on agrees with Ligety that replications tend to "camouflage" "camou-flage" historic buildings. But he added that designing buildings for the Historic District that will be contemporary contem-porary but sympathetic isn't an easy task. Brighton's firm, Brighton-Walker Associates As-sociates drew up the new, contemporary design for the Silver Mill Mall. Building new structures around old ones, especially on Main Street, presents problems of scale, Brighton said. The old character of Park City is that of small buildings which make for a broken skyline. "When you stick a big building, like Treasure Mountain Inn, in there it disrupts the scale of the town." Brighton said the design of the new Silver Mill Mall attempts to break up the mass of the structure so that it can blend in with the scale of the older buildings. The natural rhythm of the town is one of "terracing" up the hillside, he said. Another way the mall will blend into the scale of Main Street, Brighton said, is that only one and two stories of the four-story structure will border on Main Street. The structure will then "terrace" "ter-race" up toward Park Avenue. Ave-nue. Building up the hill and gradually increasing the height of the Mall will mitigate the canyon effect seen at the bottom of Main , Street. j . Tle buildings af the bot- t p torn of Main Street were i built to the height limit that ordinance would allow, Brighton Bri-ghton said. This gives the developer the most cost-effective cost-effective and best use of the space. However, he said, the city planners would prefer that the buildings would try to blend in with the lower historic profile of Main Street. In his dealings with the city planners, Brighton said he has found that "an awful lot" (of a building's design) is left up to the developer and the architect. However, he added that the planning staff is charged with preserving pre-serving the scale of Main Street. Since Park City's Historic District Commission laid down the guidelines for renovation and new construction con-struction within the district, it is the City Planning staff's responsibility to approve proposed structures, Ligety said. It is the philosophy of the Historic District Commission Com-mission and the Planning Department, he said, that the history and the changes that take place in Park City should be apparent through its architecture. |