We received an update from Dale Allen Gyure, Associate Professor of Architecture at Lawrence Technological University about the threat to Minoru Yamasaki's architectural archives. We originally received the news from the Society of Architectural Historian's listserv, and wrote a blog post about it here.
According to Mr. Gyure,
I have good and bad news to report about the Yamasaki archives.We hope something was able to be saved by these efforts - it is sad that so much can be lost by a little carelessness. Thanks for the update, and we hope to see Mr. Yamasaki's work get the attention it deserves.
The county had scheduled an auction on March 9 to sell off as many office furnishings and equipment as possible. Amazingly, they also intended to empty all the file drawers and throw away the contents. The good news is that representatives of the Michigan State Archives were given access to the material. They arrived only an hour ahead of the shredders! Much important material was saved. The team also examined a self-storage facility but found only recent financial documents. Go to the Michigan Modern site for more information and a press release (http://michiganmodern.org/).
The bad news, however, is that Kip Serota, a longtime former employee who worked with Yamasaki, reported that when the firm moved offices back in the 1980s or 1990s they rented three self storage units to store all the historical materials, but the people operating the firm didn't pay the rent. Eventually the three units were consolidated into two and then finally into one. According to Serota, each time they downsized they simply threw out what didn't fit into the other units. When there was one unit left they again failed to pay the rent and the last of the material was simply thrown into a dumpster by the storage company. So it appears that whatever the Michigan State Archives was able to save is all that is left to document the history of this important firm.
Look for a story soon in the New York Times. Photos of the rescue are available at the Michigan SHPO’s Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mishpo/sets/72157623429423325.
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2 comments:
I read your article regarding Kip Serota's comments on the storage of the Yamasaki legacy. While it is true that there was an outside storage company used, Mr. Serota's assertions to items being thrown away is completely absurd. The funny thing about Serota's comments is that he hasn't stepped foot into the Yamasaki office since 2007 and during that time he was only a consulting employee with limited access. He has no knowledge of any items in the outside storage because the storage is under a private name and not under the company name. People like Serota and others have no true knowledge to speak on behalf of Yamasaki Associates. They may have been former employees but they had no management insight with the company.
Yes there were items donated to the State of Michigan, but it was not a last minute save that the media is making a huge hype about. The former CEO, Ted T. Ayoub, attempted to save the items by seeking State and Media help before the building owners destroyed the property. Ted contacted the AIA Historical Preservation society in Washington, DC back in January 2010 and the received a phone call by the New York Times archives department in February 2010. The Time originally wanted to retrieve the items but contacted the State of Michigan since they couldn't arrange to send a truck to the Yamasaki office in Michigan. There was no last minute saves and Mark Harvey, with the State of Michigan, met with Ted on a number of occasions to arrange for the donation of goods.
Lastly, for anyone to assume that items were thrown out, you need to question the source and validate with the State of Michigan as to what items were received. The true gold mine stuff, such as original drawings, rendering, photos, etc. belonging to Yamasaki’s most famous building, the WTC is still held in a private storage.
Sam, thanks for your response to my post. I would love to talk to you about this - could you contact me at dgyure@ltu.edu?
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