Grußworte von...

Denise Scott Brown und Robert Venturi

Denise Scott Brown und ihr Ehemann und Partner, Robert Venturi, gehören zu den einflussreichsten Architekten des 20. Jahrhunderts. Robert Venturi erhielt 1991 den Pritzker Preis. Deutsche Übersetzung als PDF

"Dear supporters of and protesters against Project 21,

We address this letter to all of you because you all love your city and work for its good.

We don't know what problems have caused the city and architects of Project 21 to engage with Stuttgart's Hauptbahnhof building in such radical ways, however we can imagine that the times and conditions in the area might validly call for transportation changes. Therefore you have our sympathy. These are difficult situations and no one rule holds for all.

Yet the eyes of the world are on you and at stake is the reputation of Stuttgart. Your action s will not go unnoticed. Demolition of yet more of Paul Bonatz's building will shame the city yet further, and a place of shame is an un attractive place to live and work in, or to visit.

The need for growth surely weighs heavily with you, especially when it vies with the needs of beauty and tradition. Yet sometimes history itself seems to tell us to demolish ? but why? We should carefully consider the reasons.

Shame and disrespect may be among them. To explain: In Europe, where a thousand years of history fill the foreground, it's easy to feel that the recent past is not yet part of the tradition. Such sentiments place key elements of heritage at risk - until they grow old enough to be respected. And our own profession, architecture, is much to blame. In the 1920s when Le Corbusier described Paris as "an old hag" requiring demolition, he defined thought patterns that brought destruction in cities world wide and have taken years to combat. Yet even as we now admit that urban renewal, 1950s style, is undesirable, one aspect of this outlook remains. It is the Modernists' claim that the work of their elders and competitors, the Deco architects and others in that vein, lacked quality because it wasn't modern enough.

This disrespect for the recent past may be what some architects, trained in the 1950s and at work today, bring to their estimation of the station building. And they may pass it on to a lay public as accepted doctrine ? what "everyone knows." So the conventional wisdom about the Bahnhof and its surrounding landscape may be that "everyone knows" it is not worthy.

But things may be worse. The building holds memories and associations of a vile regime. Bonatz was in the beginning and in part complicit and at the end not, but his role in Nazi Germany could affect todays' views on the quality of his architecture. Yet buildings don't commit war crimes. And the agonies of complicity must, in the end, be handled through austere judgement tempered by understanding. Yet, whether harshly or mercifully, how can you judge if you remove the evidence?

This building deserves to continue an honored not a limping role in the city. The heritage it represents should not be taken down because it is not medieval or because Hitler was totally evil. There are many imaginative ways to reuse old buildings in new contexts to meet changed definitions of their purpose. But hatred of what you have will not evoke creativity. Understanding and imagination may.

So please, look at the building with fresh eyes. No matter what the Moderns felt, it's a worthy and truly beautiful piece of urban architecture, part of its time and good for our time.

We send you our best wishes in your struggle,

Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi"