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FROM: Volume
70, Number 12 April 13, 1968
A threatened classic of American industry suggests a question - must we destroy our past to renew our cities? .............. page 19 republished below |
The giant Amoskeag plant in Manchester, N.H., is a classic of American industry. It is also a unique and powerful experiment in city planning. But urban renewal threatens to end its days*
An
Epic in Urban Design
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Text
and photographs by Randolph
Langenbach
ALMOST
FORGOTTEN in the American scene
are the decaying remains of the
New England textile industry. But
from the smallest villages to the
largest of the cities, the
landscape is dotted with old mills
- a strikingly picturesque record
of the early days of the
Industrial Revolution.
Manchester,
N.H., was not the first of these
mill towns, but it was, without
question, the greatest. On a bank
of the Merrimack River about
thirty miles north of Lowell,
Mass. (which had been founded as a
utopian mill town), the Amoskeag
Manufacturing Co. began building
its plant in 1838. By the time of
its collapse in 1936, Amoskeag was
the largest textile manufacturer
in the world. Through its century
of life, its products ranged from
fire engines and locomotives to
Springfield rifles, in addition to
an amazing volume of textile
goods. A solid mile of mills
stands today as the monument of
this enterprise.
These
Manchester mills are much more
than a record of the past. Unlike
mills in other New England cities,
they were laid out and designed by
the engineering firm of one
company. Although for most of its
life the millyard was divided into
separate sub-companies, it was
Amoskeag Manufacturing that gave
birth to the enterprise,
determined its growth, and - in
the final years - decided its
fate. The company laid out the
whole city from scratch, and made
the millyard its heart; visually,
the millyard is still the heart of
Manchester today.
The
Amoskeag plant grew almost
continuously for seventy-five
years (the last building was
constructed in 1915), so it
provides an excellent reflection
of changes in architectural style
and taste. But the real value of
the mill lies in its strikingly
beautiful layout. Both the mills
and the workers' housing are
stylistically conservative for
their times, and, except for a few
examples of high Victorian fantasy
in the towers and gateways, the
buildings are remarkably plain.
The reason for this restraint in
the design of individual buildings
becomes apparent when one enters
this complex. No structure stands
isolated or distinct. Instead the
dense and continuous mass of red
brick buildings flows together
into a unified and organic whole.
The millyard is open at each end,
with canals and railroad tracks
running through its entire length
on two different levels above the
river. However, instead of a long
straight avenue, a gentle curve
softens the rigor of the design,
dividing the millyard into
identifiable spaces.
How
much of this is a result of
chance, and how much is a product
of conscious design, is hard to
say. But it is known that those
who built the millyard had an
uncommon sense of pride in the
fabric of the plant, and a
surprising respect for the value
of what had come before their
time. Progress for this industry
was not marked by a repeated
scrapping of the earlier buildings
and a total remaking of the whole
environment. Instead, it involved
a continual adaptation of the
earlier buildings to new needs,
within an over-all design scheme
that was just as valid at the end
of the development as it was at
the beginning a century before -
and which, in terms of urban
design, remains valid even today.
The Amoskeag design remained
viable for such a period of time
because it was based on an
altogether human response to human
needs, and was built to express
that response as well as serve
material demands. Today it has
great value because it expresses
the character of an age whose
legacy is fast disappearing from
the national scene.
In
terms of urban design, the
millyard is unique. Nowhere else
in this country, and in only a few
places in the world, does such a
unified and comprehensively
designed area of this size exist.
Indeed, in the face of the
unprecedented wave of
destruction and redevelopment
which is sweeping the country, it
is surprising that Amoskeag is
still intact. However, this only
sharpens the tragedy that is about
to occur there. In the name of
economics, the millyard is about
to lose those buildings which are
most important in defining the
urban space.
In
1936 the Amoskeag plant was
purchased out of liquidation by
the local community, in a dramatic
and imaginative effort to rescue
the city from total
unemployment. Today
approximately eighty different
businesses occupy the space
formerly held by one company. The
problems caused by this diversity,
the age and condition of the
buildings, and the current use of
trucks and automobiles within
the confines of the millyard are
intense. In 1961, Arthur D. Little
Inc. issued a report to the
Manchester Housing Authority
after a long and detailed study of
the "economic problems and
possibilities" in
Manchester. A major portion of
this report was devoted to the
millyard, because of its
importance in the city's
industrial base. Several basic
alternatives were studied and
discussed, and general
conclusions were reached. These
conclusions, which called for
renovation of some buildings and
removal of others, were based on
much sound economic evidence.
However, it was said that
"even with extensive
improvements and upgrading, the
millyard will never be an asset
from an aesthetic point of
view." With these words,
judgment was passed on the quality
of the millyard; after the
proposed renewal, it would be the
final judgment for all time.
It
would be unfair to say that the
economic conclusions of the report
are wrong or should not be
considered. But it is impossible
to do full justice to the area if
it is to be flatly condemned
visually, because it is out of
style or lacks the flashy aluminum
look that characterizes today's
industrial parks.
The
current plan proposes that the
long canal buildings and a major
part of the river facade be
destroyed, and the canals filled
in. The large rectangular mills
will stand isolated and
characterless in a sea of trucks
and automobiles. The dramatic
continuous wall along the river
bank will no longer face the
highway on the other side, and the
quiet spaces along the canals,
divided from the bustle of the
millyard by the long three-story
canal building, will become a part
of the bustle itself. The
buildings that would be lost are
not the largest buildings, but in
terms of the environment in and
around the millyard, they are the
most important. In order to
achieve the basic objectives of
increased accessibility and more
parking space, it is not necessary
that all these buildings be
destroyed. However, before they
have a chance to survive, their
value must be recognized. This
means that along with the study of
economic needs, a thorough
examination of the visual
environment should be made.
WHAT
IS IT that makes the millyard
important to the city beyond,
simply, its provision of space for
business? Its qualities as an
architectural monument do not
alone make it important. The
emphasis on its importance as an
urban space comes a little closer,
if one considers what, in fact,
the value of an urban space is.
Whereas
a single great work of
architecture may only be
meaningful to those who have some
academic knowledge as to what
its merits are, a successful
large-scale urban development is
necessarily more intimately tied
to the people of the city itself,
because it encompasses more of
their environment than any single
building. It is hard to assess the
value of Amoskeag in the terms of
its symbolic impact on the lives
of the Manchester people,
because, before people will
realize its importance, it has to
be removed or radically altered.
What needs to be known about
Amoskeag is its importance in
American history, from its start
as a primitive utopian community
through its later transformation
into an international melting-pot.
Its role in the growth of American
society is really more important
and symbolic than the role of
Williamsburg, which, although much
venerated, was more English than
American in style, and whose
significance did not last through
the greatest period of America's
industrial and social growth, as
did Manchester's. Manchester is
today not simply a place where
something important happened, but
a city where inspiration from the
past can be experienced from the
fabric of the present - a living
fabric, not an embalmed or
reconstructed memorial. The visual
image of the millyard sticks in
people's minds, whether they live
and work in the city or whether
they drive by it on the turnpike.
Reactions to it may be positive or
negative, but what is important is
that they occur. There is no one
who, when passing through
Manchester, does not notice the
millyard, or who fails to react to
it in some way. This is the real
test of the value of a city. The
response of the people involves
something more intimately tied to
their own lives than just notions
of what is attractive or not. For
the health of society, it is
necessary that people have the
opportunity to respond in this way
to their environment.
By
limiting their analysis of the
visual nature and importance of
the millyard to a superficial
value judgment, the economists and
planners at Arthur D. Little
seemed to overlook this. People
tend to forget that economics is
in fact a social science. In the
face of the expansion of the
non-city across the land, with its
freeway-oriented sprawl, this
nation needs to learn the
importance of the readily
identifiable place. In the effort
to save our cities, too often we
shear out their hearts, only to
find that the computer program of
an economic analysis is not
sufficient to restore them. Yet
we are at a loss to know why.
Perhaps by learning to look and
see our environment, rather than
by simply reading statistics, we
can begin to find out. Amoskeag
provides a lonely example of a
powerful urban form with a scale
appropriate to the cities of
today. It is important for
Manchester and for the nation that
it continue to exist, so that
future generations may learn from
it.
UNDER an independent study in Architectural Sciences, Randolph Langenbach '68 is completing a thesis on the Amoskeag millyard and its significance in American urban design. His photographs of the plant were made in connection with a project at the Carpenter Center for Visual Studies, and during a summer assignment under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service Historic American Buildings Survey.
*This article was written in 1968. Beginning that year and over the following decade, many of the most character-defining buildings were destroyed, and the canals were filled in, under urban renewal. Alas, there is now a University branch of UNH and a Museum in the Millyard, and the area has been finally recognized as an historic district, but it is now a mere shadow of its former state.
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AMOSKEAG The
cloth that was
produced here
has been worn
and discarded. The
people who
manufactured it
have gone their
separate ways. But the great plant that housed this colossal enterprise remains, a classic example of America's early industrial growth.
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TOTAL
DESIGN In
a nation where
the total design
of an area is
frequently
neglected in
favor of
isolated and
often unrelated
buildings,
Amoskeag has
great
significance.
Its architecture
is a corporate
architecture,
using the design
elements of an
age, rather than
one individual's
creative
expression. The
fact that an
environment,
rather than a
monument, was
created,
explains why it
could be
designed
successfully by
a large
corporate body
over a long
period.
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THE
SHAPE OF AN
URBAN PLACE The
American
tendency toward
separate
buildings set
apart from each
other is not to
be found here.
Instead, the
millyard's
internal space
is defined by
long, low
buildings and
moat-like
canals.
Penetration is
provided by
archways and
bridges, in much
the same way as
in an English
cathedral close.
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"Most
objects which we
are accustomed
to call
beautiful ...
are
single-purpose
things, in
which, through
long development
or the impress
of one will,
there is an
intimate visible
linkage from
fine detail to
total
structure" Kevin Lynch, professor at M.I.T., quoted in "Manchester: Downtown Plan."
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THE
FUNCTION OF AN
INDUSTRY
The few pieces of heavy machinery remaining at Amoskeag give an indication of what an enormous and important industry the plant once housed. In the interiors of the buildings, as well as on the exteriors, quality of design and precision of craftsmanship extend to the last detail. More than thirty years after the company's demise, a visitor can still sense the pride its people must have had in their work and their environment. |
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DESTRUCTION
OR SURVIVAL? Urban renewal plans in Manchester involve providing access to certain buildings in the Amoskeag millyard, as well as creating parking space where there is none now. Both the canal buildings and much of the river facade would be demolished, and both canals filled in, destroying forever the unity and impact of one of the most powerful urban scenes anywhere in the world. Amoskeag can be saved only through a drastic redefinition, in human terms, of the goals of city development - a redefinition that is equally necessary for all American cities. Bottom Right: In Lowell, Mass., desolation is all that exists where the first mills built in this utopian community once stood. |
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From
Table of
Contents
page: Driving
up from Boston
to the ski areas
of New
Hampshire,
Randolph
Langenbach '68
became curious
about the great
mill buildings
across the
Merrimack River
from Route 93 in
Manchester, N.H.
Curiosity led to
a visit, and the
visit led to a
documentary
study, the basis
of the article
that begins on
page 19 of this
issue. Having
photographed the
mills from
almost every
conceivable
location with
his 4x5"
view camera
(picture),
Langenbach has
developed a
consuming
interest in
saving them from
destruction by
urban renewal.
The Amoskeag
Case is unique
in certain ways,
but Langenbach's
text and
pictures in this
issue make a
statement that
bears on the
whole American
heritage. |
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