Aalto Room May Be Shown the Door
AN architectural gem is in danger of becoming an architectural millstone. A suite of conference rooms designed in 1964 by Alvar Aalto could join the list of extinct legendary New York interiors, now that their owner has announced that it would like them removed from an office building near the United Nations. The interior is not protected by landmark status.
The Kaufmann Conference Center, as it is known, is one of only four existing works designed by Aalto in the United States, and the only one in New York. It represents 'one of the unique architectural treasures of New York City,' Kenneth Frampton, the architectural historian, said.
Aalto, the renowned Finnish architect with a humanistic bent, brought a love of natural materials and organic shapes to the rigid contours of the International style -- not to mention his immortal 1936 vase. The office space is named for Edgar J. Kaufmann, a professor of architecture and a patron of architecture and education who talked his parents into hiring Frank Lloyd Wright to design Fallingwater. In this case, Kaufmann believed that Manhattan deserved an Aalto.
He commissioned the conference rooms in 1961 on behalf of the Institute of International Education at 809 United Nations Plaza. The current owner, a Japanese nonprofit organization, wants to convert the Aalto space into offices.
A hastily assembled band of Aalto enthusiasts and friends of New York's modern legacies are on a quest to find guardian angels to come to the rescue. Dismantling the large portable elements of the room would be possible, but expensive and somewhat destructive. And finding a new home has proved elusive. Some supporters believe a way must be found to keep it in place; others just want it saved any way possible.
The 4,500-square-foot, three-room space with retractable walls offers a choice menu of Aalto's signatures. Visiting the space today, it looks so original that one experiences the shock of modernism's early impact. A white plaster ceiling still undulates as it rises up to a peak of 22 feet. Textured walls -- some made of cylindrical royal blue porcelain ribs, others of long, thin birch battens layered at intervals over ash paneling -- move in waves, too. The real eye-stopper, however, is a sculptural relief of curvaceous birch staves, shaped like hockey sticks and set deep into one corner, Aalto's poetic abstract of a Finnish forest.
Along one side, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows provide a ringside view of the doings at the United Nations and along the East River, while an enormous screen of wooden louvers in a checkerboard pattern protects the space from glare. Aalto also made the gold-plated copper lighting fixtures, the sculptured bronze door pulls, the standing lamps with leather posts and Aalto-vaselike shades, the black leather and birch chairs and a portable bar and speaker's desk. His second wife, Elissa, assisted on the project and made the variegated brown rugs.
Despite their inimitable significance, such rooms, said Roger Lang of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, are 'very perishable, and very hard to save.' Tucked away on the top floor of a private office building, the Kaufmann Conference Center doesn't meet the legal criterion of public accessibility required for an interior space to be granted landmark status. There is another disadvantage. 'It's modern,' Mr. Lang said, 'and we're all trying to come to grips with preserving things that are hard for people to embrace because they belong to such recent history.'
The space appears to have been barely touched for 36 years. An old-fashioned pneumatic lever in a closet still raises an invisible track to transform the space from three to four conference rooms. Portability was an important theme of modernism, and Aalto designed the rooms to be movable. In fact, much of the components were made in Finland. There are even spare parts -- mostly bundles of birch battens and extra Arabia porcelain tiles -- in the basement, said Gil Robinov, the exclusive agent for the building's Japanese owners, the Foundation for the Support of the United Nations.
When the foundation bought the building in 1998, it converted it into a commercial condominium and sold several floors to foreign governments. Initially, it was unaware of the gem inside, Mr. Robinov said. But a constant trickle of architecture enthusiasts and students alerted the foundation to what it had. 'He's got a fan club, no question about it,' Mr. Robinov said about Aalto, adding that security makes it difficult to allow people free access to the space.
'We're very sympathetic to the plight of the followers of this architect,' he said. 'These rooms should be in a place where they are protected for posterity.' He also noted that because the place was private, 'whoever owns the building can do anything, including taking it out and putting it in the Dumpster.'
For the last five years, the Consulate General of Finland has been watching the space, even hiring Finnish experts to appraise its condition. Maija Lahteenmaki, the former consul general, took a special interest in the rooms, but her tour of duty in the United States recently ended.
She said that four months ago, she was 'informed by the new owners that they planned to convert it to office space because the market was so hot.' Ms. Lahteenmaki, with the help of Caroline Zaleski, a recent graduate of the Columbia School of Architecture's preservation program, solicited Frank Gehry, Robert Venturi, Tadao Ando and other prominent architects to write letters emphasizing the importance of preserving the interior. The owners responded by offering to donate all the portable elements to anyone who would pay the cost of removal.
The preservation and architectural community is not unanimous about what should be done. Some believe that if it cannot remain where it is, it should be dismantled and stored with the hope of reinstalling it at some future date. Others say that it should be removed to an institution that would use it and make it available to the public.
The Museum of Modern Art was an obvious place to turn. The museum's 1938 exhibition on Aalto's work was responsible for bringing him to international attention. (A retrospective in 1998 worked up a new generation of midcentury-modern fans.) This summer, the museum did investigate the possibility of incorporating the Kaufmann space into its new expansion plans, but concluded that it wouldn't fit, said Terence Riley, chief curator of architecture and design at the museum. More to the point, he added, 'Should museums be rescuing rooms from the garbage can and become witting assistants to dismantling rooms and removing them from their original place for the sake of acquisition?'
Because of the Kaufmann connection, Lynda Waggoner, Fallingwater's director, said she was approached to either reinstall the rooms in a barn on her site or to store all the elements. She said neither was a possibility. 'It's very urban in a way that wouldn't be appropriate to Fallingwater,' she said.
Other institutions, including the Guggenheim Museum and the United Nations, have been approached but have not responded.
It is estimated that it could cost $1 million to dismantle the room, Ms. Lahteenmaki said. The porcelain tiles that line the walls -- setting the tone of textural sensuality at the entrance -- would be especially expensive to take down and reinstall.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has expressed an interest in incorporating the Aalto rooms into space undergoing renovation. 'But whatever we could do would never be as good as where it is,' said Aaron Betsky, the museum's curator of architecture, design and digital products, who spent his vacation touring Aalto works in Finland.
As Mr. Robinov handed over a sales brochure for condo space in the building featuring the Kaufmann room, he hastened to say that the building's owners were not going to throw the conference space out. 'We don't want a frenzy,' he said. 'It's safe here as far as we can see.' He added that he hoped that a solution would be found within six months. The raw space could sell for $75 to $80 a square foot.
Yesterday, Jennifer J. Raab, the chairwoman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, met with Mr. Robinov and acquired a written agreement that the owners would do no work on the space for 90 days. During this time, the commission would not begin the process of designating it a landmark, she said.
'For a city as rich as this not to be able to save this interior is scandalous,' said Mr. Frampton, the architectural historian, who continues to call potential rescuers. Two weeks ago, Donald J. Trump was contacted by Mr. Robinov. 'It would be a nice amenity to his tenants,' said Diana Gaines, an associate of Mr. Robinov's, regarding Mr. Trump's condominium going up two blocks away.
She noted that although Mr. Trump appeared not to have heard of Aalto when they met to discuss the project, and has yet to visit the space, he quickly took up the proposal. 'I'm seriously considering it for Trump Royal Tower,' Mr. Trump said last week, adding that it could go into one of the 'super spa areas.' 'It's not going to be easy. It would have to be recreated.' Mr. Trump said he plans to make a decision by next month.
In the meantime, the Finnish Council maintains a watchful eye. The ultimate option, Ms. Lahteenmaki said, would be to take the rooms back to Finland. 'We're not going to stand by and see it destroyed,' she said.