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Memories follow function, form will be a memory

The Guthrie Theatre on Vineland. Over the years it has been a place of beginnings, endings, smashes, flops, arrivals, departures...the list of events go on like the names of notable musicians and actors that performed there during its 40 plus year existence.

But the most notable inventory not moving to the river are the personal experiences this place helped create. Sure the performances and the building itself were significant but the emotions they helped co-create were the real tenants of the Guthrie.

Memories are meant to be mobile but a building can help them be more permanent and lasting. Appreciation manytimes comes only during the swansong but the lesson is well noted.....building cool spaces for people to Collect, Create, and Communicate are tremendously important. Technology can put these three C' into our living room but does it mean our memory will fade quicker or the signifigance less felt because we did not experience it in a common physical space? Sure its only a funneling point for many individual experiences but our emotional connection to steel and concrete (and maybe each other) can be made more real because of it.

Of course we do not keep buildings around for purely remembrances of days gone by but creating adaptive uses to existing structures can help more people connect to something common. Which in turn can lead to a stronger foundation for preserving a community and create more economic value. In other words, it can keep the neighbor in the hood and make a dollar doing it.

Thinking on this and looking for opportunties in commercial real estate, what are the most important places to your memories? What types of adaptive uses would you like to see for structures like the Guthrie? How about the Metrodome? What venues should be considered timeless and never be changed?

posted by adam commercial @ 12:07 PM