Sign The Petition: A Plea For Preservation

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To: The Fulton County Board of Commissioners

To: The Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, Director John Szabo
To: Fulton County Board of Commissioners, Chairman John Eaves
To: The City of Atlanta, Mayor Shirley Franklin

We call to you attention that any and all attempts to obscure, defund and otherwise, with willful intent, delegitimize the great, historical significance of the currently standing and fully functioning, 28 year-old Atlanta-Fulton Central Public Library, are now being met with resistance; as witnessed in the formation of this petition, operating in tandem with other forms of collective civic action.

We call to your attention that this declaration makes no assumptions about what may become, as we are most concerned with what we feel should be.

We call to your attention that the architectural site that we seek to protect and preserve was designed by legendary architect Marcel Breuer, who counts among his more than 300 public and private commissions, with being credited for the design of The Whitney Museum in New York City, the HUD and HEW buildings in Washington D.C. and (in a partnership) the UNESCO building in Paris, France.

We call to your attention that it is our desire to work with, not against, the leadership and stewardship of this collective civic investment, in that we believe that "to remove a significant modernist monument -- important in and for its time and still satisfactorily fulfilling its original function to serve the community -- designed by a major architect of historical importance and world renown, would be a serious civic blunder in the cultural history of Atlanta"

So let it now be known that all who sign herein speak peacefully, in a unified spirit of service, cooperation and preservation with the hope that our voices shall be known, counted and heard. As we ask that the leadership attributed to deciding the fate of this site, regard this petition as a formal request that said leaders make a sincere and honest pledge toward instituting a policy of site renovation and preservation in respect to Marcel Breuer's enduring legacy as expressed in his final epic work, the iconic Atlanta-Fulton Central Public Library.

Sincerely,

(click here to sign)

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Flashback: Addressing The County Commissioners

July 2, 2007
Prepared Remarks:

To the Board of Commissioners, my esteemed colleagues and the citizens at large:

I'm here to talk about history, prudence, practically and reason; on an issue that should be an absolute no-brainer.

No offense to the honorable leadership of the Fulton County commission. But people, let's not make a mockery of ourselves.

We cannot afford this. We cannot afford this. Neither can we afford the financial cost, nor can we afford the cultural implications. Because, hastily cobbling together a last minute amendment to build the largest, most expensive public library the city has ever seen, might be a bit misguided.

We should move forward with the existing Library Master Plan, to first take care of the existing business at hand. Because, when it seems as if we can't even afford to wash the windows of the Central Branch we've already got? Does it make sense to be building a new one? Really, has anyone looked at those windows lately?

So the question should be, why are we neglecting our public institutions, and if we are already showing a pattern of this, what's to say we won't just continue this pattern of neglect once we build something new. More debt, more neglect.

And now a bit of history.

Marcel Breuer, the designer of the current central branch...was nothing short of a genius.

He was the Rosa Parks of industrial design. He was the Ray Charles of architectural engineering

Marcel Breuer was a pioneer of the modern aesthetic and he and his colleagues at the Bauhaus school are almost entirely responsible for laying down the architectural foundation of all the great creative minds since, including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, I.M. Pei, Roberto Piano, David Adjaye, Phillip Johnson and Frank Lloyd Wright.

So, let's not commit cultural suicide. And let's not waste hard earned tax dollars.

Let's go back to the original Library Master Plan.

Let’s preserve The Central Branch


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Max Eternity © 2008