'Mad Men' Inspires Appreciation for Architecture of the Recent Past

Montgomery County, Maryland is confronting a conundrum common to inner-ring suburbs now facing development pressures. How to make the case for protecting mid-century buildings that some consider too young, or "too plain or ugly," to preserve.

1 minute read

March 4, 2013, 8:00 AM PST

By Jonathan Nettler @nettsj


Katherine Shaver looks at the efforts of Montgomery County to catalog its mid-century-modern building stock, in the face of redevelopment pressures and the appeal of neo-traditional style developments. The Washington, DC suburb is stepping up its efforts to preserve its recent past by setting up a database - “Montgomery Modern” - of the area's significant buildings and subdivisions from the late 1940s through the early 1960s.

“The challenge is always preserving the recent past,” Clare Lise Kelly, a historic-preservation planner for Montgomery County, said. “It’s easy to look at things from 100 years ago and see them as historic. . . . If we don’t act now to assess resources from this time period, they’ll be gone, and then it’s too late to say, ‘That apartment complex was really special.’ ”

"Kelly said she realizes that some people consider modernist buildings too young — and, in some cases, too plain or ugly — to warrant protection," writes Shaver. "It’s not about age or looks, she said. It’s about preserving critical pieces of architectural history from the post-World War II population and building boom that transformed suburbs such as Montgomery from rural bedroom communities into dense subdivisions and commercial districts."

Thanks to Bora Mici

Thursday, February 28, 2013 in The Washington Post

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