I have been in love with the Moran Plant ever since I moved here in 1988. 1988 was a time when the waterfront was at its most derelict, when the Coast Guard building was still a blue box built on heavy piers sunk into the lake, when the gas tanks were just starting to disappear, and when the community boathouse was but a mirage. It was the waterfront’s post-industrial time.
Walking there late one February night during a snowstorm that fell thick and quiet over Burlington the waterfront was a moment in stillness—a moment of black silhouettes in a white landscape—an emptiness before the romance of possibilities, before the dream of reclaimed buildings, before the land began to breathe and take life. The imminence of change was not yet felt.
Change can be welcomed or feared. It depends on where one stands, one’s attachment to and knowledge of existing conditions, and even one’s perception of the possible. The art of becoming, of transforming possibilities, of changing existing realities is the art of development.
In the case of the Moran Plant the dream of possibilities looms large—it is a dream that could be transformative. The raw space inside the concrete and brick walls is larger than life, the opportunity is of something greater than self.
Having been an architect through the 1980s and 90s when every square inch of space had to be cost accounted I understand the effort of allocating every inch, but when something is inherited from the past and offers a volume of space such as we would never build—wow, what a gift. The Moran Plant is big open unmitigated space that no one would build today. We are not comfortable with an empty vessel of unclaimed space and no obvious “purpose.”
So to fill this void of imagination and play with the romance of the possible, I offer a handful of ideas from places that could inspire the regeneration of our Moran Plant. Examples of reclaimed industrial places, at this scale and larger, range from parklands such as Seattle’s Gas Works Plant and Germany’s reclaimed industrial zone in the Ruhr Valley to art museums (London’s Tate Modern and MassMoca, North Adams, MA); farmer’s markets (Ottawa, Quebec City, etc.); and community theater venues (Chicoutimi, Quebec).
To take just one example: the Seattle Gas Works in Washington is on a promontory of land facing south into Puget Sound with a view of Seattle, the mountains and the San Juan Islands. It was once covered by gas tanks and a large refinery. Today it is a cleaned-up environmental site with open grasslands, 30 ft. diameter sundial made by artists and children, AND the “Gas Works” buildings and equipment left as history lesson, shelter, destination point, and playground. The equipment was made-safe, painted in bright reds, blues, yellows and purples, and left for people to explore and climb on.
My personal hope for the Moran building is that once again generates energy—that it becomes a demonstration site for wind and solar, becomes part of the lake clean-up effort, and sports a greenhouse on the south roof for productive gardens. There are so many ways this building can contribute to Burlington as a sustainable city that to do otherwise than make it glow with energy and life again would be to deny all the work that has happened to date.
In 1994 Burlington passed a Resolution Relating to Sustainable Economy that included among other things a directive to maximize conservation efforts and to help develop and use renewable resources. This building is a place where these dreams can come together. It is big enough to handle the Community Sailing Center, offices for Parks and Recreation, innovative efforts for lake clean-up efforts using the old water intake and outtake in the lower level, growing trees and micro-climates within the main part of the building, energy monitors and equipment for photovoltaic solar arrays (on the south roof) and wind generators (on the ground), sod or “green” roof on the tower building, super-graphics on the outside walls, greenhouse gardens, and a cafe serving locally-grown food.
The gas tank pads and dog park become an arboretum with wild lands—leaving the North 40 “undeveloped for future generations.” In this regeneration of the building—there is no destruction of a public resource, no removal of history, no decisions based on short-term socio-political gain, and no costly landing-filling all the acres and acres of concrete, brick, and steel from Burlington’s lack of imagination.
Reprinted from Burlington free Press "It's My Turn" by Diane Elliott Gayer
November 2005
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