A symbol of '50s fashion in architecture is disappearing from the urban landscape this fall, but not because of demolition.
It's more of a cover-up by the building's current owner and occupant, the Maryland State Highway Administration.
The structure in question is the office building at 707 N. Calvert Street, headquarters of the highway administration. Completed in 1959, it represented the height of a short-lived "blue period" in local architecture, when designers clad commercial buildings with blue glazed brick. It retained its original appearance until this year, when contractors began covering those blue bricks with a synthetic material that simulates stone.
Part of a $1.8 million renovation, the cover-up is designed to make the building more energy efficient and comfortable for the state employees who work there. The seven-story building has had problems over the years with leaks and drafts. It had single-pane windows and minimal insulation, and its brick surface was deteriorating.
The highway administration, which has occupied the building since 1980 and acquired it in 1995, hired Arium Architects of Columbia to recommend ways to correct the problems. Tim Sosinski is principal in charge for Arium and Lloyd James is project architect.
Blue glazed bricks were quite popular for a short period, like avocado-colored kitchen appliances, Sosinski said. It was the era when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House, Milton Berle reigned as Mr. Television and Elvis Presley sang about blue suede shoes. But once the blue bricks went out of fashion, they never came back. "Blue glazed brick had a very short currency. If something has blue glazed brick, it was built between 1955 and 1963. It didn't last very long," he said.
Arium proposed six options for recladding the building, from coating the bricks with a thin film to removing them entirely and putting back red bricks similar to those on Center Stage across the street.
State officials selected an option that called for the blue bricks to be covered over, for more energy-efficient windows to be installed and for the roof to be replaced. It was the second least expensive option, but it promises to correct the flaws and extend the building's life.
The new surface - called an Exterior Insulation Finishing System, or EIFS for short - is designed to give the former modernist box more of a base, middle and top. The "skin" will be two tones of gray. Sosinski called it a "contemporary classic-revival building."
State officials are concerned that people will think the agency is spending money for cosmetic changes at the time when Maryland has a $1.8 billion budget deficit. They said planning for the project began several years ago, when the state's financial situation was healthier, and that the objective is to cut costs by making the building more energy efficient. Work will be completed in the spring.
"We didn't do this project to make the building look prettier," said Jim Keseling, chief of the highway administration's facilities management division. "Our goal was to fix the leaks, and that's what this will do."
Some preservationists may lament that the blue bricks are no longer visible. But the building is not protected by landmark status and the plans were not reviewed by the city's preservation commission before construction began.
Perhaps preservationists will take some comfort in knowing that the blue bricks are still in place - and could conceivably be uncovered someday if anyone really wanted to do so.
In the meantime, the architects said, they recommend keeping the 1950s-era canopy on the Calvert Street side of the building, even though it doesn't really fit with the new facades, because it's still functional in marking the entrance and sheltering people from the elements.
Arium wasn't trying to spend any more than necessary, Sosinski said.
"It's not a building trying to make a bold statement," he said. "I hope people think it's a reasonable solution and that their tax dollars were well spent."