SOUTH FACE TO BE PRESERVED 148 Edgewood Avenue SE -Built in 1926 by the Georgia Railway and Power Company- Count the windows and divide by 2–It would be perfect for Divine 9 Sororities and Fraternities
This site is protesting a planned demolition of 148 Edgewood by GSU. Tearing down buildings in a historic district is ERASING CONCRETE MEMORY -it is cutting neurons from human cultural memory that could last 1000’s of years.
Architecture is not just shelter; it is memory made visible.(1) Historical buildings are concrete memory that will last 1000’s of years. Standing out from the gleaming modern buildings, young freshmen newly arrived on campus will viscerally see and experience 148 Edgewood as part of MLKs experience as a young man growing up “on the richest African American Street in America”. They will realize that momentous events happened before their time on earth to shape the world and that GSU cherishes this memory in an old building.
CONCRETE MEMORY:
This building sits at an unusual PHYSICAL conjunction of Sweet Auburn, Georgia State University and the Divine Nine Sororities and Fraternities.
Adaptive reuse 0f the 148 Edgewood building could become an integral part of the planned new Divine Nine Park, opening up to it as an interior/exterior sheltered space for meeting and learning about this historical area that changed the world. With plaques and media inside celebrating this conjunction, students with clean slate minds will be viscerally drawn into the 3d multi-verses that created MLK.
Divine Nine Park DESIGN IDEAS:
The building as concrete memory for 1000 years would serve as a cultural center, opening on the newly planned park. It would serve as a gathering place on the new plaza as adaptive re-use (not be strict “Preservation” ) of the original use as a utility building.
- The south face shown in photo could be preserved.
- On the west and north walls facing the park: new openings with glass doors could be cut to create an interior/exterior space flowing into new plaza.
- As part of the park it would become a valuable interior/exterior meeting space and shelter for educational multimedia about this unusual conjunction of GSU, MLK and the Divine 9, putting students in a multi-verse of experiencing dimensions beyond the everyday.
Sweet Auburn is the area Martin Luther King came up in his formative years ― the richness of the culture and buildings helped make it possible for Dr King to believe, help create and lead a movement to break through cultural constructs that created slavery and then segregation. This area and its buildings are immensely important to help future generations understand Dr. Kings formative years.
(1) Statement attributed to https://www.atlantapreservationcenter.com/ David Y. Mitchell
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