We need a way to mourn lost buildings

As satisfying as it is to see the San Francisco Planning Commission try to force Ross Johnston to rebuild the historic Richard Neutra house he demolished, it’s not a scalable solution. For every historic building successfully protected, there are hundreds of unprotected ones. People have always formed friendships with the places they frequent, and they will mourn their passing.

So in light of the building boom around us and the desperately needed construction to come, I propose that we have funerals for buildings.

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. We have rituals to commemorate buildings going up, just none for ones coming down. Construction projects get a groundbreaking, a topping-out ceremony, or a ribbon-cutting. And we’ve all been to a housewarming party. But demolitions have no ceremony to collect the memories, help us process the change, and prepare for the new reality.

A well-thought-out building funeral would offer closure to mourners. If your childhood home is sold and demolished, saying goodbye to the repository of memories helps you cope with transition. Instead of losing your bearings as you travel through a once-familiar but now scrambled neighborhood, you feel more in control.

So what would this ritual look like? I’d steal from what already exists.

Jews sit Shiva, when guests visit the mourner to remember the deceased. It’s somber but life-affirming; mourners retell stories of the dead and pray the daily service. It unites the community, emphasizes the value of spoken remembrance, and reinforces that the show must go on.

Ribbon-cuttings highlight how new buildings symbolize opportunities for the community. And sometimes they include burying a time capsule, because people realize that this new building could change everything for them.

And finally, housewarming parties invite everyone to squeeze into the new space, reinforcing how people can make a space come alive just by filling it.

If we combine all this, it looks like this:

A decision is made to demolish a park or a building. Invitations go out to neighbors, former employees and regular visitors. For a few weeks preceding the closure, people are invited to visit and breathe life into the space one last time. A recording booth is erected on-site so people can recount their memories of the place by answering a few questions:

How did this place affect your life? What did you use the place for? How will the closure change your life?

What are you looking forward to as a result of this change?

And then the result, whether it’s transcribed onto paper or stored digitally, is either hidden in the walls of the building to be renovated or buried underground as a memory capsule. And then everyone is invited to take a swing with a sledgehammer.