Unveiling the Essence (Part 1 of 3)

On Vine Street near Shattuck, a Berkeley wine shop called Vintage affects me in the strangest way. The structure long served as an East Bay Municipal Utility District pumping plant, then stood idle, cut off from the world by vine-choked chain-link fencing. With a recent transformation of the property, the fence has disappeared. But the building essentially remains hidden, because it’s set back from the sidewalk. As I approach on foot, I notice only the surrounding shops, and then … pow! I might as well be seeing the structure for the first time.

Credit: Daniella Thompson

Vine Street Pumping Plant, 2004.

This simple building bears all the dignity of a Greek temple. In fact, the slope of the roof and the battered buttresses remind me of the Parthenon. With playfully angled caps, the buttresses jazz up what might have been a stark utilitarian building. Experts tell me that this 1930 work by Italian architect A. J. Calleri defies neat categorization but contains Art Deco, early California Mission and classical influences.

Despite all these assets, it seems that few people saw the abundant potential until Peter Eastlake and Michael Werther bought the property and made subtle, judicious changes, first removing the fence. A concrete driveway in front of the building made it look cold and bleak, so that had to go, too. The owners hacked away bamboo that obscured the massive windows. Suddenly, the structure looked taller, “more pronounced” and “so much better,” says Eastlake. At the owners’ behest, a garden went in, along with cheerful stone walls, informally arranged benches and a charming roadway signpost. These changes snapped the space into focus, revealing qualities that always existed but somehow lay dormant.

Credit: Treve Johnson

Vintage, 2006.

When adaptive reuse succeeds to this degree and a solution feels this right, you wonder why nobody thought of it before. Of course, the morass of planning and building codes can strangle anyone’s imagination. And in salvaging an old structure and changing its function, you often confront a bevy of practical considerations, including limited budgets, ADA requirements, zoning issues, parking regulations, neighbors’ feelings and city governments that may instinctively oppose change. These are no small matters, though they’re not insurmountable.

But aside from practical concerns, does something else constrict the imagination when we gaze at abandoned buildings? Perhaps we become stuck in the status quo. After all, an existing structure is much more real than whatever one has yet to envision (or finance). And when you look at an ugly building, such as the dingy windowless box that once housed Copeland’s Sporting Goods on Shattuck in Berkeley, how easily can you think of a soaring, light-filled Elephant Pharmacy, as did architect Kava Massih?

With adaptive reuse as his niche for a decade, Massih has created Epicurious Garden (formerly a dull-looking electronics store), Fonda (previously an auto repair shop), Pyramid Brewery (originally a factory) and Cedar Center (which now contains Cafe de La Paz but was once a mortuary!). Massih says he reenvisions such places by poking around under unappealing facades in search of “good bones.” He then performs “urban dentistry” to “scrape off the plaque” that accumulated on buildings “in the name of progress in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.”

Many old buildings have intrinsic character that needs only to be coaxed out and emphasized. In doing so, one carries over something from the past. With a professional baker for a wife, Massih conceives of this along culinary lines: “I liken it to baking bread, where you’ve used some of the yeast from the last batch to bake the bread, and it makes it so much better. And these buildings, having a little bit of the history and the memory, they’re like the yeast to these projects.”

Is that why people have such strong, positive responses to adaptive reuse projects? Partly. As we’ll explore in next month’s column, salvaging culture and history triggers a primal reaction.

But why else do Vintage and other adaptive reuse projects have such power? I consulted Santa Rosa architect and author Carol Venolia, who has never seen Vintage, only heard my description. She observes that the owners have brought an industrial space down to human scale. With the addition of greenery and gathering spaces (such as benches), the owners have sent the message, “This is now a human place.” They have effectively invited people to come use it. She notes that we’re biologically hard-wired to respond positively to vegetation, as well as to places of refuge (which one now finds in this tucked-away, serene garden).

When a building assumes a radically new function, the intellect also takes notice. The greater the contrast (e.g., a pump house turned wine shop), the more it tickles us. According to Redwood City architect John Hermannsson, Dadaists strove to challenge our perspectives in such ways. They gave everyday objects shocking new contexts and functions—for instance, displaying a urinal as a fountain. As soon as we realize that a rose isn’t just a rose, nor a cigar just a cigar, countless possibilities open, and we look at things differently. Great creative adaptations thereby play with our perceptions.

Hermannsson believes that we like to see evidence of the human mind and spirit at work. In a free-flowing conversation, he and I decided that when successful adaptive reuse projects strike us as inventive, they tune us in to our own creative potential. They give us permission to be unrestricted in our self-expression.

A sensitive transformation also clarifies our vision about a building. “You unveil the significance of what it is,” says Hermannsson. Just as a haiku captures truths concisely, successful adaptive reuse projects strip away the inconsequential and show us what matters. And just as a haiku prompts an “aha!”, clarified spaces such as Vintage allow us to feel the thrill of discovery. We discover not only a revitalized property but also capacities that lie too well hidden in ourselves.

Go to Part 2 of this article.

Go to Part 3 of this article.