Landmarks, not Landfill: I.M. Pei Church in Washington Under Threat
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11. 6.07
OK, brutalist concrete buildings are not the current rage, but there is a lot of embodied energy in that concrete, and enough of it that the building could last forever. It is not one of Pei's best; the architectural critic at the time called it "rude and disorderly." Most articles on it don't even mention his name. The Historic Preservation Office wants to save it, noting "It is always with reluctance, and fairly rarely, that we recommend a designation over an owner's objection" and call it "one of the best examples of Brutalism in the Washington area," a prime example of "the use of exposed, unadorned, roughly cast concrete to construct buildings of 'stark forms and raw surfaces."
But the Christian Scientist owners want to blow it away and build a smaller 400 seat sanctuary and let a developer take the rest.
All over north America, church membership is declining and yet often the buildings are preserved and modified for other uses, usually condominiums. It's Washington; instead of calling it a "concrete fortress that looks like a top-secret government installation," why not just turn it into a top-secret government installation? It is better than grinding up the work of a great architect and a zillion tons of embodied energy for paving.
Clean it up, find a good use for it, give the Christian Scientists a new home in a portion of it and save it for future generations. ::Washington Post
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I went to college where the dorms were designed by I.M. Pei around the same time period.
Renovations to his structures are on the difficult side because (it is my understanding that) the measurements were in european standard. For example, to order new dorm doors, we had to have ours shipped from France. Talk about embodied energy!
Don't get me wrong. I'm all about repairing and reusing. Plus, I'm an I.M. Pei fan and
This building reminds me of my city's city hall (also a concrete eye soar), which has recently been considered for demolition.
http://www.alumni.rpi.edu/services/class/1979/cityhall.jpg
http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/politics/?SecID=285&ArID=220104
I used to walk by this building every day, and it is an eyesore.
And sure you may talk of concrete being energy intensive, but wasting urban space on something so many people find unappealing is a larger waste of energy.
Besides, the rest of the grounds are just grass, which is a waste in itself.
I always thought the church might be a cover for some secret defense system, since the White House is just a couple blocks away, although 9/11 proved otherwise.
Embodied energy is not the end all be all...not everything should be saved just because it took energy to build. Put a LEED building in its place and the world will be a better place.