Most Endangeres Historical Places This Year

Miami Marine Stadium is one of the most endangered places. The National Trust for Historic Preservation will soon launch the list of most endangered places.

According the New York Times news, here is 11 Places on 2009's list.

Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, CA
Miami Marine Stadium, FL
Dorchester Academy, Midway, GA
Lanai City, HI
Unity Temple, Oak Park, IL
Ames Shovel Shops, Easton, MA
Memorial Bridge, Portsmouth, NH & Kittery, ME
Mount Taylor, Grants, NM
Human Services Center, Yankton, SD
Cast-Iron Architecture of Galveston, TX
The Manhattan Project’s Enola Gay Hangar, UT

For know more about Miami Marine Stadium, here I copy to you from huliq.com

A group that is formed to save the Miami Marine Stadium is very pleased that the National Trust for Historic Preservation names the Marine Stadium to its 2009 list of America's Most Endangered Historic Places. This move may help to preserve the stadium as some say that a place like Miami should have a venue like Marine Stadium and we should reclaim it.

The Preservation Planning Studio of the University of Miami will make a presentation on planning alternatives for the Marine Stadium Basin and Virginia Key. The event will be at the Miami Rowing Club, Friday, May 8, from 10:00 AM-12:00. The event is free and open to the public. Details included.

A new group called Friends of Miami Marine Stadium has recently formed to protect one of Florida's most threatened landmarks. The city of Miami is developing a Master Plan for Virginia Key. Friends of Miami Marine Stadium seeks to make sure this magnificent resource is preserved and a plan is created to maximize its public use. The group plans to lobby agressively for its restention and possible historic designation.

Beginning in the 1930s in Europe and Latin America, a series of sport facilities had been built in which the plastic aesthetic qualities of poured-in-place concrete were exploited for visual effect. Pier Luigi Nervi’s (1891-1979) Florence stadium (1929-32) and Palazzo dello Sport (1958-59) in Rome pioneered plastic concrete shell construction. In Nervi’s footsteps, Carlos Raúl Villanueva (University Stadium in Caracas, 1950-52), Oscar Niemeyer, and especially Felix Candela, the Spanish-born architect who immigrated to Mexico (1910-1997), made concrete a genuine expression of modern Latin American architecture, whose sensuality and plasticity contrasted with the rationalist canons of the international style.

The 6,566-seat grandstand of the Commodore Munroe Stadium, named for Coconut Grove pioneer and boating enthusiast Ralph Munroe, was completed in 1964. Poured entirely in concrete, with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof structure, it consists of a dramitcally cantilevered folded-plate roof supported by eigh big slanted columns anchored in the the ground through the grandstand.

The project for almost seven-thousand-seat grandstand was commissioned to Pancoast, Ferendino, Grafton, Skeels and Burnham. Albert Ferendino and Hilario Candela, a young Cuban architect educated at Georgia Tech, were put in charge of the project. (A thoughtful comment by Mr. Candela on his vision for Miami Stadium -- past and present -- can be accessed by clicking here.)

Hurricane Andrew damaged the stadium in 1992. Engineering reports have since proven that the structure was sound, but need repairs, yet the structure has remained closed since then.

The Marine Stadium is perhaps the first recognized landmark structure done by the Cuban architects after their exile in Miami. With the new Master Plan for Virginia Key, this magnificent architectural work sample of the Modern Movement an important piece of Miami Heritage and History is in danger to be demolished, despite few years ago the mayor from Miami promised to refurbish the structure.

For more information, please click here for to view a lavishly illustrated article written by DOCOMOMO/US Florida Vice President Jean- François Lejeune.

The Friends of the Marine Stadium is working on substantive plans and alternatives. What we need to do is let our elected officials know that a renewed Stadium needs to be part of the Virginia Key Master Plan The organization urges everyone to contact Mayor Diaz and the City Commissioners to support renovations to this important piece of Miami Heritage and History.