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History may associate him with Las Vegas, but the legacy he left is most
keenly felt in Wildwood, New Jersey.
By Melissa Milgrom
The Metropolis Observed
January 2002
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When I last spoke to architect Steve Izenour in 1999, it was inconceivable
that this robust figure--whose middle name was fun--would meet an untimely
death. Yet last August, while bicycling in Vermont, Izenour died of a heart
attack. He was only 61. He left behind his wife, three grown children, and
an adolescent resort town--Wildwood, New Jersey, which boasts more than
250 freeze-dried hotels from the 1950s and '60s. Izenour spent years studying
the idiosyncratic charms of this town on a barrier island just north of
Cape May: its nonarchitect-designed motels, its brash neon signs, and especially
its autostrip. His "Learning from the Wildwoods" architecture
studios at Yale, University of Pennsylvania, and Kent State brought national
attention to this town that time forgot and helped legitimize a mom-and-pop
movement to promote tourism without selling out to Disney.
Offsite:
For more on Izenour's work with Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates,
go to the firm's site at
www.vsba.com.
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Although the only thing Izenour built in Wildwood was a colossal red sign
on the boardwalk that said "Sun and Fun," his role as spirited
leader may have had more impact on the town than if he had constructed an
entire Main Street. This became overwhelmingly obvious when, after his death,
real estate developer and amusement-pier owner Jack Morey published an eight-page
tribute to Izenour in the local newspaper. Neon benders, restaurant owners,
members of Wildwood's Doo Wop Preservation League--even the poodle-skirt-wearing
tour guide--all wrote tributes, thanking Izenour not for what he built but
for what he validated: kitsch. "Without Izenour's interest in our resort,
it is entirely possible that the theme with which the Wildwoods are now
most commonly recognized--Doo Wop--would have been perceived as nothing
more than a collection of aging plastic palm trees and outdated buildings,"
wrote Jeannine Yecco of the Wildwood Gazette Leader.
"What was offered by Mr. Izenour more than anything was the optimism
that the island could be successful," wrote Elizabeth Terenik, chairwoman
of Wildwood Crest's zoning board. The gratitude in the tributes is heartfelt
and real. Where else would an architect--especially one who didn't build
anything--be thanked in this simple yet profound way?
Izenour came into town one summer day in 1996, rode roller coasters and
ate cheese steaks with Jack Morey, and identified the culture he saw.
He told the Wildwoodians that their town was tacky, and they loved him for
it. His plan for Wildwood's revitalization was basically to keep it tacky.
Or, as he put it, to turn up the volume. "I was guilty of trying to
make it too clean," Morey says. "I was trying hard to be like
Disney and not like Wildwood."
Izenour's studios brought students from all over the world to the Jersey
shore to practice a brand of door-to-door architecture, working for free
with mom-and-pop moteliers. "We became missionaries in terms of working
one-on-one with people," says Dan Vieyra, professor of architecture
at Kent State University, who cotaught the studios with Izenour. "Steve
taught them to see what they had. The question now is do they want to continue
to work with that or do they want to go a different route?"
Izenour was a principal with Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates since
1969. He coauthored Learning from Las Vegas, the seminal tome that he will
no doubt be remembered for--though he once told me that the study had "nil"
effect on Vegas's subsequent development. His work in Wildwood may be more
successful, largely because there is a strong community base there that
didn't exist in Vegas. At the time Izenour started coming to Wildwood, the
town needed his vision and leadership, though he never set out to lead.
His influential role was as "ad hoc"--a term he liked to
use--as Wildwood's faux lava facades. And it was also as genuine.
Although he never got to publish a book on Wildwood--one was in the works
with Rizzoli when he died--he did leave behind the "Steve Ize Rules
of Architecture":
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He was speaking the language of Wildwood. |
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