During the Portland City Council discussion about 142 Free St.’s precarious existence, viewers learned the majority of the council was likely to favor demolition, as the Portland Museum of Art wants.

This final chapter mocks the building’s decades of pretension. Its columns echo temples at the origin of democracy (such as it was). Now the vision of Athenian justice is just dust ready to return to dust. But what is being destroyed?

The wishes of the moneyed and the most powerful are being accommodated. Historic preservation was a movement initiated in the U.S. by rich people, but the battle was against the even richer and even more powerful. The Portland Museum of Art has been in the news over the years for fighting unions and laying off people in its way. Now what’s in its way is a building with a worn-out dream.

The museum chose older ideas and older dreams to champion its vision of the future, which is rather diabolical. Thirteen thousand years of Wabanaki history are incorporated in the arc of the roof, and a woman of color designed the structure to be transparent. Why, then, does it feel like a mouthful of dust has been kicked into the faces of the people who dedicate their lives to shepherding the (colonial, American) past into the future?

The rich and the powerful, endlessly creative, arty, hip, remain tranquil in a fortress of self-righteousness. Money wins again, and no dusty city code can stand in its way.

Nancy English
Portland

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