A Lesson in Adaptive Reuse

What Do You Think You're Looking At? #35

Addison Del Mastro

Dec 8

On U.S. 50 in Fairfax, only about a mile from the intersection I wrote about yesterday, is this building:

A view with less of that construction trailer in the way:

Well, if the architecture doesn’t give it away, the name is right on the façade. One of the names, that is.

Originally opened in the early 1930s as Fairfax High School, it was later sold by the county, and fell into a state of disrepair. After 10 years of ownership by George Mason University, it was purchased by the Diocese of Arlington and became Paul VI Catholic High School in the early 1980s, which it remained until 2020, when the school relocated to a new campus in the nearby Chantilly area.

This is what the site looked like back when it still operating as Paul VI. What you’re seeing in the middle here is the surviving section in my photos above. The rest of the building—a later expansion—has been demolished.

What’s really interesting here is the surrounding project: named, in homage to the former Catholic school, Boulevard VI. The 1930s portion of the former school will sit at the center of a “village green,” part of a large new mixed-use retail/residential project. There will be businesses, both stores and restaurants, in the structure itself, but the green will be a public gathering/event space.

Take a look at the developer’s rendering of the space, with the former school in the front:

What do you think of this? I think it’s cool and unusual, a way of acknowledging the history of something in the built environment without encasing it in amber. (Click that link for a Twitter thread of a few more examples.) I think keeping something from the previous use like this, and finding a way to accommodate it shows a sort of humility, and weakens the NIMBY argument that a place is “changing beyond recognition” or “unrecognizable these days.”

Let me know what you think!

Related Reading:

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #6

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #8

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