Bernd Foerster: The Man Who Changed Downtown
Reprinted from the June 23, 2003, Manhattan Mercury
Bernd Foerster has come full circle. After spearheading efforts to revitalize downtown Manhattan and erect the Town Center mall during the late 1970s and early ’80s, he’s ready to lead the downtown area’s next makeover.
Foerster was recently named vice chairman of the downtown redevelopment steering committee, a group that will direct the operations of a design and development team for the Third and Fourth street corridors. He chaired the same type of board two decades ago.
“How can you have a city without a downtown?” he asked on a recent afternoon, as he reminisced about his role in putting up the mall. That committee played a central role in the design of Manhattan Town Center and the way in which the structure was tied architecturally to the rest of the downtown area.
The former dean of Kansas State University’s College of Architecture and Design has a penchant for preservation and a zeal for serving the community.
He’s a familiar, respected face around town, whose roles on various planning committees and boards could lead one to believe he’s the man who sculpted Manhattan.
“I don’t go out looking for things to do, they come to me,” Foerster says between enthusiastically-told stories.
A staunch preservationist, Foerster proudly recalls his fight to save K-State’s Nichols Hall from demolition; restoring the fountain in City Park; and convincing the owner of Varney’s in Aggieville to keep the marquee outside the bookstore.
Among numerous other things, Foerster is a distinguished professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and is Trustee Emeritus of the National Trust for Historical Preservation; has received a lifetime achievement award from the National Council of Preservation Education; has served a term on the Riley County planning board; and won the Kansas Governor’s award for historic preservation.
It would take pages to note all of Foerster’s achievements, which he lists to keep track of himself.
“I’m 79, I have plenty of time,” warns the loquacious almost octogenarian before he launches into a discussion about his passion for architectural preservation.
“The worst attitude on the part of some developers and politicians is to mistake newness for progress, instead of utilizing what is already there,” Foerster said of the destruction of old structures to make way for new ones.
Foerster has captured his sentiments on film, including one called “What do you tear down next?,” the one he’s most proud of.
“This is a criticism of urban renewal and a celebration of neighborhoods in New York state,” he said. The film, originally made in 1964, continues to get good reviews. The latest, in 2000, praised Foerster for his visionary take on the subject and continues to be a staple on public access stations. Other books and films that bear Foerster’s name are “Man and Masonry,” “Pattern and Texture,” and “Independence, Missouri.”
Foerster became dean in 1971.
“I was never interested in administration, but I liked the town and the combination of interior, exterior, landscape architecture and planning that the college offered,” he said.
Foerster’s first love was teaching, and he made it a point to instruct at least one class every year. That drive to teach didn’t end after his last class in 1999. He now teaches a distance-learning course at Gaucher College in Maryland, meeting with students two weeks per year, and otherwise communicating with them via e-mail and telephone.
He leans toward the visual when dealing with students, with a collection of architectural slides that are archived and sorted in more than 30 groups with a custom-made copper seal, personally coded and crafted to define each batch. Foerster prefers to drive to Maryland rather than fly and risk exposing his slides to an X-ray machine.
“This is my life’s work, I cannot risk losing them,” he said.
Foerster notes that with time comes change.
“The town has become less friendly, you cannot just stop and talk to a person anymore,” he said, “but I still enjoy the interaction between the students, faculty and the residents,”
Foerster has led delegations on architectural preservation to China and eastern Europe, an experience he says has allowed him to observe others and work to combine the old and the new as evidence of what he saw in those countries.
Originally from the Netherlands, and at an age when most are heading into the twilight of their lives and living off retirement benefits, one might ask why Foerster continues to put himself through his routine.
To this, the former member of the Dutch resistance says, “I have learned from experience; World War II taught me the importance of citizenship.”