Posted by Will Hayes on May 10, 2002 at 14:00:24:In Reply to: Contextualism posted by Paul Malo on May 10, 2002 at 12:48:57:
Here's my beef with 'Contextualism':
(Example)
A frame building housing modern functions is built in an area of historic brick/stone buildings. It is a frame building due to issues of economy, use, construction practices, etc. The building is then clad in fascia brick or block and is designed to closely mimic the historic buldings nearby. It's sort-of indistinguishable from them at a distant glance, but in essence it is really just movie-set construction.
I feel that this sort of thing not only is an affront to, and cheapening of the local historic buildings (built out of a true vernacular and economy of means), but also is a weak statement of contemporary architecture. And I'm definitely not just talking about 'signature' architecture, which by definition is all about making 'statements', I'm just talking about building.
I find that with very few exceptions, such buildings are nearly ALWAYS inferior to their historical models, and therefore their presence does nothing but degrade the total quality of the architecture in an area, which could be quite wonderful.
New buildings can and should be designed to coexist harmoniously with old buildings without being 'fakes'.A really nasty and extreme example of this is a building I walk by almost every day that looks to be a 19th century brick building (aside from its scale and a few functional details), but if you walk up to it and knock on the "brick", it sounds like you're rapping on a plywood tabletop. It's entirely made of steel stud wrapped in insulation and clad in 1/2" thick bricks. This building will look far worse in 30 years (or 15) than it's neighbors do after 300 years, and for the same level of expense could have been a far better and more sensible building.
In any case, this mainly bothers me in the case of new and discrete buildings. Restoration projects are a wholly different issue and should be treated as such.
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