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public/private culture
Date: 2005.03.13 10:25
John asks:
Wasn't the vile practice of saving facades of historic structures originated in Philadelphia, Steve, the fountainhead of American preservation ever eager to get in bed with real estate vultures?
Steve replies:
Philadelphia doesn't originate anything. It just reenacts things.
For example, when Mitchell/Giurgola Architects saved the Egyptian Revival (or should that be Egyptian Reenactment) facade at the new Penn Mutual Tower (1975), I saw this design solution as a reenactment of the James Stirling with Leon Krier Derby Civic Center competition design (1970) where the facade of an historic Assembly Hall at the site was reused as the facing of a band shelter.
I wonder if the reconstruction of Munich, Germany after the bombing of World War II can also be seen as "the vile practice of saving facades?"
Giurgola reenacts Stirling in at least two other designs: the Adult Learning Research Laboratory (1972) at the American College of Life Underwriters reenacts the Florey Building for Queen's College (1966-71), and the Mission Park Residential Houses (1972) at Williams College reenacts the Student Residences for St. Andrews University (1964-68).
Giurgola didn't know what to do, however, after Stirling saved a crumbling historic facade within the Museum for Northrhine Westphalia (1975) competition design.
It cracked me up when the new owners of the "historic" Schwarzwald Inn of Olney (in the early 1990s) decided to not change the outside of the beloved old restaurant despite the fact that inside was now a Japanese whore house. Vile is as vile does OR how Philadelphian can you get?
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