Keptoz, we had the architect figure out how we could make the facade of our house more cottagey (it is SO ugly that I make a face every time I pull into the driveway). The kitchen and deck is just phase one of a long-term plan to reshape the house into something we like better. Why do that rather than buying something we liked more in the first place, you ask? Because this is the best street in our neighborhood; we all hang out at each others' houses and share holiday meals and it is a real community. Houses rarely go up for sale on this street so I snapped this one up when it did. Everyone has done something different (or nothing at all) to the original houses and it's a big friendly hodgepodge of individual styles. That's why I'm not intimidated about doing what I want instead of living up to someone else's ideas. Rosie is right, and on my street, eclectic IS the rule....which is kinda nice.

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

Please explain the logic in spending many thousands of dollars on something that's NOT what you want. I'm all pointy ears.

Anna - I would love to do something like that to the outside of our house - particularly the front... I know that face - I make it every time I drive up my driveway also lol!! Unfortunately, new roof takes priority over all my other plans at the moment. Our neighborhood is very eclectic as well - modern, ranches, capes, colonials. I think there is a little bit of everything.

Keptoz: I have owned a facsimile of your father's house for the last 20 years. A 1972 (what we call) post and beam house which we just renovated. (See my post further up). When we moved in I ruined the walnut cupboards with cleaning solution so painted them white, hated the globe lights and so replaced them, the white formica counter was chipped and stained and so out it went. Then saved my money and redid the whole house but tried to stay true to tthe strong vertical and horizontal linear lines of its construction. Added more windows, more beams and more vaulted ceilings and I love it all.

A Louis Kahn house is a hard sell for most people, because people hate brutalist architecture. But brutalist architecture isn't so much about the beauty of the surfaces as much as it is about the beauty of the spaces that are bounded by the walls and the interactions of those spaces to each other. Its about the void within the solid, not the "solid" itself.

Yet its hard to deal with a pockmarked concrete surface or a wood surface or a ribbed metal surface in a conventional decorative sense. You are supposed to be looking at what the light does to the surface more than the surface itself. So there is a certain ugliness to the structure, but a good brutalist has an great display of light and shadow going on inside.

But people try to decorate them and "soften" them and all those things just make it worse.

As for Americans "opening things up" by blowing out walls and making each and every space open and light and "airy"...I think this is one of the biggest mistakes and misconceptions that people have about handling space. Opening everything up, destroying boundaries and homogenizing all spaces into larger or lighter volumes actually makes small ...smaller. But thats a whole 'nother thread.

Pal: This has been a great thread. Thanks for starting it. I've learned a lot about how people think about their spaces.

Lynn

anna, you get points for recognizing the reference.

First of all, I'm not sure the discussion applies to you. You sound like you're going to rebuild the house around your kitchen. That photo will fit perfectly well in a country vicarage.

Second, though, what we think we want is often not what we really want, or will want, or want as much as we think we do. It is very, very common to achieve the coveted object of desire--a Calacatta countertop, a fabulous French Deco mirror, a pair of Manolos--then finally bring them into our world and say, "Huh." I do it all the time. Generally, the further away your object of desire is from what is already in your house, the more money it will take to get there. And the greater the disappointment if it doesn't work out.

pal says....
As for Americans "opening things up" by blowing out walls and making each and every space open and light and "airy"... I think this is one of the biggest mistakes and misconceptions that people have about handling space.

I think opening up the interior is one of the hardest things to do well. In order to open up the interior spaces, you have to have a balanced exterior fenestration. If you have completely opened up the interiors with no external windows, it is a large cave. In order to balance that, you add a wall of windows with nothing to look out except the neighbors wall is not a good contextual change to the house. Many homes open up the interior but there is nothing that balances that in the exterior view. So the house feels out of scale. Modern open homes that are sited well(this is an essential part of architecture that most people do not really understand before they build their homes) work in that the house often has an outlook that complements the internal openess. That balance is extremely difficult to achieve unless you have the site to support it. (and these lots are extremely expensive) This is one of the reasons ultramodern homes with lots of glass do not work unless you have really an expensive lot to support it. AND if you have paid a fortune to pay for the view, you want to enjoy that view. Often the architectural style of traditional homes to not support the view as well as a modern style of home..

Since European houses often cannot add windows, ie stone/timber frame/flat in a large bulding, they do not create completely open spaces. it would not work well in that context of the building that is not modifiable.

A friend of ours added a ultramodern space with lots of steel and glass to the back of their Gergian architecture house from 1920s. It is very jarring to go from the very traditional front rooms with clear division of spaces to the 2 story open space which houses their kitchen/family room. Each of their space is beautiful but somehow they do not meld well for me. I have not made up my mind if it works well or not. i think the design will feel dated when the materials that they used is no longer fresh... (they spent a fortune, well exceeding 7 figures, I am sure)

I am not sure how a European sentiment would have handled that... I have seen ultramodern concrete/glass/additions to Miedeval castles. Somehow it works because they are trying to tell the tourists that this part is not old. You come here to pay and enter... Perhaps, kitchens in these very old homes are the same sentiment. This kitchen never existed in the old days. This is totally new and this is what makes this house live in the 21st century....

more perspectives to design/architecture: "site" of the house in the lot.... , old versus new, external view versus internal openness.

Architecture and design has a very undefinable quality about it. Good design just shows and lives it. In pictures, it is easy to fake it because you are only looking at one little corner of it. When you walk into a well designed house, the entire house feels right! This is a quality that is impossible to convey in pictures.

This is a very thought provoking thread.

I love this thread. If only non-GWers spent this much time thinking about their own renovation. Now, having said that, I know many people really loved the charm of my "original" 1930s kitchen (i.e. the before). But unfortunately were not privy to all the issues in design/years of neglect. On the surface it had great charm, but the tiles were all cracked, grout was missing, cabinets rotting for water damage, structural beams not properly attached, etc.

While we are not trying to recreate a period kitchen, we wanted a modern kitchen that felt appropriate in a 1930's home. We took references to the original kitchen an applied them to a more modern aesthetic -- and in a few weeks, we'll know if we succeeded. Hopefully it'll feel like it's always been here, but just has a few new appliance thrown in -- but with a functional design that works for today's family.

Now, we didn't start out with this design: we initially planned a more "trendy" version of a period kitchen and while beautiful,felt more like a bad movie set than a working kitchen. In the planning we simplified the plan, heavily edited the design and palette and hopefully created something both unique and appropriate.

No matter what, I think we'll end up with something better than 90% of the houses around us who have dropped in "loft style" kitchens into 1930's style bungalows.

''If I could live in a huge old house on lots of land where it would be more appropriate, great...but I don't. I live here and I don't plan to moving anytime soon. I do plan on creating a kitchen I love walking into every morning and one with superb functionality for making lots of food and serving lots and lots of guests.''

Thank you for saying this and expressing what I couldn't. I would love a HUGE country kitchen, with a separate dining room, but I don't have that and never will. I remodeled my small kitchen into something that is most functional for me and finished with materials I like.

Wermfridge, thanks!

ZacsDaddy: When we were buying our first house we got into a bidding war over an unchanged 20s Tudor. I mean REALLY untouched. I loved it in all its dismal dingy glorious potential. We lost. Several years later, I saw online that the house was for sale again and eagerly clicked on the link for inside pics. They had gutted the inside and made it all ultramodern. I think I actually screamed out loud when I saw it.

I'm excited to see pics of your soon-to-be-done kitchen!

Like so many others, I'm really enjoying this thread. I like it when I learn something about MYSELF by reading here!! A couple of posters have really articulated how I feel about making changes to my house.

In our first house (a cute little stucco cape that I had some "personal" feelings about why I didn't want to stay there) I did that thing where you blow out the walls and open it all up. The house was very tiny so basically after our remodel you walked right in the front door into the entire living space - seeing right into our pretty new kitchen. I knew it wasn't what I would really wanted but we did sell that house very very quickly when we listed it.

Now in this - my forever house that I've been in for 15 years already - I wouldn't even think about opening up walls or losing my formal dining room. I'm putting back the french doors between the dining room and kitchen/breakfast room so I can pretty much "close my kitchen off" if I want to. My husband and I are both a little old fashioned and we try to keep our house that way.

When we added a family room and large master bedroom 10 years ago I said that my biggest concern was that nothing about it scream "THIS IS A circa 2000 RENOVATION!!" I think our architect did a great job. Our house still looks like a 1923 Dutch Colonial. Likewise I don't want my new kitchen to look like someone else's kitchen by using materials and ideas that everyone feels they have to use to make their kitchen up-to-date and easy to sell. I'm picking things that look good to me and give me the kind of "feeling" I want.

I have made offers on two houses in particular (over the last year) that I felt strongly about saving. I lost out, eventually because my offer has a contingency on it. Both of them will be gutted, and for one in particular, it is completely unneccessary.

Some areas were so depressed and neglected for so long that their may be little that is actually salvageable, but when a house has survived 200 years intact (with the addition of electricity and radiators only--kitchen and bath in small addition)--its a shame to see it enucleated like a cyst and left with only a shell.

ZacsDaddy: When we were buying our first house we got into a bidding war over an unchanged 20s Tudor. I mean REALLY untouched. I loved it in all its dismal dingy glorious potential. We lost. Several years later, I saw online that the house was for sale again and eagerly clicked on the link for inside pics. They had gutted the inside and made it all ultramodern. I think I actually screamed out loud when I saw it.

There was a wonderful, overpriced late '20s, maybe early '30s Tudor I kept watching a couple of years ago. It had belonged to a famous manufacturing family, and the interior was wonderful. A big sweeping staircase with Deco wrought iron balusters. A semicircular breakfast room next to a butler's pantry with miles and miles of glass uppers. Bathrooms with stunning architectural glass tile, no longer made. The basement had been either finished or updated in the '50s, and it was just as great. A built-in bar, with built-in blenders. A hidden panel holding a black and white TV set. It was probably the most fun house I've ever seen. Only the kitchen needed serious remodeling. It was tiny, poorly laid out and charmless--not much original.

The flippers started by painting the oak paneling white. Then out came all the original cabinetry, replaced by HD crap. Architectural glass tile landed in the dumpster, replaced by cheap Daltile and granite squares. Later online pics showed a boxy bachelor pad kitchen in ebony with granite countertops. The exterior was painted yellow. I'm sorry no one shot the stupid idiots. The fool who bought the flipped house now is regularly greeted by neighbors who openly make fun of it. Good.

I want to thank everyone for contributing to this thread. We just bought a early 90's contemporary home (a "soft" contemporary) on a great lot on a great street in a great neighborhood. Currently, it's the "C" house in the "A" neighborhood. It doesn't fit in and it's a bit of an eyesore, TBH.

I read the debates on designing for resell and for us, we have to design for resale. If something happened to one of us / our jobs, and we needed to liquidate assets, we need to be able to sell our home. So that's our first "design" concern - updating it for the neighborhood.

But in a 1993 soft contemporary? The heavy woods and cornices and "Tuscan" touches in some of the neighbors' homes will look (and feel) strange. Plus, it's not me. I would never be comfortable. And while we're changing a lot of the "contemporary" features (everything gray and black and red), we still have this lovely (and I"m being sincere) simple architecture, with walls of windows and nice open spaces.

Then the third design consideration - which is often referenced obliquely here, but not often outright - my spouse. He tends to go more traditional, I'm more eclectic / contemporary.

So where are are we? Designing a open, airy white kitchen with a dark wood island and a Latin cement tile backsplash - Pottery Barn meets Crate & Barrel in Barcelona.

Will it appease the part of us that worries about "getting our money" back? Will it appease both hard working spouses? Will it fit with the rest of the casual, fun house? I hope so. This has been an interesting discussion on the "balancing" aspects of design, more so than the "desire" or "ability" aspects of kitchen design.

I was cross posting with this latest response by starting a new thread about missing "context". I think you ask a question that doesn't get answered very well, because it is difficult to answer. I started a new thread because this one is getting long, and the discussion of missing context may really be a different one, but also for people like you, except that they may have given up on this thread because it is focusing on houses with a clear identity.

Nevermind the uninformed homeowner who neglects to give thought to the integrity of a houses style. We had the number one architect firm in our area design a two story addition to our 100+ year old neo-Greek Revival center hall colonial and the drawings we received we appalling! They included palladian windows, 8 foot french doors and many other design elements associated with the worst of the Mcmansion era. We paid thousands of dollars to this firm for designs that were completely insensitive to the existing structure. And we did tell them from the start that we wanted it to look like it had always been there. If you can't trust the most respected firm in the area to get it right, how can you blame a homeowner who is just trying to make the house they are in work for their family?

"The flippers started by painting the oak paneling white. Then out came all the original cabinetry, replaced by HD crap. Architectural glass tile landed in the dumpster, replaced by cheap Daltile and granite squares."

Y O Y MUST YOU TELL ME THINGS LIKE THIS

Someone might point a finger at me for completely changing the style of my modest little ranch, but believe me, in my case it's no great architectural loss. But stories like that upset me so much. Yes, it could be restored with a huge amount of time and money but why did it have to be ruined in the first place?!?

There is an interesting prevailing thought that goes in and out of favor in historic preservation/ restoration circles that trickles down to residential architecture. The pendulum swings, so it spends roughly twice as much time in the middle than it does at either extreme.

The first prevailing thought was: Total recreation of historic buildings, even lost historic buildings is ok. So we have places like Colonial Williamsburg, where some public building are actually 20th c.

The second prevailing thought was: Recreation is "bad", and an altered reality, revisionist history. So, in Philadelphia, we have some spots that have an outline on the ground and a signthat says "The Colonial ____building was here."

Then you have the in between, like Venturi, Scott-Brown Associates: The outline of Ben Franklin's house, and the new President's House, that is also a "ghost structure." These were built decades apart.

This trickles down to residential architects' philosophies of:

Additions can match the original structure, look like they've always been there.

Additions can blend with the original, but they should look like additions.

Additions should stand out from the historic structure, and relate to it but not try to mimic it in any way.

I don't care how architects swing, just swing away from the original structure. There are plenty of modern additions that defer to the old buildings they are supposed to be updating, like your stair box or the Louvre pyramid. OTOH I saw a small mansard Victorian with a gigantic modern TOWER sticking up out of its backside at a 45 degree angle, no less. It is impossible to look at that house without being reminded of practices that are still illegal in many states.

Yes, it could be restored with a huge amount of time and money but why did it have to be ruined in the first place?!?

That's the thing. It can't be restored, not for any amount of money. Not even the materials exist any more.

This thread makes me somewhat grateful to own what basically looks like a Dutch Colonial-esque garage. It's the smallest house on a busy street in a third-tier neighborhood. It's a starter house, and it will always be so.

At some point, someone built a mudroom in the form of a blocky snout right smack on the front of the house. Later, someone else clad the house in sad gray aluminum siding. Later still, someone covered the kitchen with stark white ceramic tile (on floors, walls, counters).

And yet somehow we just love this little house, and we're slowly peeling away some of the crud to reveal its humble loveliness. It's a relief to me, though, that there really isn't much pressure to adhere to any particular historical standard.

The young marrieds who buy this house next will probably just be happy it has air conditioning (not common among older houses in our town) and good storage space (in the mudroom/snout).

We try to make it a nice environment for ourselves, while being realistic about what this house can be.

Palimpset, its OT but I wanted to send some love out for being positive re Brutalists, and for your great lamps. Brutalism (and many other architectural/design trends of the 50's to 70's) never gets adequate respect for what it does well IMHO. It seems like Brutalist and "International" buildings are about the only buildings left where you can gut or tear them down and almost nobody complains...

A plumber just came by to finish up a few plumbing issues in my kitchen. He looked around for a minute and then he said, "This kitchen really fits in with the style of your house." Then, he pointed out a few examples.

(It made my day and brought a tear to my eye.)

This is what I've been trying to do -- create a kitchen where the snippet of living room or dining room I see through the open door isn't jarring.

I think it might be especially poignant when it's noticed by a tradesman who sees a lot of houses and whose work is not design-oriented. He remarked on details that he noticed.

macybaby... your farm looks so beautiful, even in the snow; it's so hard to imagine for me (where it never snows).

The paramount goal of the American renovator is to make every guest feel like the milkman, or maybe the babysitter.

marcolo, would you say a little more about this thought?

its a shame to see it enucleated like a cyst and left with only a shell

!!! i wish you had been able to save one of them, palimpsest.

I wasn't surprised when the carpenter kept touching my doors, but I was a little surprised when a plumber and a tile setter both commented on them to their colleague, and I found one of them idly swinging one of them back and forth. It kinda made it worth going custom/reproduction.

But brutalist architecture isn't so much about the beauty of the surfaces as much as it is about the beauty of the spaces that are bounded by the walls and the interactions of those spaces to each other.

True. To an extent. The UCSD Central Library is the ne plus ultra, and was, in its original form, a truly functional and amazing space for human pursuits as well as being whimsical, a constant and changing space plunked down in the eucalyptus groves, looking perfectly at home in a natural setting. Then they did this atrocious remodel that totally ruined it and turned it into a bizarre pimple.

OTOH, I was recently regaled with stories of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky by a recent visitor. He says it's the most depressing place he's seen. Compared, for instance, to some exceedingly poor places like some towns in Tanzania which he said were poor but not depressing. Concrete can be made to be wonderful, but it also makes for cheap prisons.

Well, I should have said "brutalist architecture in the right hands, like Louis I Kahn" --I agree there is lots of ex-Communist-bloc stuff thats just awful--But that's cast concrete cos its cheap, not because its an art form.

I know... But, you see, much as I like Pereira's masterwork, I kind of hate most of Kahn's oeurve, though I haven't seen the houses, as well as the Le Corbusier foundations of brutalism. Unfinished concrete to me looks lazy and I see so much dirt and sloth I can't appreciate the play of light and shadows. The Stalinist blocks that were so depressing to the traveller (especially the town center shopping district), while, as you say, using concrete because it's cheap rather than art, do have the repetition of form, angularity, and exposure of function that define Brutalism, even if there's no perceptible (intentional) art in the architecture.

I do get your point though, and I respect your admiration for Kahn, even if I can't join it. My point in introducing Petropavlovsk to the discussion, is to point out that most people don't want to live with Brutalism because only the best of it gladdens the heart. The Pereira library, in its original state did that. The Stalinist blocks don't, though they look very interesting from a distance.

Come to think of it, this also ties back to Anna's kitchen. MCM is also a very inhuman style. There are a small group of people for whom it's ideal. They love the starkness and rigidity and it makes them very comfortable. I read about a house built recently that had a lot of the same aesthetic, though a contemporary build and design: They had a basement play area where the children could make messes and clutter to their hearts' content. I would sacrifice my personal design philosophy to allow my children to play where there's light and air, but at least they allowed for the fact that normal people, like their kids, couldn't live happily with stark rigidity.

There is a major disconnect between what brings joy to Anna's self image, and what she can have, so she's tailoring her space to fulfill her inner idea of how she wishes it was. She's delighting the person, even if that means denying the architecture. I think there's some validity in that, as long as one understands that others don't live in one's fantasies, and all they see is a kitchen from a different age and style than the rest of the house.

Some people express themselves in their houses, whether it's the Mexican architect who built himself a conch shell, or the crazy lady who kept building including stairs to nowhere and glassed in breezeways where halls belong, or the guy in Florida who built a castle out of huge slabs of fossil coral. The average person can't indulge that far, so maybe it's just a kitchen that eats the entire house, or one that one can't enter without a mobcap and pinny.

Does it make it hard to sell? Sure! And maybe it needs to be ripped back and made normal again for someone to buy it. But does it give the owner joy? Absolutely!!!

I still have a scrape on my arm from walking past the Yale Center for Art & Architecture, a brutalist monstrosity that works hard for the hatred it earns.

The paramount goal of the American renovator is to make every guest feel like the milkman, or maybe the babysitter.

I am speaking to a certain style of "open concept" remuddle I often see around here.

A house is many things. One is a machine--a machine for cooking, dressing, cleaning, heating, and so on. In a car, the machinery is hidden, but for some bizarre reason, everyone wants their home to put it on display.

I have no desire to enter a front door and immediately see the baby wipes and kitty litter awaiting trash day. Nor bills marked "Final Notice" piled up on the kitchen desk, or the phone numbers for the proctologist on the fridge, the complete set of PlaySkool on the family room floor, yesterday's dirty dishes on the counter, or the sporting goods store that lives by the back door.

Sorry to shock those who elevate "casual" to a moral commandment, but none of this is actually welcoming to people who come to your house. You have essentially told people, "you're not worth the effort." No sooner does someone walk into your door, you instantly assign them the menial job of dealing with your detritus like they are the plumber or cleaning lady. Except the plumber and cleaning lady have to deal with the machinery of your house, because that's their job, and they agreed to do it. Your guests don't even get a say.

The typical response is, "It's "fine," or "That's real life" or "This is my house, too bad for them LOL." Of course, no one who says this pauses to ask their guests how they feel upon entry, or even to reflect how they feel when they enter someone else's unkempt "open" house. The truth is, they don't care. Selfishness is no longer something to be outgrown, nor is it a defect. It is a virtue, one that people hold in such high esteem they have dedicated a new style of architecture to it.

::snicker:: Marcolo, that's the refusal to live a stark life I was talking about. :) It takes a huge amount of discipline to keep an MCM or open plan house ready for company.

"...maybe it's just a kitchen that eats the entire house, or one that one can't enter without a mobcap and pinny."

Ummm...that's NOT what I'm doing. That's my inspiration photo and one which I plan to adapt and copy elements from. I'm not recreating that kitchen, just the feeling it evokes in me.

thanks, marcolo. that is a very interesting perspective.

our 20-year-old SMALL house was built with that open concept, and i would love to close it up somehow! i DO care, and am embarrassed by the mess.

if i ever get to build my dream cottage, no one will see my kitchen mess when they first walk in!

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just odd (ok I know I am a bit) while I like learning all that's new to me on architectural terms, movements and such I often wonder if I had an education in such things if it would ever really change my impression. I have had the opportunity to travel other countries over the last few years and I simply do not get all warm and fuzzy looking at most famous monuments and architecture that wow others. Maybe I have just been incensed by viewing it all online or TV or books. What touches me is rounding a corner and coming across an old door or window or side of a building...imagine the sun is catching it just right and you can see signs of layered paint, texture and the many lives it has led. I find this sort of sighting so beautiful, touching and inspiring. On the casual side, how can one really experience the feel of a foreign land until you take off your shoes and feel its earth beneath your feet while viewing the country side and old buildings? How can you really feel the beauty if you do not do this?
This is where I guess I will always have a different take on all these sorts of discussions. Although I will always still enjoy learning a new technical term to something I have felt or saw I still have to feel something to get it.

Again I don't think that all commentary can be applied to all situations. I don't think anyone expects an 800 square foot house to be broken up into tiny rooms. I just don't get when someone has a 400 square foot kitchen and wants to "open it up" to the 500 square foot great room.

For one thing it wreaks havoc with proportion: a 10x10x8 foot room is almost a cube, a 25 x 30 x 9 foot room is a wafer. The ceiling starts to press down a little bit.

But there is a lot to be said for "enclosable" space, and rooms that don't get a lot of use 18/7. Why is it that houses get bigger and bigger and yet people want to eliminate dining rooms and living rooms because they don't use them every day? I think there is nothing better than a quiet room that is always clean, a bit removed and has a sofa thats not covered with crumbs to lie on and read, or a big table that doesn't need to be set in ten minutes for dinner to lay out a project on--and there is nothing wrong with having a room thats off limits (most of the time) to kids and pets...they might learn the world wasn't created just for their self-edification. If houses were getting a lot smaller I could see the process, but this happened as they got bigger.

JSCeva -- After being active in historic preservation for some time, it occurred to me that in many areas it is really just about people wanting to save buildings they perceive as "pretty", and ignoring ones they do not fancy regardless of their history.

Palimpsest --- how about facadism? I first learned of that when I worked at a financial institution facing Independence Square. Let's keep only the front of the building, about a foot thick it seemed, and no windows. Then build a skyscraper behind it. Whacky.

General comment - fans of Louis Kahn, or just fans of good movies, be sure to see "My Architect". And of course, on the collision between the art of architecture and the reality of living in a structure, "Koolhaas Houselife".

Here is a link that might be useful:

Much of Frank Furness's work was destroyed because it was so unpopular, and so anti-Colonial, and a lot of it happened to be clustered around Independence Hall area.

I live not far from the Provident Facade. There are two other famous ones close by, The 800 block of Spruce, (backed by a 1978 building of Pennsy Hosp.; and York Row, allowed to fall into ruin by Sam Rapaport, and sliced into a facade by the construction of the Saint James apartment tower in the early 2000s.

They want to do it again: to Richardson Dillworth's house, because there is an argument that the house has no intrinsic historic value. He demolished a rather nice 19th c. townhouse to build a facsimile of an 18th c. colonial mansion (with a fifties interior). The people that fought most against it don't want a tall building darkening their condos next door--I don't think they care much about what the house symbolizes (the mayor moving into a blighted neighborhood as a pioneer gentrify-er)

There is also the mass removal of a lot of Edmund Bacon's (Kevin's dad) urban planning done in the 50s and 60s...not that it had worked out particularly well, but he tried.

Now this is interesting! Facadism, not sure what I think yet but it looks a heck of a lot better then building a big ugly modern structure behind a parking lot that looms over unconnected in a distracting way to a historic building. Interesting, thanks Mtnrdedux!
It�s time for bed, tomorrow looking forward to reading about why or if it was necessary.

I almost grok this thread, but not enough to say anything more than "please continue!"

Is "facadism" a true style or just a way of appeasing those who want to designate all "old" buildings "heritage" ones regardless of structural or economic condition.

I forgot to say that Kahn is rather unpopular in Philadelphia, and in the US in general. I am not an uncritical fan of his work, but I like some of it, and for a builder in a rather ugly style, he managed to do it quite beautifully on occasion.

He lived less than a block from where I sit, in a 19th c. house, in a neighborhood that was not that great in his lifetime.

It was interesting in My Architect how people talked to his son about hating his buildings, Edmund Bacon called him an idiot (or something like that) and yet people in the Institute of Public Administration, at Ahmedabad, India, (1963) got practically teary-eyed talking about their buildings, and his death, decades later.

Incidentally I looked at a house which may have been designed by Anne Tyng, one of his baby-mamas (for shorthand)...it was interesting, executed at a time when either technology or money was lacking to meet the design, and out of my budget.

Facadism and facadectomies, are not styles but generally an unsatisfying way to salvage something of some historical or architectural significance while creating a modern infrastructure.

The 800 block of Spruce is rather successful, since people think they are still houses sometimes, but you are still left with an illusion. At least the Provident Building is really honest about what it is. I am not sure that now the 800 block of Spruce would be destroyed in that fashion but in 1978, perhaps, it was a good compromise.

Its interesting though, with all the rehab going on around the area south southwest of me, four-walled facadectomies are done all the time, its just called a gut renovation and it seems completely acceptable to 95% of people when its a residence.

Sorry, Anna!! That was meant to be hyperbole!!

I admit to being shocked by facadism when I first visited London. Pretty much anything was okay with the building planners, so long as the Georgian facade was preserved. I stayed in a couple of different Georgian townhouses that were pretty much unchanged from when they were the pokey, narrow town homes of the aspirational gentry. I understood why someone would want to change them entirely as declining residential neighborhoods became tony offices, but it was awfully weird seeing a facade standing with an excavation behind. It was like they were hiding their tawdry knickers behind lace aprons. A total lie.

Sometimes facadism can work. I was in Ghent a couple of years ago right after the opening of the Marriott there, and the local community seemed pretty pleased with what they'd done. From the Korenlei it looks like any of the other 15th/16th century houses. The only clue is the little red sign above the door

But go inside and you find:

It gave me 80s flashbacks and the internet charges were outrageous, but if you have to squoodge a ginormous hotel into a small space, it could be worse. They did leave some of the original rooms overlooking the water so when you look in the windows you do see what you'd expect to see.

(images from their site)

I've only seen pictures of the Indian Kahns, but those are actually the ones I like. :)

Interesting that we both used terms about honesty/deception at the same time for the facadism. The gut reno thing also creates some absurdities. I once saw a little clapboard house, like you'd find in the period between Queen Anne and Craftsman. On the inside it was open plan contemporary with industrial metal stairs as a room divider, basketball floor throughout, bling kitchen with dark granite counters, lots of overhead lighting. REALLY disconcerting. Like one of those fantasy films where you walk through a door into another time period. I suppose the tension isn't much different from the pyramid at the Louvre, but then while I appreciate that intellectually, I kind of hate that too. :)

I'll weigh in and say that the Kimbell Art Museum (by Louis Kahn) is PERFECT. I took a sidetrip to see it when I was in Dallas on business, and I was blown away.

Facadism: Alice - Through the Looking Glass.

Again I don't think that all commentary can be applied to all situations. I don't think anyone expects an 800 square foot house to be broken up into tiny rooms. I just don't get when someone has a 400 square foot kitchen and wants to "open it up" to the 500 square foot great room.

For one thing it wreaks havoc with proportion...

ohhh, palimpsest... i'd love it if you'd say more on the proportion and enclosure ideas. maybe not tiny rooms in a small house, but ways to make spaces less exposed but still inviting, comfortable. and what makes "good" proportions for rooms?

the facadism is very interesting, too.

this thread is almost at 150. i don't want it to end either! :)

was it something (else) that i said? :(