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palimpsest

Is an "architecturally significant" house still significant when it's

palimpsest
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago

Is an architecturally significant house still significant when it's been gut renovated?

I am seeing MCM houses that are a notch above Eichler et al development houses in real estate listings where the architect is named, the house is called "architecturally important" or "significant", and there's not a single thing left on the interior that has anything to do with the original house. Particularly since most modernist houses have such a strong connection between the inside and outside, I think this is more apparent.

Granted, most of them have replaced modernism with modernism, I think we've gotten beyond the point where people are shoehorning traditional kitchen cabinets & baths, and crown moldings into glass boxes, but there is still nothing that would make you recognize it as anything but a brand new house built in MCM fashion.

I realize that houses aren't museums and that people have to live in them, and if you buy a Usonian house with pink bathroom fixtures and mahogany shower walls, you aren't going to be able to duplicate that if you need to replace it...but is the house really significant anymore when it's been so substantially altered?

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