Comments on: The Facades Of Spitalfields

By: Marcia Howard

Marcia Howard — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 14:05:13 +0000

I look at all of this in despair

By: Nanna

Nanna — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 15:28:58 +0000

This “phenomenon” is so depressing. And what a waste.
It has also spread to Copenhagen.

By: Ann V

Ann V — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 19:00:16 +0000

Appalling!

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 17:53:51 +0000

“something is either authentic or it is phoney.” Amen. Context is everything and without it, that which is left loses its meaning. I have seen instances where a portion of a building remains and is skillfully and sensitively integrated with a new structure, and thereby given new life, but these examples are few and far between. Mostly they are unsuccessful and end up diminishing both the old and the new. Thank you for the thoughtful discussion.

By: Jennifer Newbold

Jennifer Newbold — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 10:49:06 +0000

Commercialism disguised as sensitivity. How disingenuous. It makes my morning coffee sour.

My husband once worked for Norman Foster, years ago, before I met him (my husband, that is, not Norman Foster. I have never had that ‘pleasure). I thought that Foster’s was supposed to be the paragon of architecture, the ‘black cape’ of black capes. That *thing* that they have proposed is completely out of scale with regard to the environment, and considers the vernacular not at all. It sits there like a malignant craft dropped from space by a hostile invader. Sensitivity? Not a jot. It is an abomination.

By: Cherub

Cherub — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 10:25:09 +0000

There was a lot of this happening in Madrid when I visited friends back in 2003. I was a bit fascinated by it as I had never seen it before.

By: Milo

Milo — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 10:10:28 +0000

‘A kind of authenticity.’ What bright spark came up with that line? These facades only serve to remind you of what has been lost, they have no value in themselves, they are a sop. Yes, yes they are better than nothing but only just and what’s even more rankling (if that’s a word) is it gives these developers the opportunity to say over their cigars and brandy that they did their bit for conservation. B*****ks to that.

By: Lewis Jones

Lewis Jones — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 06:58:42 +0000

Also of interest are the blackened 1846 wash houses in Old Castle Street.

By: Alex Knisely

Alex Knisely — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 05:24:46 +0000

Façadeism ! I encountered it first in 1975, in Philadelphia, where the Penn Mutual insurance company had retained the white marble front of its headquarters against the black glass front of the high-rise-tower new headquarters — illustrated in the linked article. How marvellous, I thought, that it was not torn down altogether. How marvellous, I thought, this chance to remember the old vividly and newly with every glance at the architecture of the new.

It is not preservation. It is, as the article comments, a consolation prize. I am for preservation rather than consolation. But when money talks, one listens.

https://hiddencityphila.org/2018/08/saving-a-facade-is-not-historic-preservation/