J. Bryan Blundell wrote:

>As a side note, there is no power at the office due to our friend Isabel.
>
I'm sorry to hear about this re: your business. First I knew you were
having a problem was today. The IPTW will come through A-OK. Seems to me
we could meet during a hurricane -- not much different than what we
usually go through in our careers.

>My compulsion was to right the wrong, but my instructions were: "Since it was done in
>1940 it's historic and has to stay."
>
I think that I need to make a correction to Rudy's comment re: why the
bldg. should stay in the 1940 rendition. It was my decision, not any
architect or government employee's decision to stay with the 1940's
alterations. My reason was that we "knew" what the 1940's version was,
as it was what we were dismantling and it was a relatively true reading
of the current bldg. Any "returning" to a pre-1940's version meant
several things, 1) the return would be speculative, as there were no
records to substantiate an assumed, even if intelligently assumed
precondition -- an argument that could have been carried further and
substantiated, 2) there was something poetic in the interpretation of
how the 1940's version came to be (along with most of the bldgs. at
Greenfield Village which were altered or bastardized at Ford's fickle
will in an assortment of methods that we may now find somewhat
unpleasant) and 3) lastly, if we were to open up the question for debate
there would be no end of discussion and chaining through various levels
and interpretations and variety of viewpoints. Then there was the simple
fact that it was in my power to make this decision, like a mini Robert
Moses, and feel comfortable sleeping at night. It was a pragmatic
decision on my part to not open a cat box. The decision was NOT made due
to any thinking that the 1940's version was "historic". I knew damned
well that the 1940's version was not pre-historic... but the changes to
the bldg., and our preserving of these changes, do represent the story
of the voyage of this particular building. What we get, as Bryan aptly
tells us with his reference to Kafka, is the story. In all, regardless
of any intention to remain "authentic" we also made our inevitable
2002-2003 mark on the bldg. The aspect I think is important to regard
here is if we were conscious of the changes we made, and if we were any
more conscious than those trades, likely carpenters off the assembly
line, when they made their changes in 1940? We had the opportunity, and
fortunate a customer that would pay the freight, so that we did not have
the problem of sorting out a jumble of pieces and matching them to a
photograph showing a carpenter's butt crack in the foreground.

][<en

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