In a message dated 10/4/00 12:56:49 PM Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

>  Ken, what about any "chilling effects" of hist-pres on current architecture
>  and building?  Any whining about "knee-jerk" preservationism?

I cannot say that I was there on a cultural mission of determining the
preservation psyche of the Germans, my ancestors... an admission despite
exposing myself to further chiding of the Humor Czar. For the oversight, I
invent a reply and say there was no chilling effect and that there are no
knee-jerk preservationists in Germany. Preservationists in Germany jerk their
arms and necks, rarely do they bend the knee when marching.

The highlight of the trip, for me at least, was some dude in the Augsburg
Keim factory very excitedly running around pretending to be an alligator...
flapping his arms up and down and clapping them as if he was going to eat a
pregnant gar and shouting some sort of war chant while bouncing up and down
on the factory floor. It had something to do, I think, with football in
Florida. I'm not sure if this was the calibrated tint blender or a fork lift
driver with too much coffee. He was certainly happy to see us.

In Munich I was more caught up in the means & methods problem of their not
having anything that we would call sand, what they do have is something on
the scale between a runt pea and a rice grain in size... and a very obvious
shortage of what they go to the trouble of calling "natural" stone. The sand
and lack of natural stone has a subtle effect on the architecture. A great
deal of stucco and a great deal of coatings used to make stucco look like
some other material -- usually to look like stone.

As to blend of modern & heritage, Munich seemed to have plenty of both. I'd
say what I saw of the modern/post-modern style was more interesting, for it
being different and a bit more tensile, than what I am used to in NYC and
Long Island. I did not see in Munich any examples of modern additions to old
buildings, not that there were none, but that I did not see them. We were
there w/ very gracious hosts from Keim and it was either looking at artfully
coated stucco or the lip of a beer glass.

][<en