In a message dated 12/23/2004 1:37:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
And this differs from aluminum siding exactly how?
Mr. Integricity
It differs in that it is a wretched, cheap alteration to an existing building of that is a finished work of architecture, sufficient unto itself. Crappy additions may be interesting as human documents - and indeed are sometimes more pleasurable than fakoid "restorations". But when they displace historic elements (as they do in the case of the library on Amsterdam and 81st Street, where a beautiful cast iron and oak doorway with sidelights was ripped out for something that looks like a check cashing window in a bad neighborhood), they are almost always dramatically inferior.
Whereas, a ground-up aluminum siding building - or even, DARE I SAY IT, VINYL SIDING BUILDING - has the potential to provoke, amuse, entertain, enliven, particularly if it is not phony-something else, e.g. aluminum "clapboards".
Hence the observations that:
1. Palladio would have thought aluminum as a facade material was pretty cool
2. And we might agree with him if we could see it in a "ground up" situation, where it was not imitating something else.
So go preserve yourself, Mr. Certificate of Appropriateness!!!
sincerely yourn, hysteric district