>
> This rings true for me.
> The modern that I really do not find pleasing is one that is devoid of
any
> recognition of craft skills. Shoddy work is shoddy regardless of
underlying
> philosophy. What I object to is shoddiness in modernity being touted as
> appropriate because it is modern. I think one popular objection to modern
art
> comes about because we are exposed to more shoddy work that is new,
because
> someone already had the sense to throw away the shoddy work that was old.
I
> remember many years ago finding a lot of old rural NY poetry in the
Library of
> Congress and thought wow! here we have this movement for regional small
press
> poetry and I just found all this old stuff. I approached John Gill of
Crossing
> Press with the idea, he was always gently tolerant of my strange ideas,
who
> commented that if it was bad poetry then why should it be good poetry
now? I
> think the same thing may go for some of our past architecture, the
practical
> idea is that if it falls down or does not work then leave it dead, or
convert
> it into something else.

>Ken

I agree strongly with all of this, but would like to carry it a step
further, at the risk of committing a bit of heresy.

I think that a good deal of the preservationist ethic of the last several
decades has to considered as having been divorced from aesthetic criteria.
Many successful projects (I'm thinking especially of the  recycling of
textile mill structures in the North East, but could cite other examples)
could certainly be justified on historical, industrial archeological,
environmental or other grounds, but I think it would be damn difficult to
justify the investment in time and cash in city after city on these
buildings if one were to make one's case on aesthetic grounds. Which is not
to say that one doesn't find the recycled structures charming, even
attractive, often as the result of flashy details added by contemporary
architects, but the vast majority of them really have no more compelling
aesthetic presence than  malls or housing projects. One could even point to
many industrial "campuses", their contemporary equivalent, which offer, or
at least seriously attempt to provide, a working environment that includes
a concern for the aesthetic soul of its denizens and visitors. Those who
have little sympathy for contemporary architecture often single out the
International style and Brutalism for their coldness and detachment, which
I find often ironic considering what kind of working environment someone's
$150,000.00 condo in Lowell once represented to those who toiled in them
six days a week for 12 hours.

Sadly, one of the most exceptional collections of mill buildings, a
compound that can claim aesthetic distinction along with its other values,
the Prejepscot Mills on the Androscoggin River in Topsham, Maine, (Those of
you who have traveled Route One might have caught a glimpse of them after
you left the interrupted coastal highway in Brunswick and followed the
river a short distance before returning to the highway.) seem to have lost
the last battle for their salvation, and all but one of the structures are
scheduled for destruction.

Bruce