Cambridge Reno: Details, Details, Details
The latest posting on the Cambridge Reno blog takes a look at some of the only detail that is salvageable in the 1860’s wreck–wainscotting around the windows in the house’s turret. Shahn’s trying to decide how best to restore the woodwork, though some folks in the Comments section are urging him to just rip it…
The latest posting on the Cambridge Reno blog takes a look at some of the only detail that is salvageable in the 1860’s wreck–wainscotting around the windows in the house’s turret. Shahn’s trying to decide how best to restore the woodwork, though some folks in the Comments section are urging him to just rip it out and recreate it with new materials. You can probably guess what side of the debate we came down on.
Details, Details, Details [Cambridge Reno]
I’d much rather live in a beautiful modern home with large class walls carved out of an old townhouse, then an old townhouse “restored” to look like it did when it was built.
Clean lines, radiant light, and simple design is far more soothing to the eye and mind than ornate moldings, small, cell like bedrooms, and a disfunctional, impractical layout.
Of course you might have nostalgic feelings anon 10:23, but I was just saying that this is so much more than anything like that, and that there is a rational justification for historic preservation; it’s not just a bunch of people with too much money living in a fantasy, as has often been claimed.
I agree with you and I am also for conservation and certainly am one who appreciates fine craftmanship. But it doesn’t mean there is no nostalgia involved. And one does not need to have lived through a period to feel nostalgic for it. It could simply represent a longing for what one could have imagined as better times. My love for everything 1920’s certainly involves a certain amount of nostalgia even though my own parents were not even born at that time. Ever wondered why is everyone interested in antiques all of a sudden? Not so long ago, very few people were into what was merely considered “old stuff”. I think it may have to do with a longing for another era, an era that people idealize. Just my 2 cents.
How can it be nostalgia for something you never knew? How about calling it a respect for the history of the place you live and an admiration for fine crafstmanship, attention to detail, and just plain more highly developed aesthetics than you find in 99% of new construction, which is certainly not dfferent, but infused with an ugly sameness from Brooklyn to Staten Island to Ohio. New and different perhaps, but that would also mean incredibly expensve in this day and age, when even “luxury” buildings have walls of sheetrock and won’t hold up more than a generation.
You could also extend this to a general discussion of our throwaway culture, with the idea that just because something is broken or even just plain out of date you should throw it out and get a new one. Hey, it’s now applied to TVs and the like, why not houses?
It’s called nostalgia.
Destroy it and build something new!
Why is everybody so obsessed with repairing old stuff?
Why not make something new and different?