www.quondam.com/33/3304q.htm

Quondamopolis

Semiquincentennial: an almost novel architectonics

25 August

2013.08.25 17:49

1998:
...address the full potential of a virtual museum of architecture. The main issue is that Quondam's collection is "virtually" an infinite collection, meaning the base model data can be used to generate ever more data, be it new line drawings such as elevations, axonometrics, and perspectives, any number of renderings, and even whole buildings derived from a manipulation of the existing data. It is particularly the possibility of creating whole new buildings to add to the collection that makes a virtual museum of architecture (in this regard at least) completely unprecedented. The closest example of this "manipulative" attitude toward architecture is (ironically) again Hadrian's Villa where the form of remembered places was morphed into another style and an entirely other location.
...the analogous building idea is also a prime candidate for "new" buildings.

1993:

1943:
The four architects had decided to achieve an effect of harmony and therefore not to use any historical style in its pure form. Peter Keating designed the white marble semi-Doric portico that rose over the main entrance, and the Venetian balconies for which new doors were cut. John Erik Snyte designed the small semi-Gothic spite surmounted by a cross, and the bandcourses of stylized acanthus leaves which were cut into the limestone of the walls. Gordon L. Prescott designed the semi-renaissance cornice, and the glass-enclosed terrace projecting from the third floor. Gus Webb designed a cubistic ornament to frame the original windows, and the modern neon sign up on the roof, which read: "The Hopton Stoddard Home for Subnormal Children."
"Comes the revolution," said Gus Webb, looking at the completed structure, "and every kid in the country will have a home like that!"
The original shape of the building remained discernable. It was not like a corpse whose fragments had been mercifully scattered; it was like a corpse hacked to pieces and reassembled.
Ayn Rand

««««

»»»»