[MassHistPres] RE historic looking convenience store/gas station

[John Worden]

Apparently my suggestion of a reproduction 18th c. “skin” for a modern building has caused some distress among our distinguished colleagues.  I think the point here is that the context is everything.  In the particular context to which I made reference, the site was immediately adjacent to an early 19th c. church, considered by many to be the most architecturally significant property in town, across the street from the town’s most significant historical site (preserved 18th c. house), and just down the street from where the referenced old tavern had stood (coincidentally, there has just been a story & picture of it in the local newspaper – it had been torn down about 100 years before to expand a commercial building).

 

A brick/concrete box with a lot of glass (as proposed by Osco) would have been particularly jarring.  What subsequently got built is not all that great but does suit the street-scape better.  I don’t know the context of the area in the original question, but the issue, it seems to me is the same – will the new structure be a cookie-cutter standard design or something in scale, siting, and materials that looks not out-of-place in the location?

 

John Worden

Arlington HDC 

 

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