[MassHistPres] RE historic looking convenience store/gas station

[james hadley]

Mr. Worden,
Thank you for your willingness to continue the discussion. You are quite correct to use the word "context" here, and I am sure that most listserve readers sympathize with your problem WRT the building in question. A contextual addition to a downtown or a district is most certainly a goal of Historical Commissions, Architectural Review Boards and Historic District Commissions in exercising their oversight.  And it was clear from your post that this was the central problem you faced.

What I object to, and I believe what others also see as a problem, is the jump from "contextual" to "colonial-ish." They are not the same thing, I can assure you as an architect who is deeply concerned about the issue you raise. 

What I responded to in your original post was the notion that style - in this case a pseudo-style - was fulfilling the role of contextual architecture. This need not be the case. A sensitive design featuring carefully chosen materials, proper scale, and sensitive siting and site development will in fact provide a greater level of satisfaction than a gabled and columned pastiche. This message must be understood most importantly by the architectural community, where the tendency has become to provide exactly the inadequate and incomplete stylistic memories associated with "colonial" architecture. I call this style "turkeytecture" as it is characterized by "gable-gable-gable." We have many, many practitioners of this style here on the Cape, and suffer from the affects, as I have stated previously.
Hope this helps.
    

From: jworden at swwalaw.com
To: MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:10:16 -0400
Subject: [MassHistPres] RE historic looking convenience store/gas station

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 WordenArlington HDC  
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