Don't care nothin' 'bout history
Warning: Here I go again, writing wistfully about Wachovia.
As Jim Schlosser has reported, Roy Carroll III doesn't want "historic" designation for the old Wachovia high-rise in downtown Greensboro after all.
Frankly, I don't mind one bit, so long as Carroll still believes he can make the project work without the government sweeteners historic designation would bring.
He seems to.
Here's the kicker: Carroll also has revised his vision. Now he'll remake rather than restore the building, which is an architectural plain Jane -- no matter what experts say about its "corporate modern" heritage.
Carroll, a hometown boy, is thinking big again, and contemplating such embellishments as balconies.
Wonderful.
Comments (1)
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Allen, your bias against elements of mid-20th century's better architecture disappoints me. Ah, balconies! Why, so we can pretend we are in firmly in Tara? Notice how those excresences smother the place squeezed around South Elm? Looks like a motel or college dorm (or the college dorm made outta a motel on West Market). Why not add some columns while you're at it?
Modernism was all about clean lines, wide windows without the gee-gaw to clutter the light, and gleaming materials that are what they are, not pseudo-colonial, pseudo-antebellum grabbage. Frank Lloyd Wright, heralded far and wide as our grteatest architect, called all that "inferior desecration".
Granted, the all-concrete, no-light monsters that house our rather inefficient and depressing governmental agencies are no inspiration. Modernism doesn't work in the hands of doltish penny-pinchers. But for heavens sake, let's join the 21st century, and stop trying to build half-baked imitations a la Taj MaTeeter.
Posted on February 19, 2006 12:36 PM