Like so many things in the US, it is done state to state. For example, my wife often needs to work with the Maryland Historical Trust, which seems to be pretty powerful.
and when I worked in New York, no renovations could be done to my office because it was a historical landmark. It was pretty miserable in the summer.
You’re arguing against a point I didn’t attempt to make. Nowhere have I said people don’t have a right to an opinion, or that it is an objective fact that the house was beautiful. So I don’t know what you’re on about.
Oh, wow, thanks for the heads-up! I’m going to have to check that out.
Paging @anon87143080
Motion to nominate “anything involving architecture” for inclusion in The List
(as an aside, it’s kind of a known animal at this point that public-facing architectural decisions have become some weird flash-point in a larger, (sometimes MAGA and QAnon adjacent) and intentionally fanned cultural-flame war (see also Tartaria nonsense)). IMHO, that’s not specifically what tends to go on here at BB, but it is related to the intensity of rhetoric that tends to surround the topic that it has become weaponized - particularly along the lines of directing ire at supposedly modernist forms.
Stained wood trim and dark walls? Wow, that sounds pretty cool.
Better than all the pale gray walls and fucking white-painted woodwork I see in 99.8% of the homes when I visit realty sites.
…and indirect and track and recessed lighting…and the people who knock out half the walls, then can’t figure out why they’re so cold in winter and warm in summer. 
Opinions will differ, but, for me, the Pirelli Tire Building doesn’t pass as an example of brutalism architecture. With its classic Italianate themes and detailing, it has oodles of character.
Indeed.
It’s a brutalist building because it incorporates forms that would be impossible without poured concrete.
Done!
The basic building material alone does not define the architectural philosophy being conveyed, any more than a poured concrete, perfect copy of Michelangelo’s La Pieta would be an example of brutalism. The PTB does not meet the visual aesthetic requirements. Re “impossible without poured concrete” just look up “Granite government buildings in Rome, Italy”.
There’s a reason most of Frank Lloyd Wrights buildings are not lived in, but are preserved as Museums. Cost of maintenance, Location, and pretty much designed to the original owners specifications. People long gone. Houses that make either no sense or are so bafflingly out of step with reality today, we marvel at them. Because they influenced modern living. But, nah. We shouldn’t care. Pave em over.
… white paint is supposed to make real estate marketable, but then at the same time white walls are also characteristic of squalor and deprivation
At the end of the day, if that house had been in the UK it would have been Listed, so you wouldn’t be able to do any major work on it without special permission. Someone would have bought it because they appreciated the heritage of the building, not for the convenient location.
The people who bought my old house were Americans.
That is not a given. To meet the criteria, for buildings built after 1945, buildings have to be shown as exceptional.
From what I’ve read this building would easily clear the threshold, though. At least for Grade II listing, which would have been enough to stop demolition.
It it wasn’t listed and protected and they paid over 12 million for them it is within their rights to do whatever they want with it
Do you know why Europe is full of historical buildings? because we care and protect the shit out of them
Granted, that level of protection was not always perfect and in the 60s and 70s there were a lot of buildings demolished but in general there is an agreement that nice things must be respected
Nobody is saying they weren’t within their rights to do this. It’s also within our rights to complain about it, and to advocate for change
I assume they had to ask for planning permission to the local authorities and it was granted so there isn’t much to complain about really
advocate for change? absolutely
But is seems that nobody in the vicinity was too bothered about this house until it was demolished
Lets see if this makes people realise that the preservation of the common heritage doesn’t happen by default
Fuck, but that’s a gorgeous-looking house!
I’m jealous!
(I have half of one looking a bit similar but not quite as ornate, in UK Edwardian style)
