Re: Re: Pastiche – The Final Solution?

a definition of pastiche might be a work of literature,art or architecture which imitates a historic precedent. the key word here is “imitates”. Pastiche buildings are nothing but stage sets or wallpaper as was said before. intended to be innoffensive and nostalgic. they carry no integrity in themselves and exude an almost sinister apathy. Geogian buildings are born out ideas and technologies contemporary to their time and are, because of this truthful and hence beautiful. these immitations are not only vulgar in themselves, they rape authentic Georgian buildings of their charecter by being allowed to undermine their qualities.

if we had bought into the logic that the charecter of the street should be kept in tact by the imitation of the surroundings we would never see any progression be living in thatch mudhuts and our beloved Georgian squares would never have come into existence. The safegaurd againt destroying a genuinely important georgian streetscape should lie with an educated and ethical planning authority.

if the charecter of an area or streetscape is to be maintained, mindless replication of its neighbours is not the only option. rythm, texture, material presence and other charecteristics are not the sole preserve of one historical era or another. an intelligent architect can, and many have, merge with an historical setting while leaving no doubt as to what time his building is of enriching both the new addition and the historical context. we should be allowing our city to proudly speak of its life. instead, with pastich architecture we confuse our history and coerce our city into becoming a lie.

Pastiche is the refuge of the lazy and inconsiderate unfortunately there is no lack of these qualities around today