Re: Re: Pastiche – The Final Solution?

This is an example of bad pastiche: wrong period, poor execution, clearly mismatched windows and floor levels. this is hardly an argument against pastiche, just an argument against doing things badly. In our brains the concepts of ‘copy’ and ‘imitation’ are closely linked with ‘cheap’ and ‘pale’. Other words like ‘forgery’, ‘ripoff’ and ‘counterfeit’ inhabit the same neural nieghbourhood.

What if the developer had specified a very good continuation of the original buildings, the diference only discernible to the expert eye, or easily discernible but pleasing nonetheless? What if there were no deceit in this extension, if the year of construction, 2005, were clearly engraved on a keystone?

In this case, it looks like the commercial imperative to squeeze in two extra floors was stronger than the local planning guidelines.