COMPARE + C0NTRAST

 

Here's a theory. Spanish Colonial is to Florida as Gothic Revival is to London. That makes the former Ponce de Leon Hotel in St Augustine equivalent to St Pancras Station. Both catered to the Nouveau Riche of the industrial revolution heading south on new railway lines. The power of steam opening up unprecedented travel opportunities.

Henry Flagler made his money in Oil and went on to build the Florida East Coast Railway which served a series of Hotels that he either bought or built along that coast. The Ponce de Leon was the first major project of architects Carrere & Hastings who went on to become very successful in the Neo-Classical style.

 

St Pancras was built as the London Terminus for Midland Railway, centred in Derby and connecting major industrial towns (Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham, Carlisle) Engineer William Barlow and Architect George Gilbert Scott both made remarkable contributions to this iconic Victorian landmark.

So on the face of it, two very different styles of architecture and types of building. But in terms of their significance to the height of the industrial Revolution in two countries that played such pivotal roles in this great energy transition that gave birth to the modern world... They have much in common.

Just letting my mind wander across built history.

 

 

My time in the home of the brave is drawing to a close. This weekend took me to Detroit to meet up with in-laws. Wish I had more time but a memorable trip all the same.

My favourite, I think... The Guardian Building. It represents a very specific point in history. Sandwiched between two World Wars, the aftermath of the industrial revolution. What did modernity mean? Was it a kaleidoscope of dreams, or the tyranny of the machine. Stark simplicity or lavish excess. Wirt C Rowland chose style, invention, colour, texture : a veritable riot of the senses. Native American references, gold, marble, coloured glass.

 

I didn't get to see Lafayette Park by Mr Less-is-More, Mies van der Rohe. That would have have been the perfect contrast to the glorious excesses of Art Deco. I have visited some of his work though, several years ago in Chicago and New York. Crown Hall for example, the archetypal black box: sacred, impenetrable, like the Kaaba in Mecca. And yet the home to a functioning school of architecture, a simple container for the messy business of life.

The tension between minimalism and playfulness is everywhere in our lives, like the tension between Conservative and Liberal. There are trade-offs to be made at every turn. We try to take these decisions based on hard evidence, but we only see the tip of the iceberg and life is short.

Aesthetics is inescapable. It's not everything, of course, and it's only a proxy. It evolved most likely for mate selection, but proved it's worth in many aspects of decision-making, used right across the animal kingdom. So it seems to me.

Hormones, gut feelings, thinking on-the-fly. Beauty is a word for this inner sense of rightness, excitement, fulfillment. To calculate the odds would take a lifetime. Better to spend that life experiencing the tension between simplicity and complexity, in the moment.

 

 

Fisher Building, by Albert Kahn, (not to be confused with Louis Kahn) You could call this Art Deco but it leans heavily towards the Neo-Classical on the inside, and the stripped-down Classical on the outside.

Cadillac Place is diagonally opposite Fisher Building with a very different massing. Designed for General Motors also by Albert Kahn.

Shinola Hotel is a restoration of T. B. Rayl Company 1915 by Wirt Rowland. An earlier work than the Art Deco, Guardian Building. More akin to Sullivan perhaps with its windows grouped into vertical columns and use of terracotta.

Buhl Building, again by Rowland and channeling his Neo-Classical side although Wikipedia calls it Neo-Gothic with Romanesque accents. Difficult to classify perhaps.

I guess all this is evidence that the early skyscrapers of the 20th century were very fluid in style, searching for a suitable way to express this new kind of building. Trying out different options.

I honestly find this period more interesting than most of what has been built more recently. Not sure why.