OBSERVATIONS
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Looking at old buildings is a pleasant, non-fattening, and mildly habit-forming activity, which can be made even more enjoyable with a little basic information. Some time ago, an apprentice old-house viewer told me that while she was learning the characteristics of "Colonial" houses, "Victorians" left her baffled. "It seems," she puzzled, "as though everything that applies to a colonial house is upside down and backwards in a Victorian!" My friend was more right than she knew. Esthetically, buildings erected between about 1830 and 1910 come out of the romantic movement, which arose late in the eighteenth century as a reaction against the increasing strictures and aridity of the classical mind-set which had dominated all the arts since the Renaissance. In place of classical abstraction came romantic individuality. Romantic--or picturesque--building is so opposed to the formal classicism of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that the two approaches can actually be summarized by a set of antonyms. If a Classical building is characteristically the one, then a Romantic building is characteristically the other:
Keeping these qualities in mind as you look at buildings constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can help you to understand what you are seeing and deepen your enjoyment. Back
to the top Birdwatchers have Roger Tory Peterson's guide to help them identify what they are seeing. In A Field Guide to American Houses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984),Virginia and Lee McAlester attempt to do something similar for housewatchers. The difficulty is that birds are easier to categorize than houses; robins only breed with robins,but architectural styles hybridize promiscuously, dooming most guidebooks to weighty vagueness. The McAlesters' bookis a rare and welcome exception to that rule. Organized by period and style, and richly illustrated with both photographs and drawings showing the distinguishing characteristics and the variations possible within each category, it is a feast for browsing. For the more systematic user there are illustrated essays on house anatomy, and a pictorial key, consisting of details ("If you seeÉ") and which styles are likely to incorporate them("Étry these first"). This is certainly the best guide currently available, and one not likely to be supplanted soon. Back
to the top One of the most difficult things about having their building worked on, my clients tell me, is the way things get worse and worseÉ Sure, there were some problems before the work started, but then the contractor arrived and started tearing things apart and, oh! the mess! and oh! the dirt! And things just seemed to keep getting worse! At that point it's tempting to think of a long vacation in some idyllic spot far from the scene of the action.That's not a useful alternative for most of us, though, so maybe a thought on the intrinsic nature of change might be useful: Almost every time we undertake major change or repair,the first thing to happen is that things get worse:
As the mess expands, and the reward for having undertaken all that messy and expensive work is the need to do yet more work (Nasty surprises lurk hidden away in old buildings!),though, the point to remember is that eventually things will get better. So focus on post-recovery, on the benefits of no longer smoking, on how great it will be to touch-type... and how wonderful your reworked building will be. You will survive, and then you'll be glad you went through the whole business. Back
to the top I once spent a day at a small multi-house museum--happily, in good physical condition--which had been faced with the need to address vexing and difficult questions involving funding, visitation, and the demographics of its supporting members, among others. Some time previously the governing board had formed a Long-range Planning Committee to address these issues, but that Committee had, as they say, been coming up dry. No decisions had been taken, and no recommendations had been made. As I thought about the situation afterward, it occurred to me that this situation embodied an important principle: The Committee's failure to make decisions and resolve these issues was in fact a decision, and a decision of the worst kind, because it had no owners. Rather than being based on deliberate action, it was simply the orphan result of circumstance and non-intervention. A decision to change nothing and no decision to change anything are very different: A decision to change nothing lays the matter to rest, however temporarily, and provides a basis for going forward with some orderliness. Failure to make a decision provides no such structure: Since no decision has been made, there is no way to lay the issue to rest and go on. It sits there a-festering, continually gnawing away in the background and undercutting prospects for constructive action. I am not advocating a policy of making decisions haphazardly and without regard for careful thought, simply for the sake of being able to say that something has been Decided. Good decisions require work and time to produce.Otherwise, they risk being nothing more than non-decisions in disguise. Back
to the top Remember Lawrence Welk? Everything was "Wunnaful, wunnaful." Sometimes when you go to check the references of a prospective contractor--or preservation architect--it seems like Old Mr. Champagne Music himself is alive and well and on the other end of your phone line. Given that few people in these litigious times will offer any but excellent references, how can you get behind that "wunnaful-wunnaful"facade to find useful information about that person or firm with whom you're about to entrust your building and a good part of your fortune? I've had good luck with the two-part question, "What went wrong? And then what happened?" Most projects are sufficiently complex that sooner or later, something will go wrong. The first part of the question seeks to find what happened--was it something major, or just an annoyance? Was it something that could have happened to anyone, or something really inexcusable? You may have to press a bit to get useful information here. Then, the second part will provide you what you really want to know--When something went wrong, how was it handled? Did the person deal with the situation appropriately and head-on, or did (s)he try to wriggle out of it? Cavalier handling of any problem--no matter how small--raises a red flag for me. Similarly, a major problem well handled can greatly increase my respect for and eagerness to work with the person or firm in question. This question works the other way, too, when you're a consultant or contractor checking a prospective client's references. |
Copyright 1994-2008 Allen C. Hill
