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From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:06:37 +0530
The danger of becoming skin deep
Chicago historic buildings become shells as new rules of preservation
are letting city's history slip away
By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published April 8, 2007
Back in the 1960s, the pioneers of historic preservation faced stark
choices as they battled to protect such renowned structures as New
York's Pennsylvania Station or Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler's
Garrick Theater building in Chicago: Either save the building or watch
the wrecker's ball smash it to smithereens.
But today, developers and architects have devised a new way of holding
onto the past that makes things far more complex: Instead of preserving
an entire building, it keeps only the building's facade, grafting that
facade onto a new internal structure, as though it were the skin of a
stuffed animal.
cont'd....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0704060275apr08,1,5675037.story?ctrack=3&cset=true