Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Reinforcement

Last post, I made a protracted and over-detailed claim that basically, builders were stealing ideas from each other left and right in the 1960s. Here's a simpler argument for the same idea: look at just one recurring decorative element, and see how many different builders you can find who used it.

I've chosen the horizontal band of stone, set in a brick wall. There's no reason to think this particular element is inherently obvious or necessary; you can look at other buildings in the photos and see a dozen other ways to use field stone, and I can make up plenty more out of my head.

5223 N. East River Road
5223 N. East River Road - Redelco Corporation

6173-6175 Northwest Highway
6173-75 Northwest Highway - Losacco and Springston Builders

6847-49 and 6853-55 Olmsted
6847-49 and 6853-55 Olmsted - Guiffre Brothers

7418 N. Harlem Avenue
7418 N. Harlem Avenue - Parisi Brothers Construction Co. Inc.

7610 and 7614 W. Belmont Avenue
7610 and 7614 W. Belmont Avenue - Nick S. Theodorau, architect. No word on the builder.

1 comment:

Sargon de Jesus said...

Hi Rob,
I work for a government contractor to the federal agency ATSDR. We are preparing a guidebook on land reuse sites and two of your pictures (on another blog of yours) were of an area in Milwaukee that we are profiling. We think they would be a great addition to the case study summary. A few days ago I sent you an e-mail at BuiltStLouis[at]Gmail[dot]com asking about photo rights for several images of yours.

If you get a moment, could you please let me know how this could be arranged? I would be happy to provide more details on what this project is and how the photos will be used.

Many thanks,
Sargon de Jesus