I had a chat with a friend over dessert and he brought up an interesting note about facadism. Facadism is perhaps a term mostly used to the practice of retaining the front face, or "skin" of an old buidling and affixing it to a newer, usually larger structure. Indeed, as much as this issue falls in the grey area between the conservationist and the developers, one cannot but agree that there is a problem behind this and there is a no right or wrong answer to this long debated question. This fundamentally bogs down to the issue of perceiving the value within each builidng, or even to the extent of the site quality in itself.
I do agree with my friend that it is superficial if not meaningless to merely retain the skin of the building and destroying what lies beneath it, or the spaces that are carved out to tell the story of lifestyle and qualities of life of the occupancy. It can almost be regarded as kitsch, to imagine streetscapes infested with themepark-like wallpapers, to even deceive the naive passerbys (or worst still native people) of what it was like 40 years ago (wil gasp to see a heritage-inspired architecture). On the other hand, I do admire the efforts of those who strike that balance (ok, I haven't found a nicer phrase to put that) and it serves as a pleasant surprise to walk into conserved buildings. The new functions that rejuvenates the builidng is something I look forward to, and I do mind those who's integrity is a lil shaken.
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2 comments:
i personally think that the worst conservation so far is not facadism but what happen to bugis mall. the shophouses were demolished and re-built the old shophouses facade. the spatial quality of the shophouses were no longer exist. what is the point of re-building the facade?
anyway, it has been done. lets take it as a learning process.
well, i'm kinda excited to see 157 Neil Road conservation. hope it turns out well.
Well, that's a new word I learnt today. Personally, I felt that there's a lot on economic pursue when you speak about re-development. And in land scare S'pore, you can't really keep everything in its previous use and state; everyone is trying their best to think of highest and best use possible...
Urban planners too need to do that 'balancing' act. After all, not all trades or life styles 40 years ago can still survive today. It just keeps moving on. So after all, facadism isn't really such a bad choice?
Debate can last forever and I've no absolute answer to it either. To me, maybe having something or some features kept intact is so much better then all disappeared, especially in countries such as S'pore...
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