Another nice exposé on the State Theater. I wish that it had survived, though it sounds like it sadly denigrated into a porno theater in its final days.
I fairly recently came across “post modern” architecture. Which I think is the biggest sleeper trend in architecture in the last 100 years. You don’t notice it until you learn about it. Then you start to notice it everywhere. This building plan has some hints of post modern. The top especially.
Not the same, but check out 550 Madison avenue in NYC. Like a characature of something classical but with a Las Vegas hotel aspect to it.
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this is an early icon of post modernism. live it or hate it. They recently proposed a major change to the street level & got major push back from historically minded folks. I will find the story when I get back home.
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fantastic photo set!! It was so sad to see this come down. I recall many folks were asking the to build around & incorporate this building into the new like they did with the Jefferson Stardard Bldg in Greensboro.
The building on the right is the early 1900s original with the 1980s addition on the left. FCB said the floors if their old building were an off size so they could not match up a modern building. It was such a huge loss. I recall walking in that lobby as a teen just see the lobby. They just dont build them like that any more.
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Wow–something about it is very odd to me. Not necessarily bad (though I’m not sure I like it), but definitely strange.
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Lots of folks love Montfort Hall, but the architect, William Percival, built two other villas in Raleigh around the same time and both (I think) were even better than Monfort. I have pics of both on another drive, but there were the Rufus S Tucker villa (St Marys and Hillsborough St next to the stone church) and the Carter Braxton Harrison villa where Oak and Dagger was with the address 18 Seabaord. Absolutely among the best architecture of their era in the Country. Percival was english and apparently only worked in the US for a short time (his bio is a little sketchy, like missing info).
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The new owners of the bldh in NYC wantee open up those ground floor walls, add a lot if glass & such. The preservationists derailes that plan. But changes are coming to what was once the AT&T bldg
Really good article from Citylab about the trade offs when thinking about preservation and Post Modern buildings in particular. Look at this crazy cat! https://www.citylab.com/design/2019/06/portland-building-michael-graves-architecture-oregon/592603/
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Thanks for sharing the article! It really makes you think about how poorly we defined what historical preservation means to us Americans, plus what exactly we want to achieve through it.
Maybe this is where City Council, Wake County, and/or North Carolina needs to come up with a set of binding community values. What do we care about: what we owe to ourselves, what legacy and footprints we want to leave behind, what functions and actions we want to enable, or something else? And how can historical preservation AND new developments fit in that picture?
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