Typical. Another bloated rant that avoids any reasonable solution except total replacement of the precast panels. Perhaps you're still in denial that these facade panels can't be rehabilitated. Yeah, I'm just so insensitive or unappreciative of the architecture because I have a mature perspective of the costs of things unlike, for example, a child. I'm not aware of any billionaires stepping forward to DONATE tens of millions to recreate the original look either. That's was the failing facade's only hope.
It's your combative, unrelenting preservationist stance that is holding people back from learning to appreciate the architecture they currently dismiss. They don't take you seriously. You're downright laughable to me. Extremism is like an addiction . I'm not surprised by your blatant denial of this.
I notice you didn't get, much less acknowledge, my LeBlanc/Bozikovic memo. Speaking of which, note this tweet
https://twitter.com/alexbozikovic/status/808107976758296576
Note this article which said tweet refers to
https://www.thestar.com/life/homes/...-custom-renovation-in-time-for-christmas.html
Note this Facebook thread
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?....248321979568.176684.523179568&type=3&theater
I guess you can say the thread-responding likes of Shawn Micallef, John Shnier, David Topping, Bert Archer, Adele Weder, Lloyd Alter, Elizabeth Renzetti et al--not to mention those who spurred "more clickthroughs than anything in the entire history of [Marc Weisblott's] 12:36 newsletter"--are "extremists" just like me.
Though, to play devil's advocate here, keeping in mind that all that hand-wringing does *not* acknowledge some of the inconvenient nitty-gritty; that is, that the house was reportedly in near-unsalvageable condition when the couple acquired it (echoes of your "mature perspective of costs of things" et al argument re Simpsons), as well as the fact that we're given no indication whatsoever of the previous house's designer, provenance, et al. That is, according to your logic, it plays out as an emotional argument, and not without an element of aesthetic elitism, playing and shaming the perpetrators as destructive-philistine "design deplorables" of a sort, etc. (Indeed, 12:36 subsequently reported: "
McMansion wife says she's been cyberbullied. After some
Toronto Star coverage of a Windsor-area couple’s renovation (which
Globe and Mail architecture critic
Alex Bozikovic called “Maybe the worst home design story, and project, I have ever seen") brought new followers to
Leslie Biggley’s Instagram, snark about her “
Mid Century to French Country” remodel was sure to follow. But she praised her husband, Matt, for stepping in
to swat away the haters: “He gets so fired up when people troll me.”)
Which in its way, feeds into how, in your knocking of my so-called "unrelenting stance", you're essentially skating over the broader *design* argument here: that is, the concept of the proposed Simpsons redesign is clumsy hackwork, the kind of insult-to-injury thing that practically *begs* such stances. And all the more insulting given the location. That is, if you *have* to do this kind of makeover/update, in this kind of location, do it a better, more sensitive way.
But I guess you're the sort whose "mature perspective" would side with the Biggleys over Bozikovic; that is, it's their property, it's their right to do what they want with their property, they shouldn't be forced into bankrupting themselves because of a few cyberbullying design Nazis, and all in all it's better for the neighbourhood and for land values and all of that than a rotting, unsalvageable eyesore, if the design Nazis like it so much why don't they buy it etc etc. And it doesn't matter if the replacement's schlocky-kitschy "French Country" or a Shim-Sutcliffe original, it beats the decrepit status quo.
Oh well...
