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Remixing Architecture, Without Breaking the Rules

Posted by: Tim Halbur

16 March 2010 - 9:00am

Architecture critic Inga Saffron takes a look at what she thinks is "the most innovative take on the traditional rowhouse that Philadelphia has seen in years." Saffron remarks on how the building obeys the rules and innovates at the same time.

Saffron writes, "QB3's house comes to the sidewalk and embraces the world with ground-floor windows, as all good rowhouses should.

Those windows, however, cut through the house's core like a seismic fault, opening up dramatic views into, out of, and through the structure. The bold, three-sided opening confounds our expectation of how a Philadelphia rowhouse is supposed to engage the street: There's too much glass to condemn the house as a fortress, yet its swaths of brick are too extensive to think of it as a transparent building."

Images are included.

Full Story: Pretty curves all in a row
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 15, 2010
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Victorian Curves

Submitted by HRPlanner on Tue, 03/16/2010 - 10:38.

I think that building Saffron is highlighting in Northern Liberties is pretty ugly.

Philadelphia's curves are best demonstrated in its wonderful Victorian homes which grace corners with elegance in certain sections of the city, including West Philadelphia.

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