Top 8 Facadist Renovations, from Melbourne to Bucharest

Whether you regard facadism (the act of retaining old building facades, while replacing other portions of a historic building with new construction) as a pejorative or a positive, there is no question that architects around the world are creating interesting mash-ups (or Frankensteins) of historic and contemporary buildings.

According to Smith, "The style is often reviled by architects and design critics as only a superficially preservation of the past, and many facadist buildings are rightly criticized for their random juxtapositions and out-of-scale pieces. The style aims to strike a balance between redevelopment pressures and architectural preservation, and while developers are often pleased with the sky-high rents they can charge for rehabilitated historical structures, preservationists are often left satisfied with the small sliver left behind."

I'm not sure if this counts, but for a ninth example, I would add a personal favorite, the Porter House in Manhattan by SHoP Architects.

Thanks to Stephen Smith