Esoteric No More: Facadism Explained

Facadism is a critical concept for evaluating projects that rehabilitate, renovate, or redevelop historic structures—but it's often considered too esoteric for conversation. It's time we all got on the same page.

1 minute read

April 28, 2016, 6:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Facadism

A 26-story tower emerging from two historic facades at 456 Montgomery exemplifies "top-off" facadism. | John King

John King tackles a difficult but important concept of central importance for adaptive reuse projects and more: What, exactly, is facadism?

To frame the conversation, King asks the question a different way: "How subjective is facadism?" King answers the question by classifying four categories of facadism, as exemplified by specific buildings (or what's left of them, anyway) in San Francisco:

  1. The camouflage (a pragmatic "sleight of hand," writes King).
  2. The scrap (a laudable idea, but maybe not very effective).
  3. The setback ("the compromise favored by preservationists").
  4. The top-off (the "strangest act of facadism").

Planetizen readers are invited to share more examples from their cities in the comments below or on Twitter. 

Monday, April 25, 2016 in San Francisco Chronicle

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