Folio

[DowntownDave]

Seems to be pretty much complete:

[ablarc]

^ A big improvement on the prior parking lot, but still a bit grim. We need to relearn how to ornament a building. There's plenty of example right on Broad Street.

We gave up ornament right after the Batterymarch Building (1929, now a hotel), This building tries, but it's hampered by the joyless, rectilinear vocabulary that modernism's strictures allow (look at that thin, flavorless paraphrase of a cornice). So: no joy.

[Joe_Schmoe]

"look at that thin, flavorless paraphrase of a cornice"
True, but the fact that it has a cornice at all shows modernism slowly giving ground on its priciples of no historical elements: cornice, quoins, lintels etc. The fact that the first floor and top floor are differentiated from the other floors shows classicism seeping back into the vocabulary as well. I wish that folio had lintels on its windows, even thin flavorless ones. I'm counting on the next generation of architects to come up with a modern take on lintels and other forms of window ornament.

[ablarc]

Originally Posted by Joe_Schmoe

I'm counting on the next generation of architects to come up with a modern take on lintels and other forms of window ornament.

"Modern take"? Lol, you're showing your modernist predilections.

Maybe there aren't any good new takes on lintels --like that unfortunate modern take on a cornice.

After you've thought of all the good takes on a subject, there are only bad ones left. Maybe we should come up with a modern take on the Ten Commandments.