Great Shots: Kalorama Details
20 08 20082311 Connecticut Ave near Dupont Circle was built back in 1911 and has got some amazingly detailed terra-cotta designs. Unfortunately, details like this just aren’t something you see these days dispite all the new construction going on around town. Seeing things like this reminds us how bland most of the new stuff around DC really ends up looking.
[Credit: Tonbabydc]
I agree most new construction has bland facades. Two newer developments that did stick out to me where the Market Square in Penn Quarter and the Columbia Residences in Foggy Bottom. Market Square has those great columns and old style look. Did they build from the ground up that way of was this an adapted use of an old building? The Columbia Residences are an adapted use of an old hospital. Not the same ornate terra cotta detail of your 2311 Connecticut Ave example, but the extra angles the building has (image) makes for a cool frontage to L Street and Pennsylvania Ave. Of course you’ve got to have major bank to buy at these places. Even if I can’t afford to live in one I think it would be nice for neighborhoods if interesting exteriors in new construction weren’t as rare as they are…
I also think PNHoffman developments have exteriors that are usually a step above the typical new construction although not to the extent my previous two examples.
How hard could it be to put cool details like this on new buildings? It is not like they are hand carved on the spot right?
Wow, thanks for the credit!
Those two blocks of Kalorama are probably just about as good as it gets for external detail (for my tastes anyway)….but I wasn’t even happy with this photo….ha!
Alexa, many architectural details were, in fact, carved in stone by hand, in place, on site. Terracotta tiles were manufactured in factories, so they had some advantage in cost. Still, most good tiles were custom-designed for the building, so there was still a significant cost. Modernism didn’t become popular so much for the academic arguments; it became popular because you could build large buildings cheaply.
Market Square does have an old style look, but oddly enough, it’s pretty boring, because it looks like everything else in the area.
Alexa, many architectural details were, in fact, carved in stone by hand, in place, on site. Terracotta tiles were manufactured in factories, so they had some advantage in cost. Still, most good tiles were custom-designed for the building, so there was still a significant cost. Modernism didn’t become popular so much for the academic arguments; it became popular because you could build large buildings cheaply.
Market Square does have an old style look, but oddly enough, it’s pretty boring, because it looks like everything else in the area.
Hey King, notice how I said “details like this” referencing the photo above which is indeed premade terracotta.
Oh and learn to only hit the submit comments button once!
Seriously, Alexa? I don’t understand your bitterness.