New Buildings in Traditional Settings

What’s the proper architecture for a traditional campus or aesthetic?  There’s no clearcut answer, but the design your architect proposes for your next building will probably fall into one of just a few categories, any one of which may be appropriate for your organization.  Although, I’ve no doubt that architectural philosophers have outlined these options in excruciating detail, I recently found myself explaining them to a client in literary terms.

Quotation
Reproduce what you already have.  It’s unlikely that an existing building can, or should, be copied as is, but reusing the scale, materials and details is the most direct way to continue a satisfactory theme.  For leaders, this approach carries the least risk and will often have the broadest public support.  Detractors would call this plagiarism.

Allusion
Incorporate the best or most meaningful or most iconic elements of existing buildings into something new.  Referring to history without copying it requires a sharp eye and deft hand.  Done well, a new structure takes on a sense of place and “fit”; done poorly, a cheap imitation of the real thing.  Some would consider this a better description of “quotation” than the one I used above.

Contrast
Challenge what you find with something new.  Communicate clearly that a new day has dawned or that something unique is happening inside.  Such an approach need not be iconoclastic, it may simply use a different language to draw attention to itself or an important idea.  Some ask why this is necessary.  As one skeptical speaker put it, “everyone knows what a house looks like, but architects act like they’ve never seen one.”

In practice, most buildings fall into the middle category, sliding along the spectrum between new and old.