Architecture Here and There

The cost of modern architecture

4:00 PM Sat, Mar 13, 2010 |
By David Brussat    Email this author |   Email this entry

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Above is a most beautiful house for sale at $359,000. It is on Narragansett Boulevard, in Edgewood. The listing, through Residential Properties, with a couple dozen pictures, is here. Its agent, Gerri Schiffman, says it would be listing for a lot more if it were not directly across the street from this:

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"This" is one of the ugliest buildings in Cranston, part of Johnson & Wales University's harbor campus. When the land was sold to JWU, the owner of the house must have had a heart attack when he learned what the school planned to erect across the street.

I ask: Why should that not be a case of murder, or at least of manslaughter in the first degree? It is certainly a form of theft, a purposeful attack on the property values of the neighborhood. Property values of houses near institutions that don't look like cardboard box factories do not go down (unless the institution is a prison). Why cannot the law be amended to make the builders of modern architecture suffer to the degree of the suffering they cause?

narrblvdbr.JPGI am in the market myself and I assure you that the house, which has the most astonishing and extensive grounds (including a lovely stone barbeque pit area), set me to wondering whether I'd be willing live there even if I had to look at that J&W building every day for the rest of my life. The house is so amazing, inside and out, that even I could conceive the tradeoff as a possibility. At left is the dining room - or, for me, in all probability, a billiard room. Beyond is the most delightful arcaded sunroom. The gargantuan master bedroom has a fireplace, of all things. Check it out.

(On the other hand, if it were not across from JWU's abomination, it would be priced at far above our ability to afford it.)

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Sri said:

I am so confused XD. I had to reeard the whole comic today because I didn't even know who Yuen was xDThis whole time I thought that the flashbacks were what happened to meela because they had similar hairstyles.I must have been tired or something because I never noticed the names mentioned was not her's and really reading a panel a week can make you forget details like the journal.Though thanks to the comments and reearding it I understand now XD>> I still feel bad for being confused.




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