A Shell Or a Vessel?

What Do You Think You're Looking At? #125

This is—or was—“one of DC’s oldest known surviving apartment buildings,” completed in 1890. It’s at the intersection of 3rd Street and G Street NW:

By “was,” I don’t mean that it’s gone, but rather this:

You can see that the building’s interior is almost entirely gone, but the façade has been retained:

Why? That’s pretty painstaking work. It’s cool, but was it just a building requirement forced by historic preservation rules or something?

No. Screenshotted from an article about it, here’s a rendering of the final project envisioned for this property, which is a hotel-apartment hybrid project:

The larger portion in the back is completely new; the smaller portion in the front is the restored façade of the old apartment building with a substantially new interior. After several delays and rounds of approvals, the project is now on its way to completion.

The new portion, with its retro-modern art-deco-ish look, fits right in with a lot of D.C. architecture, as does the combination of the two dissimilar but both very classically urban buildings.

To me, this is the best kind of redevelopment or adaptive reuse. It acknowledges, but is not limited by, what already exists. It’s a balance between newness and continuity. This isn’t going to please people who make it their purpose to oppose everything. But it should please people who want cities to be living places which nonetheless have a look and feel of their own.

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Related Reading:

Signs of Change

Were the Beds Like the Walls?

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #24

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