The deft reuse of distinctive older buildings has become a happily commonplace event in prosperous cities—the churches turned into chic condominiums, for example, and the industrial buildings repurposed as office space or schools.
More vexing is the question of what to do with the idiosyncratic survivors left behind by history—visually striking unofficial landmarks, often relics of bygone industry, that summon up a sense of place but confound a developer’s spreadsheet. Buildings of this nature are the subject of Dan Barasch’s eye-popping survey of 66 buildings, showing what can be accomplished by imaginative designers and devotees. The disappointment? It could be so much more.
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