Another beautiful old church is to meet the wrecking ball. Philly is crazy.

Another beautiful old church is to meet the wrecking ball. Philly is crazy.

You got it right. It is mostly builders, (having recently evolved from roofers, you know who you are) that are changing the character this in city in bits and pieces  in the worst way from both a design and ecological standpoint and it is their hack architects, many who have been mentioned on these pages who pump out the minimal drawings required to get that building permit.
As to the work above let me guess. YCH architects?   If not, they will most probably be coming with their particular brand of banality on a large lot near you, particularly if you live in Francisville or 34th and Hamilton…

Calling those “commonplace brick row homes” is an insult!  A commonplace brick row home looks nice, those look like poo.  

You clearly have no grasp of how the owner/architect relationship functions.  YCH does nice work, IF they are permitted budget-wise to do so by their client.  People don’t quite grasp that the developers/builders/owners are MUCH more to blame for weak designs than the architect…  Do you really think that the get-me-a-building-permit-screw-the-design mentality is fostered more by a) the architect b) the cheapskate client???  It is partly a function of our lousy economic times, and partly a function of our diminished collective expectations… but come on, blame the near-sighted tightwad developers for these lousy-looking buildings, not the designer- they are hired to put a building together within a budget that they DID NOT SET!!!

You clearly do not understand the owner/architect relationship…  YCH does great work, IF given the adequate budget.  Blame the near-sighted & greedy developer/builder/owners for their willingness to put garbage buildings up like a drive-by shooting… taking a profit and shafting the neighborhood and city as a whole.  It is  (usually) NOT the architects’ fault- he/she is hired to design a building within budget… and they have to work just like everyone else in this economy…  It’s unlikely that a boring uninspired cheapie design would be the first choice if given even a reasonable budget, but these developers will squeeze out EVERYTHING THEY CAN!!!  Come on, we all want more handsome neighborhoods, but place the blame where it lies…………..

I guess being an architect for 25 years with over 800,000 square feet of buildings completed I somehow missed the whole owner/ architect thing. No one puts a gun to your head and forces you to draw something you don’t want to. It is called self respect and respect for a profession that unfortunately doesn’t have much left. Perhaps your being a “causal observer” caused you to missed that. Or are you simply the “C” in YCH and protest too much?

 I am getting sick of all this church demolition. The good people of this city need to bind together and stigmatize this real estate trend as a pathological disorder instead of shrugging it off as inevitable (“prohibitive restoration costs” blah blah blah). Clearly, we are in the age where thoughtful architecture and profits are no longer compatible. The only reason they keep building these boring-as-fck houses is because unimaginative schmucks keep buying them.

Agreed. Does anyone know where the preservation alliance is on this? It would be encouraging if local residents and preservationists banned together to appeal this particular demolition. Unfortunately, apart from the Church of the Assumption, I have yet to see any kind of organized coalition aimed at protecting the city’s ecclesiastical structures.

 The question is, is it getting demoed because a) it’s structurally deficient and for safety reasons should be dismantled because it may collapse any day, or b) it’s the right time to take advantage of the real estate boom in the neighborhood and it’s easier to purchase, manage and develop one large lot (once whatever’s standing on it is subtracted) instead of ten smaller ones?

Beautifully stated