Letters: Firehouse addition out of place

Posted 12/16/20

Frank Gehry once said that “architecture should speak of its time and place but yearn for timelessness.” Well, there is nothing timeless about the uninspired addition to the venerable …

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Letters: Firehouse addition out of place

Posted

Frank Gehry once said that “architecture should speak of its time and place but yearn for timelessness.” Well, there is nothing timeless about the uninspired addition to the venerable Chestnut Hill Fire Station.

I am not an architect, but even my untrained eye can plainly see the addition is an abomination. The generic box disregards its place in an historic district and compounds the 1959 blunder made when the adjoining police station was demolished.

The $9 million addition would work fine in a strip center in the suburbs, but not as an appendage to a126-year-old fire house that is on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. While space was needed for today’s larger fire trucks, the iconic fire house deserves something better than a glorified self-storage unit.

Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “a doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” It’s time to call the garden club.

Paul Davies
Chestnut Hill

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