For years the world of architecture has been split between two opposing camps, one camp favoring traditional buildings and the other favoring modernist ones. While traditionalists prefer ornamented buildings with human-scale details, facade diversity, and proportionate bases and caps, the modernist crowd favors more sculptural buildings and claims that we should look forward rather than back, build “of our time”, and that the historicism favored by traditionalists is inappropriate in a 21st Century world. This battle between supporters of traditionalism and modernism has provoked fronts all across the blogosphere, from Jim Kunstler’s famous Eyesore of the Month to repeated threads on BeyondDC and Greater Greater Washington.

But I wonder, do the two positions have to conflict? The recent condo boom produced some interesting buildings that used clearly contemporary materials and styles, but followed essentially traditional principles. I’m curious what people think of such buildings. Pictured below are six buildings from the recent boom. All have facade detailing (if not exactly beaux arts level ornament) and a base-middle-top layout, but none of them are straight revivals of old styles; except for including brick as a material (often in a decidedly contemporary color), none of them appears historicist. These hybrid buildings are both “of our time” and traditionally-inspired.

What do people think of them? Thumbs up or thumbs down? Is this a middle ground we can all support, or a worst-case concession that satisfies nobody? Putting aside any lingering feelings about gentrification or the housing bubble and focusing just on the architecture, are these good buildings?

Click each picture to enlarge. Unless otherwise noted all photos come from Google Street View.

Source DC kaleidoscope

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.