Agreed Stache. The Mies generated international style has dissolved into glass boxes. In that world the primary way to make a building “visible” is to do engineering gymnastics. Sometimes this works but often it just looks weird or awkward. Stern has stuck to classical motifs with a variety of twists that work. Some of his stuff is contextual (on the upper west side for example) but not all of it (as here). It usually doesn’t make any difference. His work creates its own context that others may feel drawn to follow. Classical can become boring just as international has. But Stern is too good to let that happen to his own stuff.
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