Aluminaire House-Proposal
The proposal for the Aluminaire House was created by architects Michael Schwarting and Frances Campani. The proposal is to relocate the reconstructed Aluminaire house originally built in 1931 to a site in the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District.
would rather see a good contemporary new design than an ugly or non-descript design that tries too hard to fit in. We need to get used to layers of design history. Scale is the most important issue.
What about good, traditional design? It’s not as if the neighborhood isn’t filled with examples. Interestingly, the Aluminaire House and the original Sunnyside Gardens are nearly contemporaneous. Why is the modernist tradition represented by Aluminaire any more appropriate to the neighborhood than the traditional tradition? On the other hand, scale is most important, which is why I’m not sure I’m opposed to the Aluminaire House itself, as a period- and scale-approopriate historic artifact in this neighborhood.