Friday, June 27, 2008

Modern on Chestnut

It is so easy to miss many of the amazing little International Style facades in Philadelphia. One of my favorite facades is at 1318 Chestnut Street (now occupied by Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia Co.)

At first glance... well this one is easy to miss.


But there are subtleties to it.

The curved porous marble belongs so very much to 1950's modern architecture but also lives on its own as a nice subtle touch.

And there are the Japanese modern moments you can also arrange.

Whoever the architect was, did a beautiful job balancing textures as well as creating definite planes in not much more than about 18 inches.

It's a very cool little building.