Until recently, nearly all residential development in Chicago took a faux vintage approach, imitating to some degree, earlier architectural periods. That has changed. While there is still plenty of historic and vintage-looking design entering the market, the city is awash in a wave of new buildings with modern architecture.
The choice between vintage and modern might seem simply an aesthetic one – and for the most part, it probably is. However, home inspector Tom Corbett points to one advantage of many modern designs that might not occur to the typical homeowner: contemporary architecture, with its lack of ornament and frequent emphasis on exposing structural elements, can make a home inspector’s job – and homeowners’ later repairs and maintenance – much easier.
Read more in Corbett’s column on inspecting modern buildings in New Homes Magazine.
This is an angle I’ve always thought, but never really heard anyone talk about.
The interesting thing about this is that it’s generally more expensive to do a nice modern buidling. You can’t hide much in a minimalist structure, and all of those exposed parts have to be of a pretty good quality to stand on their own without ornament. Most of the modern attrocities we have around town occurred because the developers cheaped out on the materials and construction, and this is when modernism becomes soul-less. Many great architects have had their buidlings ruined by “value engineering”, a process by which the contractor and developer go through every budget item to cuts costs. The result can be quite embarrassing for an architect.