by Stephen Ives

In buildings today, elegance and a sense of lightness are qualities that are admired and emulated. City skylines and university campuses are adorned with abstract shapes and sharp edges of steel and glass. It's an evolution of sensibility and taste as well as a concern for how buildings impact their environment.

However, particularly in places like Philadelphia, such modern marvels rise above -- or against -- an old growth forest of hand-hewn blocks. Today's high efficiency glass and reinforced concrete replace the granite and limestone of yesteryear and though such building materials are no longer in vogue, the buildings themselves are cherished perhaps more than they have ever been.

Public and private organizations across America place themselves figuratively and legally (sometimes physcially) between ornate remnants of bygone days and the forces that systematically eliminate them in favor of tomorrow's obsolete buildings. This is not to say not what we build today lacks in character or quality but there is a romantic element to the stone façade, particularly along the streets of our great cities where they once represented the pride of the powerful, that takes decades to cure and become an inseparable part of the urban fabric and that accumulated age and patina lend a legitimacy to the feel of the streets.

I hope you see what I mean in this collection.

–Steve Ives
phillytrax@aol.com