# Pseudo History



## shtoopid (Jun 15, 2010)

Post pictures of buildings designed to look historic, but hold no real historic significance. 










The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco was built in 1915, yet built to resemble centuries old Greek ruins


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## URBANITY REPORTS (Nov 12, 2010)

Theme parks tend to be like that.


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## Elvenking (Jul 22, 2008)

- Most of Asian temples. 
- Some houses in Central or Eastern Europe, less in the West...


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## ReiAyanami (May 14, 2008)

You are going to really have fun with some Balkan and Eastern Europe projects, but I have to avoid posting any


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## OakRidge (Mar 9, 2007)

Those "pseudo" buildings look better than most modern architecture. I say build more.


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## ***** (Apr 2, 2008)

shtoopid said:


> Post pictures of buildings designed to look historic, but hold no real historic significance.
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Do you think on the historicism (the building that you have post is in this style) or the pseudo-architecture, a copy of historicism?
I am asking because of historic buildings have historical significance and they are typical for the beginning of the industrial era, when the new rich peapole, inspired styles of the past because they were impressed with them.
That buildings contains many masterpieces of wall paintings,sculpture...


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

a cement reconstruction of the Parthenon, Nashville
















www.planetware.com, www.nashville.gov


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## Huti (Nov 13, 2008)

How do you measure this "historic significance" and what are parametres which define it?


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

The main library in Vancouver inexplicably looks like a Coliseum:


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## tpe (Aug 10, 2005)

shtoopid said:


> Post pictures of buildings designed to look historic, but hold no real historic significance.
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> 
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> ...


You forget that when Roman architecture was being revived in Renaissance Europe, the style had been virtually "dead" for a thousand years! So do you think that Alberti's and Palladio's architectural works "look historic, but hold no real historic significance" during the time they were built?


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## Cyrus (Jan 28, 2005)

*Dariush Grand Hotel*, Kish Island:


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## particlez (May 5, 2008)

tpe said:


> You forget that when Roman architecture was being revived in Renaissance Europe, the style had been virtually "dead" for a thousand years! So do you think that Alberti's and Palladio's architectural works "look historic, but hold no real historic significance" during the time they were built?


Technology during the Renaissance had not significantly progressed since the old Roman Empire. However when present-day buildings put up the 'classical' detailing like cornices and corbels, these items are almost invariably prefabricated and made of less durable polystyrene. Thus these classical elements won't likely last as long, and their proportions may not be as perfect as the more 'honest' historical progenitors.


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## tpe (Aug 10, 2005)

particlez said:


> Technology during the Renaissance had not significantly progressed since the old Roman Empire. However when present-day buildings put up the 'classical' detailing like cornices and corbels, these items are almost invariably prefabricated and made of less durable polystyrene. Thus these classical elements won't likely last as long, and their proportions may not be as perfect as the more 'honest' historical progenitors.


Not true. You forget that during the Renaissance and up till the 18th century, most "Roman" buildings were materially poor imitations of the old Imperial edifices. Instead of true marbles. most of the Renaissance buildings used Scagliola or imitation marble. Plaster imitated true bronze, and rubble masonry replaced the sophisticated brickwork in late Antiquity. Solid marble and granite columns were replaced with veneers and limestone, and (much later) plaster, wood, or portland stone (i.e., cement).

What makes the newer buildings significant was not blind imitation -- although they did try to be as close to the original as they saw them -- but the new developments that they introduced. Not "correct" by antique standards, they nevertheless advanced the level of architecture, although they were based on old models.

Historic significance is a pointless proposition. Even a piece of crap can be called historic, if it truly plays an interesting part in the history of the times. The same with all the neoclassicizing styles -- a lot of the newer structures are historic from an artistic standpoint, because they show the way an ancient style evolves and helps create the styles of the future -- or signal a reactionary element in answer to a newer style.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Much Roman art, sculpture and architecture was simply "borrowed" from what the Greeks had done, and often not as finely produced, either.


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