RandySavage
Well-Known Member
It's good to see that this is a recognized phenomenon among designers such as yourself."(or "Clicktorian" if you are referring to CAD degraded Victorian)
As an aside: I've been summering in a small town (on the national historic registry) that was comprised, up until the last decade or so, mostly of 1880s-1920s structures - including many seaside "cottages", each being utterly cool and individual - each having a soul. The townscape was magic.
As is often the way of the world, the historic buildings sometimes weren't maintained, the town has no preservation laws (with teeth), and far too many have been razed and replaced over the last 15 years. Depressingly, the pace shows no sign of easing. The town's character is at a tipping point now, where growing number of new "Victorian" replacements are effectively erasing the magic/charm/soul of the townscape.
I'm early in the process of capturing about 25 of the razed Victorians in a series of illustrations, for posterity (all below were knocked down):
![9787473924_0c4e7d67a5_b.jpg](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3823/9787473924_0c4e7d67a5_b.jpg)
This is what I've been trying to get my head around: A lot of money has been put into the new replacement wannabe-Victorian buildings, but they don't have a fraction of the soul and beauty of the real Victorian ones. Why is that? What was so special about the earlier eras that cannot be replicated by most modern architects?
One of my chief conclusions (alongside modern materials, pre-fab, construction techs and other things like AC eliminating the need for sleeping porches) regarding this demise was the advent of CAD. It removes a lot of the humanity from the design process. It makes it easier, so the architect becomes more computer technician than artist. Humans are both symmetrical and asymmetrical. They are organic and buildings designed by actual humans, without the aid of computers, seem to reflect that. And, therefore, they innately, subconciosly appeal to us more. And even with all the ornament of Victorian buildings, a lot of the features and angles selected and tacked on in CAD for looks today, served an actual purpose back then.
This is an interesting image because it shows hand and CAD elevations side by side as it applies to Disney Victorian (Mystic Manor). Also interesting to note that it looks like they used the background of the famous Harper Goff Jungle Cruise illustration:
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5507/9499942614_d39f197ae8_o.jpg