Friday, July 14, 2017

What would E. L. Moore do?


Now a railroad terminal building with tracks underneath and offices above, if I can latch onto a starting idea, I might develop something along that line.
E. L. Moore in a letter to Hal Carstens, dated April 2, 1969.

E. L. Moore didn't publish a project about such a railroad terminal and so I'm left to wonder what he might have done if he had pursued this line of thinking. There are certainly many large terminals with such an arrangement, but that one in the picture is my candidate. Ok, it isn't a terminal, but it was built between 1896 and 1898 - well within E. L. Moore's favourite era - and does have tracks underneath and offices above. And, given its straightforward shape, it would selectively compress without wrecking its character. A smaller version could use a variety of possible surfaces - brick, stone, concrete - so there's room to inject your own style. Not to mention, that when lit up, there would be some great night scenes with all those windows. This would be an interesting Neo-Moorian project. Two 1969 dollars and two weeks of work? :-)

2 comments:

  1. Too many windows and not enough add-ons. He'd have to fight to hold off putting a clerestory atop it. LOL

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