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                                Oct  7, 2001

Did we once have an ability
to build the good which has
been lost?

     Before the car?

     Before mass-production?

     Before the masses became the middle-classes?


         It often seems this way.

            The Victorian houses on
            the hills of San Francisco
            are almost universally
            worshipped.

            The things built from
            the 50s on are either hated
            or damned with faint praise.            Practical
                                                    Economical

            But the Victorian houses themselves
            were the result of a mass industry
            cranking out standardized redwood
            gingerbread for architects to               NOWHERE_VICTORIANS
            choose from, the invention of the
            "balloon frame" house...

            It was also the result of many
            rapidly shifting popular fashions,
            e.g. the Italiante fad followed
            by the Princess Ann.


                  So what's different?
                  If we've lost something,
                  what did we lose?



To me, the Victorian holds
out some hope that it is
possible to build something
worth having without
rejecting *all* of modern
industrial technology.

The villain of the story
is not technology.

It might be
government.

It might be the
financial structure.

It might even be something
as simple as a matter of
taste, a fad for junk...

    In some ways that's
    a problematic
    thought, but in
    others it's also
    quite hopeful.

        When the sleepers
        wake, what new world
        will they build?

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