Changing Skyline | Nightmare on Broad Street

Our brains immediately intuit such deceptions. When we describe a brick rowhouse, we may say that it is red. But we understand that it is actually red and gray because about 30 percent of the surface is mortar. We appreciate the color and texture variations, even if we never articulate the reason.

You can, theoretically, create a good replica of a historic building, but it will cost far more today than the $125 million Dranoff spent on Symphony House. So when we look at the tower, set on a six-story garage, we instinctively know something is wrong with its covering of lightweight, carbon-fiber-reinforced precast concrete panels. They lack heft. The color is too uniform, too unnatural. BLT used the latest materials and methods, but betrayed their purpose.

It's not just cladding that gives Symphony House away as a clumsy, contemporary fake. It's the hodgepodge of aluminum applique. You're not supposed to notice a building's window frames, but here the silver-colored casings become an overpowering decorative element. You can't miss those silver bays because they're plastered on the tower like spangles.

Meanwhile, the architects used champagne-colored frames for the six-story base. Because the darker color is more recessive, it works better against the pink concrete. But your eye rebels at the abrupt change to silver. The garishness doesn't end with the dueling window frames. On the lower level, Dranoff clipped bronze-colored sconces between the champagne-trimmed windows. And the terraces are secured with black metal railings that look like park fencing.

Not surprisingly, the materials that lavishly decorate the interior are significantly better. That's what people are buying. But the lobby and common spaces have been decorated with the padded-shoulder pomposity of the Reagan era, a look BLT has repeated in Philadelphia's courthouse and Dranoff's Left Bank and Victor apartment buildings. Don't they know it's 2007?

Unlike Chicago and New York, Philadelphia is not known for its dazzling, iconic architecture. The city's strength has always been its sober, finely crafted designs. Philadelphia buildings take you in slowly. They are rarely vulgar, even if they seldom set the world on fire.

In some respects, Symphony House is typical of the flimsy false-front architecture going up in cities around the country. Architecture, like the fashion industry, has figured out how to mass-produce a stylish product for an affordable price. Just don't expect it to stand up to close inspection.

Because Philadelphia hasn't built many new residential high-rises until recently, it has been spared the move to schlock. Unfortunately, Symphony House looks like a harbinger of what is to come.

Changing Skyline |

Inga Saffron blogs about Philadelphia architecture at