Facade Stories: Changing Faces of Main Street Storefronts and How to Care for Them

Facade Stories: Changing Faces of Main Street Storefronts and How to Care for Them by Fleming, Ronald Lee. Paperback edition. ISBN: 9780803823983.

Hastings House Pub [Published Date: 1982]. Softcover, 128 pp; 28 cm; black and white photographs. [From back cover] FACADE STORIES is about building fronts in the commercial districts of American towns and what has happened to them over time. From multi-million dollar renovations to modest storefront fix-ups, before and after photographs reveal how facades have been preserved, restored, adapted, left as free standing sculptures, or reduced to fragments or wall murals. FACADE STORIES is about the special passion of people who cared about these facades. It should be read by their counterparts-architects and planners, storekeepers and businessmen-people, preservationists and laymen-who are investing time and money on Main Street. FACADE STORIES is about the technical resources one needs to fix up a storefront. City officials can discover effective incentives to encourage facade renovation; merchants can benefit from design guidance on facade options; artisans can learn how their craft can upgrade signs on Main Street; bankers can see where facade changes have improved sales. FACADE STORIES is about the future of preservation. Going beyond descriptions of what facades were saved, this book also stresses the why. It reveals the claims which buildings must make on peoples affection, if we are going to design buildings that will inspire a broad constituency to save them in the future. It should be compulsory reading for planning commissions, review boards and the architects and designers who seek their approval.