Mocking Modernism: The Eichler Taliban Strikes Back
Monday, August 7, 2006, by Philip

2006_8_6_eichler.jpg
[Photo Credit: SF Chronicle/Michael Maloney]

The Chronicle Home&Garden section got it's knuckles rapped so badly over Granny's neglected Eichler that editor Lynette Evans was compelled to publicly comment on the ensuing fracas. Somehow Ms. Evans is under the impression that "someone" orchestrated a letter writing campaign to protest the piece, and was shocked by the language and tone of both letter writers and pesky bloggers:

Frankly, I thought Home&Garden readers were more polite... I don't for a moment believe that such vitriol is typical of the normal speech of aficionados of the affordable, midcentury modern houses built by developer Joseph Eichler, or even of those who orchestrated the letter-writing campaign (more than 140 letters to Home&Garden and 23,000 hits on SFGate.com, and seemingly endless diatribes on blogs), although it appears to be de rigueur for some bloggers on Curbed SF and ApartmentTherapy.
We suspect it was the tone of Katherine Haley's article that sent all those design geeks over the edge of polite. Sure, Eichlers have problems with leaks and heat and maintenance. The Chronicle, looking for cheap comedy, turned an example of post-war California culture and idealism into a tear-down. Preservation is not frivolous, and people choose to live in these problematic anachronisms because they love them. Sadly, Ms. Haley was forced by poverty and circumstance to live in one. Others wish they could, and honor them all the same.
· It's only a house [SFGate]
· Few people are neutral about Eichler homes [SF Gate]
· House & Garden Highlights [Apartment Therapy]
· Mocking Modernism [Curbed SF]


Posted in Architecture, Mid-Century Modern, SF: Peninsula


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