Archivandalism

I finally got around to photographing the various buildings around the city where heritage frontages have been handled with total contempt.
What impresses me the most is how the combination of old and new has been done. And in this regard one can only say that there has been a total disregard applied to the heritage structure.
Some go so far as to put a blank wall directly between the old and new - making it very clear that the piece of original building is only left intact by acquiesing to a rule.
Of course I can only guess that the blame lies with the architects. Certainly it is they who have designed the abominations that now stand like Frankenstein creations - half old and half modern with nothing in common.
Instead the issue maybe the project owners who have forced their hands. As a city dweller I don't really care who it is that is at fault.
I presume that in these cases the root cause is a state/city requirement that the original facades be preserved. Oddly enough, that's not a rule that I see a great value in having. It happens that in each case I find the new part of the building to be quite hideous and lacking in external architectural merit, but that's not the issue here.
l'd rather see the old fronts removed to some kind of public space, a kind of facade museum rather than have these bizarre juxtapositions around.
As it stands the mangled result surely satisfies no-one.
It's tempting to interpret the treatments as defiantly waiting for the silly rule to dropped and allow the destruction of the old facade and let the new building stand as proud successors. But this is fantasy - in reality these buildings are too drab and indifferent to support such a passsionate view.
The proof I think is that every single one of these buildings seems to have no actual character of its own. These are anonymously designed by the slavish for the vaccuous.
In truth, almost no-one in Perth cares about any of this. Perth is a city of the suburbs and most people rarely go into the central city anymore. When Perth folk want to see an interesting city, they travel abroad or east, rather than into their own. The way to find character from here is via the airport.
When I started writing this I was going to remark that some hope might be held in the idea that as long as the facades survive there is some chance that the blank boxes behind them will eventually fall and be replaced with something that at least interacts meaningfully.
But now I think that is a lost cause.
I'm sure that in other cities it would be culturally inconceivable to have created so many zombie street fronts, but this is Perth, a mining boom city with no feeling for its own past - and with faceless (probably remote) building creators and sponsors.
Having thought of the Facade Museum concept, I now consider that to be a far better option. Engineering abilities are now such that I'd be surprised if this wasn't both feasible and a minor expense compared to the scale of the new developments.