Fava Fruit/Blaustein Building - Baltimore, MD

If you have ever walked down the main street of a large city you can play the game of clad versus solid. There may be only a few who even care to look at the decorative metal of each building, but for those who do it becomes evident quickly as to how the quality of construction can change. Clad facing has definite limitation as to how decorative the store front can be. It usually says to me that this store front is less than. Less than what you ask, less than it could have been. If you look at a store front and it has solid extrusion and decorative cast metal it says I am total quality and complete. I was talking to an architect once about this and he put it this way, each store front howls at the passer by.

ZCMI Center - Salt Lake City, UT

It howls as to how much time and effort was put into the store front which is the face of the building. The face of the building is much the same as the face of a human being. It’s the first thing you see and leaves an impression that is hard to overcome no matter what the rest of the building has to offer. It seems to me that if you are going to go to all the effort to build a multi million dollar building the last thing you want to do is put a simple lack luster clad face on it. I would think that you would want to have the architect spend particular care as to making sure the face says I am total complete quality. I am beautiful. So the next time you find yourself walking down your city main street take a look as to how much effort was put into the face of your city.