June 10

I was walking back to work after parking my car when I happened to look up and catch sight of these two very traditional-looking pipes sticking out of a very postmodern wall of the very postmodern building where I work.

As I'm mechanically disinclined, I have no idea what these pipes do. It did make me think, though, about how Boston manages to meld old architecture and new architecture into a seamless whole. When the Apple Store opened on Boylston Street, the minimalist glass cube set among a row of traditional storefronts should have looked ludicrously out of place. Yet in Boston, it works -- and it won a design award to boot.

If that can work, and win awards, I guess it's not surprising to find two "vintage" pipes in a postmodern ediface. Truth be told, it's nice to live in a place where the two extremes, and everything in-between, can coexist.

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