Look Up! Contemporary neighbors in Society Hill

“Look Up” is a PlanPhilly feature that encourages appreciation of our architectural and historical environment. Each week, the photo essay will focus on a different Philadelphia area neighborhood and its distinctive building styles and details, all of which make up the physical fabric of the city and region.

The rebirth of Society Hill in the 1960s involved the careful restoration of block after block of 18th and 19th century houses. Not all were salvageable, however, and demolition left gaping holes in the neighborhood. It also offered opportunities for creative approaches to new construction within the historic environment.

Mitchell/Giurgola Associates, the Philadelphia-based firm that sees architecture as a historical progression and seeks to fit structures into their context, built two houses along Delancey Street in Society Hill in the late 1960s.

The Zebooker House, 110-12 Delancey, uses a brick façade that complements the homes around it, but has fewer and well-spaced windows and first-floor recesses that make a modern statement. 

The Franklin Roberts House, 230 Delancey, built by Mitchell/Giurgola with Roy Vollmer in 1969, offers a stronger contrast to its neighbors. The brick is darker, the entrance deep-set, and the windows higher and assymetrical.

Both houses are interesting descendants of the Colonial style. They have singular mid-century identities, but stay within the scale and context of the street and make excellent younger neighbors.

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Contact the writer at ajaffe@planphilly.com.

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