I have something I need to stick up here and then forget about. There’s an architectural thing that I write about here, which I refer to as “keeping up appearances”. The best photo I have ever taken of this kind of thing is this one, which is of a quite tall but not at all wide sliver of facade, that presumably still stands in Oxford Street, but now with an entirely new building erected behind that facade.
But that wasn’t keeping up appearances. this is keeping up appearances:
It used to be a psychiatric hospital, and what it will be is the new headquarters of the USA’s Department of Homeland Security.
This newly designed building will preserve the appearance of the old, but hollow it out completely. Behind its old facade, it will be something new. Something else entirely. Which is very appropriate, I think you will agree.