Hate Crimes Part I

Most vernacular housing built in Los Angeles between 1870 - 1920, was clad with wood. After World War I however, house styles began to change (again) and stucco became the dominant exterior treatment. Stucco is a mixture of cement, sand, water, and lime; and, is applied to almost any rigid surface by trowel. It's a versatile compound with great expressive qualities and tremendous durability.

So what's my beef? More of the usual, I've grown increasingly unwilling to absolve those who suffocate beautifully modulated clapboard and shingle in a stucco straitjacket. I don't care about lower maintenance claims; or, that a stucco facade is associated with high status in Timbuktu.
The latter is touchy stuff, but who's got patience for ethnocentrism? I neither insist on a seventh-inning stretch at the bull fight, nor refuse to remove my galoshes when entering a traditional Japanese interior.

Yeah, the defenders cry, but you're an educated mutt who understands theories of cultural relativism. "What about the loss of unique culture forms," I rebut somewhat anfractuously, "doesn't that deserve a little play?" Anyhow before I devolve into an irresolvable hash-slinger about enculturation and perception, back to the gripe.

This architecturally dulling process is generally accomplished by firstly attaching some form of wire lath to the wood siding. Often moldings are discarded too, or consumed by the application.
Preservation may not be about aesthetics, but dang it's hard to believe some would prefer "the flat."

The sociologists chime in again: judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation.

Can I get an expert witness?!