Cultural Continuity and the Built Environment: Historic Preservation in Theory and Practice

Historic preservation proceeds from the premise that the built environment – buildings, landscapes, and other places shaped by human hands – form a record of cultural achievement that warrants protection from change. Yet this preservation impulse cuts against the grain of other deeply held values: design innovation, technological progress, property rights, and consumer culture. After almost 40 years, the modern historic preservation movement in the United States has reached a point of maturity that allows for an assessment of its origins, aims, methods and limitations. The first component of this course will trace the preservation impulse in western culture from Imperial Rome to the present, and will explore its narrative, aesthetic, planning, and environmental purposes; its legal underpinnings; and its current conflicts, limitations, and challenges. With this background, we will then examine current preservation practice, with a focus on the United States. We will address regulatory programs, financial incentives, and other tools, focusing on how to determine the significance of cultural resources at each scale from the individual object building to the district, city, or region, and how to manage change to such resources, from adaptation for new uses to curation. We will also examine specific case study projects presented by guest speakers. The course will conclude with an assessment of the influence of the preservation movement on design, community regeneration, heritage tourism, and cultural change/continuity.Students will be expected to complete reading assignments and to actively participate in class discussions. Each student will complete a short paper on a preservation \”problem\” and a larger case study assessing a built project with a significant preservation component. Case studies will be presented to the class at the end of the term.Historic preservation proceeds from the premise that the built environment – buildings, landscapes, and other places shaped by human hands – form a record of cultural achievement that warrants protection from change. Yet this preservation impulse cuts against the grain of other deeply held values: design innovation, technological progress, property rights, and consumer culture. After almost 40 years, the modern historic preservation movement in the United States has reached a point of maturity that allows for an assessment of its origins, aims, methods and limitations. The first component of this course will trace the preservation impulse in western culture from Imperial Rome to the present, and will explore its narrative, aesthetic, planning, and environmental purposes; its legal underpinnings; and its current conflicts, limitations, and challenges. With this background, we will then examine current preservation practice, with a focus on the United States. We will address regulatory programs, financial incentives, and other tools, focusing on how to determine the significance of cultural resources at each scale from the individual object building to the district, city, or region, and how to manage change to such resources, from adaptation for new uses to curation. We will also examine specific case study projects presented by guest speakers. The course will conclude with an assessment of the influence of the preservation movement on design, community regeneration, heritage tourism, and cultural change/continuity.Students will be expected to complete reading assignments and to actively participate in class discussions. Each student will complete a short paper on a preservation \”problem\” and a larger case study assessing a built project with a significant preservation component. Case studies will be presented to the class at the end of the term.