conservation

Most people look at the facade of a building and walk away with a superficial understanding of its history and symbol. It appears that much of what people deem significant is how beautiful and clean the exterior of a building is. And for many people, that beauty is synonymous with something built in a pre-modern style: Classical European, Moorish, Historical East Asian. If one walks around the most popular shopping spaces in Los Angeles for instance, buildings are built in a hodge podge, pseudo-European style (of which I firmly detest). On the flip side, people look at a building erected after the sixties and judge its simplicity and patterns with the intricacies of pre-modern architecture and conclude that it is ugly. There is a longing for the old and a subtle hatred for the new.

One possible explanation is that it is a response to the blind destruction of historical buildings for the sake of development. In 1963 in New York City, when Penn Station was demolished to make way for a modern station with a skyscraper, people lamented their loss and a conservationist group was formed to prevent such things from happening again. Countries in Europe have gone the extreme and governments have banned development in any historic core area of their city. Most skyscrapers are located on the outer limits. We Americans then go to these European cities and are in awe of the historic value of the buildings. And of course, we become agitated by the unfortunate lack of history and the 'persistent' destruction of the old in America. 

Interior of Penn Station

A postcard of the waiting room

Penn Station Before

Penn Station Now

Personally, I am for development as new buildings bring about innovations and progress in architecture. The Romans expanded on Greek ideas and created the arch and discovered cement. During the Industrial Revolution, the British began to build with steel. America took these ideas and created the skyscraper. Progress is not a bad thing. I do not think that developers and city planners deliberately want to destroy every beautiful building in their city. They are utilitarian. They are looking for the most efficient and cheapest way to serve people. I am sure that the old Penn Station could no longer serve the citizens of New York and in addition to the cost of maintenance, it was more logical to build a larger and newer structure. Still, the loss of such a structure affected people.

These days, conservationists want to protect every building ever built and are strongly opposed to development. They elicit people's emotions and band together to stop development. Entire communities have become what we call NIMBYs. Yes, some developers do make mistakes and occasionally destroy buildings that should not have been razed but the good things they do are largely ignored and they are hounded by the one thing they do wrong. In my opinion, the biggest problem about this is that people begin to think more emotionally and ego-centrically than pragmatically and thus limit our progress. When building a new skyscraper could provide more jobs and cheaper housing, the fierce opposition of a small but very strong NIMBY group prevents progress for the majority.

I like to take the middle ground and wish we would only conserve historically important buildings and let developers create new things. Of course everything they build will not be historically important and that would eventually be torn down to make way for future buildings. I do not think we need to protect every single building. That way, we can still enjoy history but also make way for advancement. It seems like a logical compromise but I guess for the urban planner, architect, and policy maker, it is an extremely difficult task to balance.