from The Art Newspaper -
Elton John concerts in Venice raise concern about possible damage to St Mark's Square
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from The Guardian -
Fears for Gaudi masterpiece as rail tunnel approved
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Another 2 examples of the fragile cause of architecture conservation in the face of relentless urban development and activities.
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from The Art Newspaper -
Views of Russia’s crumbling modernist heritage
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The pervasiveness of an awareness of and active participation in heritage conservation, in all its different forms, would surely be a sign of a stable and highly developed socio-political community. With the collapse of societal infrastructure, heritage preservation becomes easily expendable and, hence, neglected.
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from Metropolis Magazine
Virtual Preservation
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A variation on the successful BBC programme "Restoration", whereby the public gets to vote for a historic property to be restored. In the case of San Francisco, the public will vote online for half of the number of listed historic sites to share in the final "prize-money". Does this not sound like passing the burden of decision-making to the "public", regardless of how inadequate or ambiguous that term / group may be?

from Monthly Review
Demolishing the Palace of the Republic, A GDR Symbol
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An update, with more extensive background information, on an earlier news story on the impending demolition of an unfortunate architectural icon from the Cold War era. It is also highly ironic (or some might say retributory) that the Palace of the Republic was built on the grounds of a demolished older Prussian palace which suffered heavy damage in the Second World War.

The current decision on whether to demolish the building was put to a vote in parliament and unsurprising, perhaps, the result ran along party and faction lines. The loser in this instance is the collective heritage of the world at large. When politicians are given the final authority in deciding issues of heritage preservation, then it is inevitable that the final decision would suffer because of short-sighted (propagandistic) gains.

from New York Times
Trying to Save Berlin Relic From the Dustbin
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Seldom do we think of preservation as politically motivated. However, in the case of East Berlin, and elsewhere, the weight of history confounds preservation decisions and priorities, which otherwise would be fairly academic :

"Their cause is broader than a single building: it is a revolt against historical censorship. ... they are fighting those who insist on pitting history against modernity, people who would seek to smooth over historical contradictions in favor of a more simplistic narrative."

from The Art Newspaper
Rebuilding the Forbidden City
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One might ask: "How does one determine when (over-zealous) restoration becomes replication or renovation?" If the objective of the project is solely to beautify (or glorify), with scant regard for the historical underpinnings of the artefact (be it large or tiny), then that is probably when the line has been crossed. Cultural differences and copious amount of funding not withstanding.

from The Guardian
Preserving listed buildings - on computer
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If a building is seen as a bloated artefact, then perhaps a digitised image may sometimes suffice for structures with lesser significance. However, it must surely be understood that a building will not adequately exist outside of its immediate physical context in terms of context and the human scale.

from Tehran Times
Researchers to document ancient Iranian architecture
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A timely project, if recent developments in the geopolitics of the region (and the possible ensuing devastation to be expected) is anything to go by.

from The Business Times
Balancing Singapore's diverse urban planning needs
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An overview on the underlying premise of urban development policy in Singapore. Midway in the article in discussing urban conservation, it is interesting to read that:

"We take a more pragmatic approach. Conservation isn't necessarily just about keeping the old buildings and old trades. I think conservation is recognising the built heritage that you have. But it's also about recognising that the world changes and you need to adapt, you need to allow adaptive re-use of these buildings for good economic uses and good social uses. Things cannot freeze in time,"

Mitigating the needs of urban expansion and renewal on the one hand, and that of preservation of the urban fabric on the other, would not normally be considered an easy task, and rightly so. However, it should also be pointed out that conflating two such divergent and opposing functions under the same authority would appear to set the stage (unintentionally, perhaps) for a potential conflict of interests.

from The Guardian
Celebratory demolition? The whole idea stinks
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A belated rejoinder to an earlier announcement of this unorthodox television programme in which a popularly voted architectural structure will be demolished and broadcasted live. A popular backlash against this programme would certainly be good news for preservation efforts.

from BBC News
Restoring Calcutta's crumbling heritage
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This article speaks of conservation efforts towards British buildings in Calcutta, India. There are disagreements about which buildings to conserve, to what extent it should be conserved among the various conservation groups. The term "Cultural Colonism" has even been thrown out which brings to mind that sometimes architectural and/or historical significance of artefacts big or small, portable or non-portable can be pretty subjective.

More information about the issues of building conservation can be found in a earlier post.

from The New York Times
The End of 1960's Architecture
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from Pixel Points
What's (No Longer) New
go to weblog post

A couple of (unintended) rejoinder to the earlier announcement by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (Singapore) that more recent architectural structures will now be under consideration for conservation.

In the New York Times article, the difficult and often thankless task of deciding which building to preserved is clearly laid out. Two points that are worth reiterating. One, is that the approach to preserving buildings differ significantly from that of preserving portable artefacts. This is due to the obvious fact that buildings cannot be stored and must always remain functional even when earmarked for preservation. This leads to the second point, which is that buildings that are well-maintained and in good condition would stand a better chance of being considered for preservation, even over-riding considerations for the architectural significance of the building itself.

Another significant factor in the selection of buildings to be preserved is mentioned in the weblog post:

"The successful preservation of an aging building usually depends upon the building attracting some sort of constituency, some sizable cohort of citizens who'd miss the place if it were gone and who are willing to lobby for its survival."

Instead of some high ideals of architectural principle as a selection criteria.

Mention is made of 2 organisations closely affiliated with architectural preservation - Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement (DoCoMoMo), which has a more international outlook with country and regional chapters; The Recent Past Preservation Network with a primary focus on the American context.

Browsing the DoCoMoMo web-site, there is an article on Singapore and the trend of building styles, very much dictated by public building works then (go to article - PDF format).

from The Guardian
Britain's 'worst building' to be demolished on TV
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A cheeky adaptation of BBC's earlier successful series Restoration. The BBC series, which is in its second run this year, would feature various architectural conservation project plans over several weeks and allows television viewers to vote (aka Big Brother House) in the finale for that one "deserving" project to bring home the prize-money. In the process, viewers get to know more about the architectural heritage of Britain as a whole and be inspired to preserve it.

Turning the idea of preservation on its head, the rival television station Channel 4 aims to do its civic duty by targeting a building that is such an eye-sore that it will be demolished live on TV at the end of the series.

URA 2004 Architectural Heritage Awards
go to press release and speech
Straits Times articles here and here (PDF format)
Business Times article here (PDF format)
Streats articles here and here (PDF format)
ZaoBao article here (PDF format)

In conjunction with this year's Singapore Architectural Heritage Awards, featuring 5 winning projects, it was also announced that a slate of post-war buildings (built in the 1950s and 60s) will be earmarked for conservation. This marks a significant shift of what is considered an appropriate cut-off date for a building to be considered part of the nation's heritage.

There is also a book launch of past conservation projects undertaken by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and an exhibition featuring this year's Award winners at the URA Gallery.

from Metropolis Magazine
Tending a Legacy
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Preserving an architect's legacy entails the conservation of actual buildings and structures. What if it is the legacy of a landscape architect, where creative output takes the form of growing fauna and the ambience of a specific place?

from The New York Times
A Building Is an Eyesore and Must Go? Grade it X
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An interesting idea which seeks to identify buildings so hated and vilified that they must be destroyed, in order to preserve the urban fabric from aesthetic ruin. These buildings will be accorded a Grade X to differentiate them from those listed for preservation.

"What makes [the] proposal timely is that it also offers food for thought to cities, above all in Asia, that are engaged in wild construction booms, accompanied at times by the destruction of traditional neighborhoods. The skyline of the future is being drawn now. So will skyscrapers heralded today deserve an X rating tomorrow? Will today's daring designs look dated tomorrow?"

What's laudable in such a proposal is that it puts the issue of preservation squarely back into the value-ridden realm of selection and meaning-making, instead of an exercise which claim to operate outside the sphere of subjective values.

from The International Herald Tribune
Architecture: Saving a jewel of Shanghai
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and
from The New York Times
Salvaging Jewish Heritage in China, Block by Block
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Yet another story of urban development standing in the way of heritage preservation. Or is it the other way round - depending on whose side one is on?

from BBC News
Architect defends 'ugly building'
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An update on the debate surrounding the demolition of the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth, UK. If occupancy and commercial use (or lack of) are the primary criteria for redevelopment, then would anyone dare contemplate the same fate to befall the Stonehenge or the Great Wall of China?

from The Guardian
Birmingham's housing 'miracles' preserved
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An example to redress the tendency in focusing on significant and iconic buildings, instead of the common-place ones, in the preservation of architectural heritage. As urban centres are being re-made, such vernacular architecture has become even rarer than stately homes or palaces which are being preserved today.

from The Scotsman
Ancient quarry to save historic buildings
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In the search for a compatible material in the repair and restoration of sandstone buildings found in Edinburgh, nothing comes close to the site where the stones were first quarried. And in this case, it was not merely am aesthetic or authenticity consideration, but a technical one - the retention of moisture in sandstone blocks with a different clay content may result in further (unintended) damage to surrounding stones.

from The Guardian
Portsmouth eyesore to be demolished
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and
The joy of concrete
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Two contrasting attitude towards the preservation of architectural heritage. Although springing from similar period of the modernist tradition, one is to be demolished after a popular vote; the other to be preserved because of its association with a movie.

from The Guardian
High-level schism opens up at Royal Academy
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An extremely difficult dilemma when a more "truthful" architectural restoration attempt will completely eradicate subsequent (but equally accomplished and widely acknowledged) modifications. The situation becomes all the more complex and polarised as the restoration / destruction entails a sizeable amount of funding, and the to-be-destroyed painted ceiling scheme has just undergone a very recent (and expensive) restoration.

from San Francisco Chronicle
Tomorrow's long lost treasures
go to articles part 1, part 2, part 3

It is often with hind-sight that we lament the destruction of architecturally significant buildings, and that is the easy part of any criticism. Foretelling which amongst the currently standing buildings would be significant in time to come - and hence worthy of preservation - can be an extremely unrewarding and brooding task. It might instead be easier to approach the issue by asking a tangential question: "Can we slow the rush into hasty decisions in urban re-building if modern day buildings are built with the intention for them to be utilised for an extended period of time - much like ancient temples and cathedrals?"

from The Guardian
Form or function?
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When preservation efforts render a fully functional building - even one that is widely considered as an architectural icon - useless, then it is, at best, untenable and, at worst, irrelevant.