>I still wish we could call it conservation<

I guess it comes down to the question of what you call "it". I was
referring to the big picture.

>I suspect that use of the words 'historic conservation' also goes
against an ingrained anti-Anglo, anti-European independence. An attitude
that we in the United States are free to call it whatever the hell we
want, despite that the remainder of the civilized world may call our
interest in fixing old structures something else. There seems to be
similar feeling towards gun control and condoms. If your insistence is
on not using the word 'preservation' then possibly you should be
prepared to have your patriotism questioned.<

I know 1776 changed the way timber frames were built, and I'm sure loads
of other shit, but I'm pretty convinced the substitution of the P word
for the C word wasn't at the top of the list for most revolutionaries.
Now I guess it comes down to what you mean by "fix". Like in apply
enough fixative to keep it standing, or fix the fact that nobody
understands why it's a better idea to keep it than replace it.

For the last couple years I've been intentionally sticking the issue of
conservation in all my building inspection reports and it even made it
into a newspaper article lately that has generated a ton of calls. I
think people are ready to understand the preservation, restoration and
rehabilitation are all forms of conservation and conservation is the
philosophy of keeping something useful. Usefulness in a museum setting
may be best achieved by preservation through stabilization or by
restoration to a specific time period, but for most building "in the
wild", rehabilitation is the best approach. The question is what
constitutes good practice when you rehabilitate a building to a useful
condition?

I find most many clients are scared off by the inference that their
building needs "preservation". Most of them still think "remodeling" or
"fixin" is what they need and they don't want to spend all kinds of
money on preservation. Staying away from the P word seems to allow the
conversation to be steered towards the difference between destructive
and reversible. Of course I am dealing with a bunch of hicks living in a
cow patch.

>Embrace preservation, reject conservation, or move to Canada!<

Do they have socialized conservation up there?

Rude

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