>david writes :
>
>PS  Found it very interesting in recent months to find out that some of the
pioneers of architectural heritage preservation (conservation, restoration)
in Australia in the 1960s & 1970s were the same generation as the modernist
architects here in Sydney and Melbourne.  Indeed, it would appear that there
was a fairly close dialogue between the two groups (and that they
overlapped).  Could we say the same now?

David,
After years of studies in "modern" and future oriented architecture (Class
of '62) and a serious and mindblowing apprenticeship with an architectural
visionary, Paolo Soleri in Arizona ('61 to '63), I wandered through the
field of designing and building and rebuilding until I found a mentally
comfortable career and profession in the world of Museums and Historic Sites
('83 - '99).

However, for some time, memories of the dedication of youth to contemporary
architecture  and futurism were feeling quite compromised during my daily
delights with artifacts and methods of the past until a bit of a revelation
that in fact the museum/preservationist profession is one of the most future
oriented of any.   We are always dealing with keeping the stuff alive for
the future, working to anticipate its physical changes, imagining why and
how the stuff may be used and appreciated henceforth.

Now with one foot in the past and one in the future, I feel a bit like
Leonardo's man in a wheel, happily rolling along now the the square box has
been removed.   Doesn't Leonardo's man remind you of Old Father William but
upside down.

The key to your comment is perhaps that the generation going to work in the
'60s was, and is, in general, very idealistic and altruistic and optimistic.
Hence the parallels.

Today, I am impressed by how many of you BP'ers are making money doing what
we used to dream of.
CP