In a message dated 02/13/2000 10:02:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> Good art will find a way
>  to exist. If it can't be built here because of regulation or reaction, then
>  it'll get it built somewhere else. I think its a down turn in a creative
>  cycle as much as anything else. Check out MTV sometime.
>  The reaction by the community at large to the scarey stuff that was built
>  in the middle of this century has been to be cautious about what we
>  allow.The "save everything " mentality of the preservation movement is a
>  reation to the same horrors.

I don't think the preservation movement wants to 'save everything.' What I do
think the preservation movement does is urge the public to take a breath and
think before it labels a building or object worthless, to consider the
importance of its construction.

We live in an age where material goods come fairly cheap. How many of us buy
NEW bags to use for garbage disposal? With that kind of tacit societal
pressure, is it really that far of a leap to see why people consider a 100
year old building to be less than worthwhile? And is it surprising to think
that the tendency is to build for present use alone? There is very little
emotional investment in many buildings, because there is no expectation that
these buildings will be either important or valued.

I've always considered that architecture is the most conservative of all the
disciplines of material culture. Whereas piece of fine art can represent the
vision of one artist, where furniture can represent both taste and function,
where advertising needs to find and exploit the current desires of a society,
architecture tends to be too big, too permanent and too expensive to change
quickly. However, no one can deny that in the last 50 years American society
has changed tremendously. We are now firmly a throw-away society. Why are we
surprised that our buildings are following suit?

Simultaneously, we have a tremendous amount of information exchange, new
homogenous requirements to which buildings must conform, and a sense of
urgnecy in which our building projects must be completed. Can we be surprised
that our television announcers, our cheese, and our buildings are chosen for
their 'inoffensiveness' to a mass market?

I'm proud to be a preservationist, because amid the Wal-marts that I'm sure
will eventually be representative of my existence on this small planet, I'd
like to think that someday, someone will remember our generations perhaps not
for what we built, but the buildings that we considered important.

-Heidi