Historic Preservation Theory: An Anthology: Readings from the 18th to the 21st Century

by Jorge Otero-Pailos (Editor)

Overview

"Historic Preservation Theory is a timely volume in that there is nothing else like it ever produced. Within this compendium, Jorge Otero-Pailos achieves the ambitious goal of expanding our understanding of historic preservation theory through an international lens across time periods and scales." —Sir David Adjaye, OBE, Founder & Principal, Adjaye Associates This indispensable new resource is the first English-language anthology of historic preservation theory with an international perspective. It includes close to 100 essential texts spanning three centuries of preservation discourse and theory, from the Enlightenment to the present, each with a critical introduction by the editor. Unique in its geographic and temporal breadth, it shows how ideas stemming from disciplines such as jurisprudence, architecture, art, planning, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and many others were woven together over time into what we now call historic preservation. This anthology offers classic texts from influential thinkers and schools of thought from the United States, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and more. This anthology begins to break down the disciplinary, nationalist and linguistic barriers that have limited the study of preservation theory as it also includes many first-ever English translations of foundational texts, such as Henri Gregoire's "Report on the Destructions Brought About by Vandalism, and on the Means to Suppress It" (1794), which not only coined the word "vandalism" but also served as the intellectual impetus for the creation of a national heritage protection bureaucracy under France's revolutionary government. Other first translations include Georg Dehio's "Monument Protection and Monument Preservation in the Nineteenth Century" (1905), which shaped modern preservation in Germany; Gustavo Giovannoni's "The Theory of Pruning" (1931), which changed the paradigm of how to modernize historic centers in Italy, and Liang Sicheng's "Why We Must Research Chinese Traditional Architecture" (1944). The texts are presented chronologically, with introductions by the editor that contextualize each thinker's contribution to the development of historic preservation theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578547145
Publisher:	Design Books
Publication date:	10/01/2022
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	6.09(w) x 8.77(h) x 1.23(d)

About the Author

Professor and director of Historic Preservation at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Jorge Otero-Pailos is an architect, artist, and theorist specializing in experimental forms of preservation. He is the founder and editor of the journal Future Anterior  and the author of Architecture's Historical Turn: Phenomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern (University of Minnesotsa Press, 2010). He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Puerto Rico, and has received awards from major art, architecture, and preservation organizations, including the Kress Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the Fitch Foundation, the Canadian Center for Architecture, and in 2012 the UNESCO Eminent Professional Award.

Editorial Reviews

Jorge Otero-Pailos offers us an inclusive framework of invaluable writings from the diverse theoretical schools that underpin historic preservation and provides a chronologically legible path of its development into a discipline that is no longer centered on any single geocultural value or language.

Wang Hui

A generous gift from Jorge Otero-Pailos, compiling the most significant theoretical texts on historic preservation, duly introduced by an enlightening note on each author and their writings. Experts, professors, and future generations of students will thus benefit from these 100 indispensable assessments on heritage from varied times and cultures.

Louise Noelle Gras

In architectural conservation we look at stones—but we are interested in people. Places of different times and cultures tell us about the vast diversity of human values and ambitions, thus enabling us to see where we stand ourselves. Jorge Otero-Pailos‘s anthology provides stimulating input for the continuing discussion of the thoughts and motivations that guide our discipline.

Leo Schmidt

Jorge Otero-Pailos’s collection is much more than a simple anthology of texts, instead charting a revelatory new history of historic preservation theory and philosophy through comprehensive and carefully selected original readings, some of which appear in English translation for the first time. This book is an essential volume for academics, educators, students, and practitioners alike.

Rodney Harrison

This anthology of historic preservation theory is remarkable for the timeliness of its purposes, the breadth of its scope, and the depth of the texts selected by editor Jorge Otero-Pailos. Covering material from the United States to China and from Sweden to Brazil, it provides invaluable information for anyone interested in the subject.

Carlos Eduardo Comas

This volume is like an ideal symposium, gathering a fascinating array of thinkers across time and disciplines and encouraging dialogue between them and with practitioners in the present. It vividly demonstrates that how we preserve and interpret historic places is rooted in and requires critical thinking and creative inquiry. And it reminds us that, like places themselves, historic preservation theory has evolved over time in ways that are powerfully instructive and inspiring.

Katharine Malone-France

A deftly curated collection of readings that simultaneously clarify, complicate, challenge, and robustly expand our understanding of Historic Preservation discourse and its situated histories.

Rahul Mehrotra

A much needed and highly original anthology of the global culture of conservation since the early ages. The academic soundness of the material is well curated by an artistic sensibility and a passion for architectural heritage. The choice of the authors is especially accurate about contemporary debates that become crystal clear for the lay reader.

Dominique Poulot

" Once relegated to the margins, preservation theory is back at the center of architectural discourse as we urgently answer the call to care for the existing built environment. This carefully researched anthology is a treasure trove of ideas from which to reimagine architecture for the twenty-first century. We owe this generous and extraordinary assemblage of primary sources, from inside and outside the discipline, to the outstanding professor and director of Historic Preservation at Columbia University, Jorge Otero-Pailos. Very much a must-read!

Phyllis Lambert

This important anthology has the double achievement of showing preservation theory as a vigorous field of knowledge and, at the same time, as a fertile intellectual ground for emerging experimental preservation approaches, discourses, and sensibilities to come.

Emilio De la Cerda

This anthology is a significant step in initiating a global discourse, accommodating both diverse perspectives and common influences within the discipline of historic preservation. It is an important resource for those seeking a broader understanding of historic preservation theory and its development over centuries.

Brinda Somaya

This is an essential, needed anthology tracing the development of approaches to and theories about preservation. It will be required reading for my graduate students.

Saburo Horikawa