18 6 / 2008
"The critical challenge today is to keep preservation fresh and vigorous and on the cutting edge. The movement is no longer new, and maybe more to the point, it is no longer outside the establishment. With historic preservation generally accepted as a good thing in most places, we easily forget how sharply the battle lines were once drawn, how much zeal and energy and commitment this movement had back when it saw itself as challenging common wisdom, when it saw itself as a movement of outsiders combating established ways of doing things. So taking the lead in modernist preservation is a way, paradoxically, for preservationists to return to their roots, which is to say, it is a way to challenge common wisdom once again."
Paul Goldberger, The New Yorker’s architecture critic and a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, illustrating exactly why it’s important to reinvigorate preservation at this critical stage. Read the whole Modernist Manifesto here.
For the record, I’ll never give up my Gilded Age bias, but I do think preservation of architecturally significant modernist buildings should start NOW.
