Historic preservation: A comparative analyses

Barthel, Diane

doi:10.1007/bf01112618

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Urban preservation and urban growth are often considered to be two contradictory processes. Urban preservation refers to the maintenance and repair of existing historic structures, including historical monuments and vernacular dwellings (or 'urban texture': Choay, 2001;Fitch, 1982;Barthel, 1989). Urban growth, in comparison, is usually achieved through the demolition of old structures and the intensification of land use.…”

Section: Preservation As Growth: Re-conceptualising the Growth Machinementioning

confidence: 99%

Steering towards growth: Symbolic urban preservation in Beijing, 1990–2005

Zhang

2008

Town Planning Review

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This article examines the rise of symbolic urban preservation as a means of urban growth in the spatial transformation of Beijing from 1990 to 2005. The author argues that urban preservation, often considered to be in opposition to demolition and redevelopment, is nevertheless adopted by public officials and developers in Beijing as a more sophisticated instrument to achieve urban growth. While the housing renewal programme led to the demolition of a large number of courtyard houses and the construction of modern high-rises, a variety of symbolic preservation projects were carried out by the local government to reconcile various economic and political interests. These included the designation of preservation districts, the restoration of historic monuments and the creation of cultural tourism districts. This twisted take on urban development has had negative effects on the maintenance of cultural heritage and community life in the city. put the city up; tear the city down put it up again; let us find a city. Carl Sandburg, 'The Windy City' At the southern end of the Central Axis of Old Beijing, a city gate named Yongding Men was restored in 2005. First built in the fourteenth century, it was torn down in the 1950s (together with the city walls) in the construction of a socialist capital. Part of the 'Cultural Heritage Preservation Plan for an Olympiad of Humanity,' the restoration project is considered significant because it completes the configuration of the entire Central Axis and highlights the historic value of the Old City. Further north on the Central Axis, not far from the Forbidden City, a historic district called Qianmen was demolished in the same year that the city gate was rebuilt. The plan is to replace the centuries-old one-storey courtyard houses with two-to six-storey buildings of historical appearance for high-end residential and commercial use. None of those who lived in the area before will be allowed to move back after the redevelopment. How to explain the paradoxical picture of urban transformation in Beijing, in which vanished historical monuments are restored while authentic urban fabric is bulldozed? Examining the dynamics of spatial restructuring in Beijing from 1990 to 2005, I argue that the mixed pattern of demolition and preservation is generated by the coexistence of two mechanisms of urban growth. The growth machine tears down old neighbourhoods and puts up modern high-rises to maximise the economic return from urban land. On the other hand, it converts selected architectural heritage

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Section: Preservation As Growth: Re-conceptualising the Growth Machinementioning

confidence: 99%

Steering towards growth: Symbolic urban preservation in Beijing, 1990–2005

Zhang

2008

Town Planning Review

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“…In communicating the past the F.R.C.C. sought to control the present, shaping the identity of place through a process of social mapping, instructing post-War generations in how to read a landscape (Barthel 1989). The experience of the War and the question of how to memorialise fallen comrades had thus fundamentally changed club members' attitudes to mass access.…”

Section: Death and The Great War 1914-18mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mountains of Memory, Landscapes of Loss: Scafell Pike and Great Gable as War Memorials, 1919–24

Westaway¹

2013

Landscapes

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“…The topic of historic preservation has received relatively little attention from sociologists and other social scientists. Studies on the topic fall broadly into three categories: (1) gentrification and progrowth politics (Reichl 1997, 1999; Smith 1996; Zukin 1982, 1987); (2) the history of the preservation movement, its organizational failures, and its followers (Barthel 1989; Fellows 2004; Jones 2003; Lofland 2003; Page and Mason 2004; Urry 2002); and (3) collective memory (Barthel 1996b; Boyer 1994; Hayden 1997; Walton 2001). The gentrification literature mentions historic preservation as a factor in gentrification, mainly focusing on larger residential or commercial projects by developers or on urban streetscapes.…”

Section: The Sociological Study Of Historic Preservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buildings as History: The Place of Collective Memory in the Study of Historic Preservation

Milligan

2007

Symbolic Interaction

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Using data from ethnographic fieldwork in New Orleans, Louisiana, I examine the “buildings as history” ideology of the contemporary historic preservation movement to contribute to the sociological understanding of the logics of the movement, the relation of collective memory to historic preservation, and, more broadly, the processes of meaning construction in relation to the built environment. I conclude that the preservationist emphasis on the inherent value of the historic built environment irrespective of that environment's association with historically significant events and figures provides a means both to defuse critiques over preserving buildings with “difficult histories” and to justify preserving as much of the historic built environment as possible, which then allows for the continued expansion of the movement's purview and ensures its ongoing existence.

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Historic preservation: A comparative analyses

Cited by 25 publications

References 3 publications

Steering towards growth: Symbolic urban preservation in Beijing, 1990–2005

Steering towards growth: Symbolic urban preservation in Beijing, 1990–2005

Mountains of Memory, Landscapes of Loss: Scafell Pike and Great Gable as War Memorials, 1919–24

Buildings as History: The Place of Collective Memory in the Study of Historic Preservation

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