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Tag Archive

Path to the Future

October 20, 2015 Economics Comments (1) 1684

This Friday I will deliver a keynote address titled “Path To The Future” at the National Trust for Canada conference in Calgary.  The conference is titled “Heritage Energized” and the setting is the boomtown West, the kind of place that easily disregards the past in a rush toward the new.

Or is that just a stereotype?  It is hard to find a city in North America or Europe that has not seen an economic “boom” from its historic buildings, especially if those buildings are conserved in enough concentration to spark revitalization.  From Denver’s LoDo and Seattle’s Pioneer Square to Manhattan’s SoHo and Chicago’s Printers’ Row, it seems every town has an historic district that has turned into an economic engine. Continue Reading

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Preservation Education

October 21, 2010 Economics, Sustainability, Technology Comments (5) 2061

This fall I handed the Directorship of the Master of Science in Historic Preservation program here at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago over to Anne Sullivan, AIA. Anne has taught in the program since it began in 1994 and is currently president of the Association for Preservation Technology, among other accomplishments. I of course remain the John H Bryan Chair in Historic Preservation.

But I also remain involved in preservation education and next week in Austin, Texas I will be part of a panel discussing the future of preservation education. This is a topic I spoke on in the Ukraine in 2006 and Sweden in 2007, and at that time I was focusing on the need for hands-on opportunities for students, and how important that is to the learning process. Haptic. Muscle memory. Seeing more by DOING. Continue Reading

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atonement

October 10, 2008 Economics, Historic Districts Comments (0) 1429

Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement. World financial markets responded with a belated atonement for a decade of make-believe profits fed by gypsum-and-pressboard McMansions. McMansions with the life expectancy of a McNugget. Now the spoiled spoon-fed MBAs – the real welfare moms – are queueing up for the dole. That’s not really a fair comparison: actual welfare recipients only get their checks monthly while the MBAs show up every week or two. And they get more in one day than Health and Human Services or Social Security get in a year.

But it seems like the atonement isn’t done until the banks are nationalized.

Are U of C economists going to have their Nobel awards revoked?

Tell me again why we are rescuing these people, who never rescued anyone.

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weblogroll

February 18, 2008 Economics, Historic Districts, Technology, Vision and Style Comments (0) 1440

Friday I gave my first Powerpoint lecture on Barry Byrne, although I have given lectures on the only Prairie School architect to build in Europe for 10 years – it was all slides until a couple of years ago. Great audience for the break-the-box lecture series at Unity Temple and kudos to new UTRF Executive Director Emily Roth! Saturday, sold the house. Tomorrow, discussing The Modern with SAIC colleagues, then off to DC to meet with AIA on putting preservation into architectural curricula.

It is amazing how resistant some architects are to preservation. They see it as stifling creativity. Huh? Do you define creativity by how blank your slate is when you start? By how much you get to twist and reshape the world without input from others? Is that dumb or what? Isn’t it harder and MORE creative to devise an architectural solution in the midst of existing conditions? Aren’t there always existing conditions? I don’t get it, but maybe that is because I don’t mind formal and discursive oppositions taken by new architectural interventions into existing fabric. Plus, if blank slates are better for creativity, why does every bit of exurban landscape LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME? I suppose one answer is that architects weren’t involved, but that just begs the question Why Not? At any rate, many architecture schools teach no preservation even though three-quarters of all architectural commissions are for existing buildings. Continue Reading

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