It is common knowledge that––with the exception of calamities such as fire, earthquakes, and floods––monuments decay in a gradual process and very often major damage…
With the nearing close of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the state of the world is far from healthy. Environmental degradation, economic malaise,…
The heritage field has long been plagued by threats of irrelevance, cast as outside the real business of society. But in a growing number of…
Restoration of the statue of Ta Reach, which stands in the West Gate of Angkor Wat, Cambodia, was completed between 2001 and 2003 as an…
The notion persists that by the time Philadelphia achieved political and economic prominence in the mid-eighteenth century, it was a “wholesome grid of streets and…
Architecture changed in the twentieth century. Long held notions regarding permanence and the continuity of tradition were fractured by the trauma of the First World…
AN INTERVIEW In September 2009 you delivered one of the keynote addresses to the 10th World Congress of the Organization of World Heritage Cities in…
Globalization is an enduring utopian ideal. But it is in immemorial conflict with heritage and identity. Hence ecumenical hopes are perennially dashed. We long to…
In her 2005 book Repair, the Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World, the writer and philosopher Elizabeth Spelman puts forth the notion that human…
The adaptation of preexisting structures to answer changing needs has enriched human history throughout time. Such structures—whether natural or designed artifacts—provide challenging topography for creative…
For centuries, many European cities and towns managed to accommodate growth and change while sustaining the historic character that, in modern times, has brought them…
The historic preservation field is aggressively promoting itself as “green.” Adaptive reuse of historic buildings is now widely considered a sustainable development practice. As with…
This essay focuses on the adaptive reuse of tobacco warehouses and factories along Tobacco Row in Richmond, Virginia, between 1980 and 2005. This work encompassed…
American collegiate campuses are studies in adaptation. Planning can suggest ways to accommodate significant change while reinforcing the physical qualities most closely and positively linked…
The entire French city of Oran, Algeria, had to be adapted to the needs of a new population when Algeria won its independence in 1962….
