Why Do We Preserve?

The built environment is a record of our cultural values, thought, and political systems. The act of preservation is a necessity in maintaining the authenticity of this record. The built environment is a dynamic organism sustained by human activity. As culture evolves, our environment expands, is re-inhabited, and is altered with invention.

There are pockets across the country where our heritage is celebrated, forgotten, erased, or reborn. Cultural values adjust from the urban, to the suburban, to the rural and from coast to coast. There is danger in remaking our past, but sometimes to re-establish the value of the forgotten, we must re-present its importance in an altered state.