Preservation Futures: Society

How does historic preservation serve society? What is its role — intellectual, political, and practical — in shaping the built environment? This article is the first in a series of four that interrogates the future of historic preservation. The topic, on preservation and society, is culled from an ongoing roundtable discussion series Preservation Futures convened by the Department of Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Forthcoming installments will address preservation futures related to the themes of history, design, and science.

Over the last generation, historic preservation has broadened its scope, from protecting architectural monuments to finding ways to address larger societal questions, including around sustainable development, climate change response, and myriad aspects of social justice. But change has been uneven. The professional foundations of the field, which mostly date to the 1960s, reflect the vastly different times in which they were laid down. Dramatic upheavals in society have prompted changes in policy and practice. Yet there still remains a daunting gap between the field and society.

Preservation Futures: Society was conceived as a forum to confront this challenge. It brought us — Randy Mason and Amber Wiley, preservation faculty at Penn — together in conversation with preservation planning scholar Fallon Samuels Aidoo, who works primarily in at-risk communities of color, and scholars whose expertise is complementary or adjacent to the traditional field of preservation: archeologist Kimberly D. Bowes and social scientist Camille Z. Charles.

Discussion centered on the questions, what kind of preservation field is needed by contemporary societies, and what will future societies demand? Our intent was to reconsider the nature of preservation as a field of study and practice; to understand the ways in which preservation draws on the knowledge, insights, and ideas generated by social scientists; and to explore how preservation connects social histories (from the ancient to the recent past) to contemporary social reform.

The group began by exploring problems with the most basic terms: “preservation” and “heritage.” While these keywords invoke professional skillsets and ethical responsibilities, and remain central to what preservation practitioners say they do — from managing domestic to international policy frameworks, to designing physical changes to buildings and landscapes, to researching historical narratives — they also carry connotations that create obstacles to socially progressive and innovative preservation work.

Figure 1. Black Wall Street mural by Donald “Scribe” Ross, north side of I-244 at N. Greenwood Ave., Tulsa, Okla, completed 2018. Photograph courtesy U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

These terms have the capacity to capture dynamic processes of memory, politics, and design. But more often, they reinforce tropes of “freezing” or mythologizing the past. Take preservation. Outside the field, it implies the act of protecting an object or place in time, doubling down on stasis and nostalgia, as Kim Bowes posited. Acknowledging this general assumption, how can the field push through, or re-situate, these notions and relate just how dynamic the field has become? That preservationists today are asset managers ensuring the sustainability of historic properties and sacred sites, as Aidoo has argued? As Bowes reminded the group, preservationists are experts in change.

Heritage, meanwhile, has become a euphemism in the United States for divisive versions of history used for political gain. For Charles, a scholar immersed in Africana Studies and sociology, the word conjures up thoughts of Pilgrims, the Revolutionary War, whiteness, and Eurocentric origin stories of nation-building. Indeed, apologists for slavery have deployed it as a celebration and embrace of the Lost Cause, and coupled it with the Confederate battle flag in slogans as “heritage, not hate.” These associations alienate potential collaborators, supporters, practitioners, and students, especially at this moment when there is such an emphasis on de-colonizing curricula and practice across the design (and other) fields. These associations foreclose preservation futures instead of opening up more opportunities.

Another problem with heritage, as Charles pointed out, is how it shapes what society values: which origin stories and historical retellings make it into textbooks, who should be honored by monuments, whether a building is neglected, demolished, or restored. A society’s landmarks reflect a particular “historical and cultural DNA” that broadcasts messages about who and what are valuable.

The panel’s framing of society purposefully embraced a wide range of scales: national, city, site, and global. Internationally, heritage frameworks and organizations, such as UNESCO, reflect the interests of national governments and often alienate local communities, particularly economically disadvantaged, rural ones like those Bowes works with in Italy. Italy, she noted, has an outsized influence on what people around the world consider to be of heritage value. Meanwhile, the local partners she works with in modern farming communities consider traditional preservation solutions like house museums a burden. In her own archaeology practice, by contrast, she deprivileges monuments and objects — and bureaucratic timetables — in favor of a focus on the quotidian, such as farming, plowing, and seeding schedules. She works in what she calls “the immense space between” big institutions like UNESCO and the people on the ground.

“To connect with contemporary society, preservation must acknowledge, and reckon with, the political afterlives of history and heritage.”

Aidoo has also created a method of working “in between.” She trained in a labor-intensive documentation method that involves “meticulous attention to the object” with its character-defining features and alignment with the canon. Yet as she engages with local heritage stewards, she finds less and less use for the old ways. Instead, she asks stewards what they find valuable about their sites, landscapes, and places; what values are important to keep; and what conditions are eroding those values. Her scholarship exemplifies a decentering of preservation from the protocols of “professionalism” that place a distance between expert knowledge and the societies it serves. In the coastal communities of color where Aidoo works, climate change and economic pressure often pose the most serious, existential threats — and not just to buildings and landscapes but to indigenous practices of survival. In her view, preservation practice must embrace a wider, more thorough understanding of knowledge production that encompasses not just the agency and skills of trained practitioners, but of site stewards.

Preservation Futures: Society generated provocative questions that the field must contend with if it is to close the gap between what it provides and what society needs. The conversation pointed to the importance of cultivating discourse and practice attuned to the desires of those living with heritage: historic preservation as dynamic as the societies it serves, and responsive to urgent and evolving community concerns. Ultimately, all agreed upon the impossibility of neutrality. To connect with contemporary society, preservation must acknowledge, and reckon with, the political afterlives of history and heritage.

Citation

Amber N. Wiley and Randall Mason, “Preservation Futures: Society,” PLATFORM, Jan. 22, 2024