North America is largely a continent of immigrants who need and want to be acculturated to the existing majority, at least to a considerable extent if they are to prosper and feel comfortable. The physical images of the country's varied heritages, including those of the specific immigrants, are visual clues to things that the newcomers are told. Heritage also offers existing residents visual alternatives to whatever is being built and discussed at the moment. Postmodernism, to give the most obvious example, would not have existed without examples of pre-modernism. School children and adults come to understand that the past was not like the present if they see physical examples of differences between past and present. People gain a sense of being rooted and even comforted if they think that their home communities have been there for a long time; physical examples give evidence of that. These are just the first three minutes of a reply.

The great value of Heritage, in the North American context and anywhere in the world in general, is to know how to find the balance between the conservation of the legacy inherited from our ancestors, and the ability to be visited by all people (accessible) in order to Being able to be known, because ... What is a heritage that can not be known?

North America is largely a continent of immigrants who need and want to be acculturated to the existing majority, at least to a considerable extent if they are to prosper and feel comfortable. The physical images of the country's varied heritages, including those of the specific immigrants, are visual clues to things that the newcomers are told. Heritage also offers existing residents visual alternatives to whatever is being built and discussed at the moment. Postmodernism, to give the most obvious example, would not have existed without examples of pre-modernism. School children and adults come to understand that the past was not like the present if they see physical examples of differences between past and present. People gain a sense of being rooted and even comforted if they think that their home communities have been there for a long time; physical examples give evidence of that. These are just the first three minutes of a reply.

"What is the value of heritage?"

Cultural heritage objects have many values. Most important of these values are historical and aesthetic. Historical value contains age of the buildings, historical events related to the object and memory of the object. Argumentatively, buildings are the most important sources for historical research and for understanding of the past, because they express needs, style and live of the society at a given time. Buildings are also great memory keepers, especially if we are talking about national memory. Many of the most important buildings in a country are actually quite old. E.g. national museums or government bodies are housed in quite old building. And why? Because these building are known by general public; they are places of power. National memory defines and unites nation (among other things) and one way of maintaining memory is through historical building. And one informal rhetorical question: Why do you think that a lot of apocalyptic movies are destroying national landmarks, like White House in Independence Day?

Aesthetic value is also of great importance. We are meeting buildings, surrounding environment and cultural landscape on everyday basis. They are one of the things that form our identity, our gender. If we grow up in a place with high density of historical buildings, it will alter our conceptions of the world. Also, unique aesthetic of historical buildings may be inspiration for contemporary artists and architects. For some time, there are discussions about crises or even death of architecture, because architecture lost its connection to its surroundings. If we analyze architectural heritage, we will notice that historical buildings were in most cases strictly connected to its place and environment. But that is matter of phenomenology of space and that is another story for another time. For further study of importance of building and place I can recommend e.g. Genius Loci by Christian Norberg-Schulz.

Once again I was probably more general than I should be. But I believe that what I wrote applies for the whole planet. North America, Russia, Middle East or Australia; it does not matter. Values are the same everywhere. Other thing is, how they are perceived.

P.S. Then there are other “minor” values. Adaptation of historical building has lower carbon footprint then its demolition and construction of new structure. Historical buildings can also promote tourism and help in economic and cultural development of local community.

David Pecháček

Thank you for your answer. I struggle with the notion that the value in architectural heritage is universally similar, but perhaps the answer is that simple. Visual cues of the past seem to elicit an emotional response from some people that could be alluded to as pride, comfort, or a sense of a connection with the often idealised values that are associated with nationalism or an ethnic rooting. I believe Carol Krinsky made this point very well.

What I find difficult to accept is that we maintain architectural heritage for the sake of study and knowledge gathering. For that to be true why not find the most spectacular example of Georgian house construction and preserve it as a museum? If we accept that we preserve architecture for research, then there should be no need for preserving other "lesser" examples of similar artefacts other than for purely aesthetic reasons (which in my own stubbornness I refuse to believe). At least in my eastern Canadian context I know that while many houses are registered as heritage properties, they are rarely "studied" any deeper than some arbitrary "character-defining elements" on the facade of the building that stop the building from being torn down and some additional research on some historical figure that stayed in there for a night in the 1800s in order to give the piece "value".

I find "time-boxed" solutions for heritage conservation to be a false narrative of "authenticity" that neglects the constantly changing relationship between a people and the artefact, and how the artefact is always responding to and reflecting the current values of the people. I am aware this is an Aldo Rossi idea, but I think his understanding of heritage as urban artefacts is the closest answer I have found.

In the end, I am realising that answering this question is somewhat a personal endeavour. But that only adds to my dread that conserving architectural heritage is one that will always be fraught with emotional connections and subjectivity. Perhaps the Carl Jung principle of analogical thought is both the answer to the value of heritage and what will always be its enemy.

Living reminders of the past - things you can see and possibly even allowed to touch - are TANGIBLE examples of the past. If it existed, it was, as empirically demonstrated by the senses of sight and touch in this case. This goes a long way in helping prevent e.g. post modernism (say as pushed by Derrida) actively through politics juggling with what WAS part of a past, to avoid SELECTIVELY indicating what "was" to any present ( and future ) human group. Professional racists use the same technique in trying to whitewash e.g. the Jewish so-called Holocaust (c. 1933-45) even up to and including denial of US Army Signal Corps films of death camps (!). "Those who control the past control the present and future" I believe is from Orwell's 1984. In my experience as a biographical science historian, I have seen this selective past-focusing (and withholding) up close and have militated against it. It is clear and unmitigated "clerical class" (academic, religious, press, legal, governmental) control-attempting on what YOU perceive as reality. This was common in medieval Catholic-dominated Europe in e.g. the time of Galileo, who famously noted in his Saturn ( perhaps Jupiter?) observations , "I see it, therefore it must be." The great many in the current crop of clerical academics in the West are intent, as I see it, in returning us to a time when a priest could condemn (us) Galileo for his (our) eyesight. Which is, as we recall, what occurred with him. (Don't let it happen to YOU. )

Greg Urquhart, I think I understand your points and your struggles. However, in my point of view the value of architectural heritage is indeed universally similar, at least in Euro-American cultural region that is. Of course there are regional differences. For example in our cultural region we are protecting style and form of the building as well as its material/mass, while in East Asia the material is not so important, because it has been changed many times during history due to its decay. So, there are regional differences determined by culture, climate, landscape etc.

I also perceive your sentence “If we accept that we preserve architecture for research, then there should be no need for preserving other "lesser" examples (...)“ as exaggeration; am I right? We can see historical buildings as a nonrenewable resource. Sure, we can build copy, but it will never replace the values of the original. I always say, to demolish something is easy, to create something is hard. If I take my point ad absurdum: if we will allow lossage of historical buildings with “small” value, than after some time we will allow lossage of buildings with average value, because their perception will change over time and they will be perceived as buildings with small value instead. Rinse and repeat and after a while, we will lose everything.

But I agree that protecting every historical building is unsustainable and nonsensical. In Czech republic, there are over 40 000 immovable cultural monuments and another thousands of buildings are protected in protected cultural heritage areas. We should not stop time for all these buildings. There are basically two ways (and their combinations) how to approach historical buildings. Firstly, as completed entities, which should be only conserved and maintained. Secondly, as “normal” buildings, which have rights to be further developed, adapted, changed and used. The ideal state is probably somewhere in the middle depending on overall value of the monument as well as the design of the new elements. Design is arguably most important, because simple wheelchair ramp can disrupt overall expression of the monument and on the other hand complex elevator can be integrated so delicately, that we do not even realize its existence (like in Bellinzona castle in Switzerland).

Dear Greg Urquhart :

Heritage relates to the value of social interaction with the content of subject. One of the most evidences of the changes in the cities was in the movement of modernism in America, and I think that Jane Jacobs's criticism in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" is one of the important examples in changing the heritage value of cities.