Americans preserve old buildings mostly when the pursuit is lucrative, and they often lament the lost opportunities.
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We’re seemingly unwilling to accept that a building can be historic in a local context or because of its architecture rather than because someone important slept there 150 years ago.
So we shouldn’t be surprised that the annual report from the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation says that the top threat to historic preservation in our country today is the trendy practice of tearing down existing homes to replace them with McMansions.
"The practice of purchasing and demolishing an existing house to make way for a huge new house on the same site is, in my opinion, the single biggest threat to America’s older neighborhoods since the heyday of urban renewal and interstate highway construction during the 1950s and 1960s," wrote Richard Moe, president of the national group that promotes historic preservation.
"When the trust named ‘Teardowns in Historic Neighborhoods’ to its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2002, we had identified 100 communities in 20 states that were losing their historic character to teardowns," Moe wrote. "Today, by comparison, more than 300 communities in 33 states are affected. The National Association of Home Builders says a whopping 75,000 houses are razed and replaced with larger houses every year."
This year, to track the trend and try to derail it, the trust will compile a national database of houses being torn down for new houses, Moe said. It also will try to explain to real-estate agents and the public why the teardowns are hurting old neighborhoods.
The key reason is the same as what happens when uncaring renovators hack up old houses and cover them with nondescript vinyl siding: It chips away at the character of the old neighborhood. The ham-handed renovators do it one window or door at a time, while the demolishers do it a house or two at a time. The result is the same.
We tear down beautiful old houses and shops for a host of reasons and complain later that the demolition was shortsighted. The realization usually comes after someone completes the dramatic restoration of a similar building or other old buildings in the same neighborhood.
What will allow us to realize the mistake before we make it? What will give more of us the vision to see past peeling paint and sagging porches to the architectural beauty in so many of our old buildings? "
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Directory of cultural resource and historic preservation firms.
Logan Simpson Design Inc. LSD is an environmental planning and landscape architecture firm that offers a full range of cultural resources services throughout the Intermountain West. In addition to historic and prehistoric archaeologists, our staff includes professional historic p
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Daly & Associates Qualified Architectural Historian with Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation.
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RFP Archeological and Architectural History Services (Iowa) The purpose of the Request for Proposal (RFP) is to solicit proposals from qualified firms to provide archeological and architectural history services relating to State Revolving Fund (SRF)-financed water supply and wastewater construction projects.
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