[i习作temp] ISSUE26 求拍 [复制链接]

DidasW
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发表于 2009-8-5 15:31:39 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

本帖最后由 DidasW 于 2009-8-6 10:16 编辑

TOPIC: ISSUE26 - "Most people would agree that buildings represent a valuable record of any society's past, but controversy arises when old buildings stand on ground that modern planners feel could be better used for modern purposes. In such situations, modern development should be given precedence over the preservation of historic buildings so that contemporary needs can be served."
WORDS: 592
TIME: 00:50:00
DATE: 2009/8/4 11:48:05

As an executive once said in Fortune (and I paraphrase):" it is extremely important for us to show some insensitivity to our past in order to show proper respect to the future." The past means a lot to us, it is the past that creates our identities, but always to put the past in higher position over the present, in this statement is giving precedence to the preservation all the time, is not reasonable. In other words, I agree with the author generally.

Admittedly, the historic buildings play crucial roles in memorizing our past. They sometimes remind us something earthshaking used to happen where they are now standing. Sometimes they are specimens and symbols of the artistic achievement such as painting and sculpture, an good example would be Sistine chapel in Vatican City, noted for its ceiling paintings by Michelangelo, represents the acme of Renaissance. Or sometimes they are themselves the architecture achievement in styles or materials and give definition to the times they were built, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which is the most well-known building for the Gothic age. In any cases above, the historic buildings deserve our greatest respect.

However, as the needs of majority change, sometimes conflicts is unavoidable, which cause the issue that how to decide the allocation of precedence between preservation and present needs. Firstly when the buildings involved is the first kind of historic ones, we should understand that the building itself is not that significant, the whole point is the location and the historic events. Then a compromise can be made that we can build a new one with some inscriptions on conspicuous place, may be the head of the building, in memory of the past event. The example would be some labs, such as the one in which Stern and Gerlach firstly proved the quantum theory: the lab has been rebuild but there are inscriptions telling the story.

While concerning that the second and third types of historic buildings are in some extends irreplaceable and are themselves in which the value lies, there is no common solutions. We should understand that the artistic and architecture achievement were also created by the people then. When they are building their houses, it was not considered historic, or maybe in fact, the now historic buildings were then built after destructed some historic ones of their age. So what we are building now will probably serve the future generations as historic ones, in some ways. When the situation really seems irreconcilable, namely, when the local people have the deepest love for some buildings saturated by their memories while the government really needs some public facilities there due to some reasons, still there is precedence and still there can be compromises.
For instance, maybe the historic building have a certain value, but not with enormous significance. Then when it is really needed, the most valuable pieces of that building can be sent into museums or we can build a museum to store them. Or when the local people's feeling would be seriously hurt or there are some alternative options instead of destroy the old buildings, the government should compromise.

In sum, the solutions differ from different types of historic buildings and different situations. An arbitrary answer will satisfy none. What's more? In fact the situation is not that irreconcilable as it seems and there is always some other options lying under our nose which maybe satisfactory to either side. After all, the real point is to try our best to find the balance in between and make more suitable choices.