Issue 26 Historic Buildings -- preservation v.s. praticality 请多指教

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The speaker asserts that in modern society, historic buildings should give way to modern purposes for serving contemporary needs. The speaker unfairly suggests that when faced with modernization – such as building modern buildings – historic buildings are useless. As we all know, historic buildings are not only symbols of a culture, but they are also, to some degree, where a nation’s unity lies. These are two aspects as illustrated in the following paragraphs.

The speaker’s contention immediately brings to mind the culture that is jeopardized in some ancient countries like China and Egypt. Seldom people would argue that historic buildings are intellectually bred of ancient people. By numerous deep researches on historic buildings, we can easily explore people’s philosophy and psychology in a period of time when we are not able to experience by ourselves. Thus, researching on historic buildings is a way in which we can easily know one nation’s culture better. In other words, one nation’s culture can be vividly demonstrated by its historic buildings. Actually, the Forbidden City is a perfect example to illustrate this aspect. By researching the decoration in the room, researchers can figure out the sleeping habits kept by ancient people. Observing how every room is located is a good way to study an ancient Chinese subject called Fengshui, which teaches people how to build houses to fit with the surrounding environment. Without ancient buildings, researchers have no way to accomplish these explorations, which give a better understanding to one’s culture.

When it comes to a nation’s unity, historic buildings represent a nation’s culture which unites the people who live under the influence of the same culture. Tearing down the historic buildings, which amounts to breaking down one’s nation’s unique culture actually is not as simple as tearing down an old building. It involves one complex factor – culture. Query what the most important part is of a nation. The answer must be culture. Culture has already been printed on a person at the moment he or she was born. Culture decides a person’s way to behave, even to think. Professor Dong, who teaches me sociology, once said (and I paraphrase):”a nation without culture is a nation which struggles on ruins.” Without culture, there is no resource for people acquiring identity, which leads to the consequence that people totally have no idea what is the meaning of unity. Imagine a country where there is no historic building at all. People do not have a direct vision about what their culture looks like. Scholars don’t have an efficient way to explore the culture of the nation. Isn't it the country that struggles on ruins?

Admittedly, modern development should be given much emphasis, but it can’t be at cost of breaking down historic buildings. We cannot deny the fact that historic buildings bring lots of benefits to human society. When we tear down ancient buildings to give way to modern development, we need to follow 2 principles, one of which is concerning necessity. We should ask ourselves: is this old building useless, and can we use another empty place instead of the ground where stands historic buildings to satisfy our needs to realize modernization. The other principle comes to willingness. In other words, before a government makes the decision, it should respect and obey citizens’ will – whether they support or not. People’s decisions are always right.

In sum, in no condition should historic buildings be torn down to give way to satisfy modern needs. Historic buildings harbor one nation’s culture, where lies the most important thing to a nation – unity. Historic buildings should be well-preserved, and before we decide to bring a historic building to ruins, we should follow the 2 principles as discussed above. It is never too careful to make this decision, because nobody wants to live in a nation which stands on ruins.