Time Honored: A Global View of Architectural Conservation - Hardcover

by John H. Stubbs (Author)

"The absence heretofore of a comparably thoroughgoing but accessible resource on a topic of such urgent public concern was a glaring lapse that makes this deeply researched, lucidly written, and helpfully annotated book an invaluable addition to the literature."-- New York Review of Books

Time Honored is a comprehensive survey of the practice, theory, and structure of architectural heritage conservation throughout the world. Offering an argument for why architectural conservation is indispensable to modern life, Time Honored describes its parameters and evolution in an historical context, and then methodically presents approaches used in various countries, showing how historic preservation in the West differs from conservation in the rest of the world. Illustrated throughout with over 300 photographs, drawings, maps, and charts. No other book navigates the global conservation programs, policies, and project types so completely.

Front Jacket

The preservation movement has one great curiosity. There is never any retrospective controversy or regret. Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact.
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Imagine the world without the Parthenon, Notre Dame, the Wailing Wall, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, Machu Picchu, or other iconic buildings, monuments, and places. What if the more impressive historic buildings and sites we encounter in our everyday lives disappeared? Civilization would simply not exist as we know it. Fortunately, awareness of the importance of protecting the world's cultural patrimony--in particular, its architectural heritage--is at an all-time high and is growing. Time Honored: A Global View of Architectural Conservation explores the reasons for this phenomenon, explains how international architectural heritage conservation practice operates, and considers where this firmly rooted global interest may lead.

Written by a leading practitioner and teacher of architectural preservation, Time Honored provides a much-needed comprehensive and balanced survey of the practice, theory, and structure of architectural heritage conservation throughout the world.

Illustrated throughout with over 300 photographs, drawings, and charts, this first volume in a multipart series will help define the physical and conceptual parameters of the field of architectural conservation, its background, and its position today as a major influence on the world's built environment.

Back Jacket

"The preservation movement has one great curiosity. There is never any retrospective controversy or regret. Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Imagine the world without the Parthenon, Notre Dame, the Wailing Wall, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, Machu Picchu, or other iconic buildings, monuments, and places. What if the more impressive historic buildings and sites we encounter in our everyday lives disappeared? Civilization would simply not exist as we know it. Fortunately, awareness of the importance of protecting the world's cultural patrimony--in particular, its architectural heritage--is at an all-time high and is growing. Time Honored: A Global View of Architectural Conservation explores the reasons for this phenomenon, explains how international architectural heritage conservation practice operates, and considers where this firmly rooted global interest may lead.

Written by a leading practitioner and teacher of architectural preservation, Time Honored provides a much-needed comprehensive and balanced survey of the practice, theory, and structure of architectural heritage conservation throughout the world.

Illustrated throughout with over 300 photographs, drawings, and charts, this first volume in a multipart series will help define the physical and conceptual parameters of the field of architectural conservation, its background, and its position today as a major influence on the world's built environment.

Author Biography

John H. Stubbs has served as Vice President for Field Projects for the New York-based World Monuments Fund while teaching part-time as an Associate Professor of Historic Preservation in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University since 1990. His prior experience includes ten years as an associate at Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners in New York and two years' service at the Technical Preservation Services division of the U.S. National Park Service in Washington, D.C. A native of Louisiana, Stubbs's international experience began in the 1970s working as a surveyor on archaeological excavations in Italy and Egypt and as a UNESCO Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome.