Experimental Preservation

Old things, historic things, smelly dirty things, all the things that were considered the very opposite of 'contemporary, ' have suddenly irrupted forcefully into architecture and art, blurring their boundaries. This book takes stock of the emerging generation behind this turn, and examines their experimental engagements with the preservation of culturally charged objects. Structured around a series of interdisciplinary dialogues among practitioners and thinkers, and illustrated with recent projects, the book provides a window into the unfolding intellectual frameworks, aesthetic modes, cultural ambitions, and political commitments that are the basis of experimental preservation.
Old things, historic things, smelly dirty things, all the things that were considered the very opposite of -contemporary, - have suddenly irrupted forcefully into architecture and art, blurring their boundaries. This book takes stock of the emerging generation behind this turn, and examines their experimental engagements with the preservation of culturally charged objects.
Jorge Otero-Pailos is an associate professor and Director of Historic Preservation at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture in New York.