In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), Diamonstein-Spielvogel, former LPC commissioner and nationally renowned arts advocate, invited people knowledgeable about the city\u2019s architecture and history to \u201cwrite freely on any and all\u2026aspects of the built environment, including the role of preservation in a changing city.\u201d The result is a diverse set of essays ranging from the history of the Bowne House, the oldest house in Queens, to the engineering challenges of adaptive reuse and the need to design and construct buildings that will endure beyond their original use. The book\u2019s value lies with those essayists who encourage the LPC to lessen its fixation on the aesthetics of individual buildings\u2014particularly regarding historic districts\u2014and its timidity in the face of real estate interests. They urge the LPC to preserve, as New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman writes, the \u201cthings that give the city and its neighborhoods their character, distinction, vitality, social cohesion, and meaning.\u201d The intent is to protect and preserve the city\u2019s cultural history (its intangible heritage), sites of ecological value (i.e., living landmarks), historic signage, and structural and mechanical building systems. Yet the book excludes the voices of the many people who think \u201cbeyond architecture,\u201d including urban planners, urbanists, sociologists, and cultural scholars, among others. Historic preservation in New York City seems unable to escape the gravitational pull of individual buildings and the architectural profession. The book would have benefited from an essay reflecting on the LPC\u2019s political, bureaucratic, and financial limitations and unrealized potential. Well worth reading, nonetheless, are thoughtful essays by Kimmelman and fellow architecture critic Paul Goldberger, architect Lisa Switkin, and the historic preservation scholar Andrew Dolkart.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), Diamonstein-Spielvogel, former LPC commissioner and nationally renowned arts advocate, invited people knowledgeable about the city\u2019s architecture and history to \u201cwrite freely on any and all\u2026aspects of the built environment, including the role of preservation in a changing city.\u201d The result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}