The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation [Hardcover]

Steven W. Semes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2009

A comprehensive and eloquent argument for “new traditional” architecture that preserves the style and character of historic buildings.

With contemporary design being redefined by architects and urbanists who are recovering the historic language associated with traditional architecture and the city, how might preservation change its focus or update its mission? Steven W. Semes makes a persuasive case that context matters and that new buildings and additions to old buildings should be harmonious with their neighbors.
30 color, 250 b/w photos

Editorial Reviews

Review

Full of well illustrated examples, drawings, and photographs of the results of both approaches, this volume is likely to take up important space in future discussions. (Book News )

Semes mounts the most thorough attack I’ve ever read on the anti-tradition stance of many architectural and historic preservation professionals. The need for this book is intense….Everyone, including general readers, will find this book’s many illustrations, with their pithy captions, illuminating. This book should help the confused 21st century to create and maintain places of lasting value. (Philip Langdon - New Urban News )

[P]resents a persuasive case against the preservation ethic of oppositional styling; that is, the argument that new additions to historic buildings must be deliberately un-period so as not to be confused with the existing, ‘authentic’ section of the building. Semes illuminates the error of this way of thinking, and walks us through a history of architecture and preservation in the process. (Planetizen.com )

[A] stirring and passionate call to get historic preservation right by respecting the past without making it sacrosanct. (Civil Engineering )

[A] clear and comprehensive argument….adds significantly to the discussion, one that should continue as an important topic within the historic preservation, urban planning, and architecture professions. (AASLH History News )

[T]houghtful and thought-provoking….a must-read for those who care for and care about our architectural heritage. (Sacred Architecture )

Mr. Semes makes a compelling argument; hopefully is does not fall on deaf ears. (Portland Book Review )

The Decade’s Most Important Book on Urban Architecture….With the publication of this volume, Steven Semes has vaulted into the first rank of contemporary architectural critics and preservation theorists…. should be must reading for all preservationists and people serving on landmark commissions and design review boards. (Clem Labine - Traditional Building )

Semes has written an indictment so complete and so damning, and yet expressed with such grace and diplomacy, that all thoughtful preservationists and even some modern architects will finally understand, if not admit, the error of their ways….so clear, so strong and so compelling that professionals in the field may be judges by how they react to it. (David Brussat - The Providence Journal )

[S]peaks in common-sense terms, it is didactic and approachable, and the laymen who are in the trenches…will find powerful ammunition in it. (American Arts Quarterly )

[B]eautifully illustrated….comprehensive….[N]eeds to be understood and followed by professional architects and preservationists; most of the lay public, which likes old buildings and neighborhoods, is already on Semes’ side. (Rob Hardy - The Commercial Dispatch )

I do not think I've ever come away from a book more impressed. Its erudition and its force in putting across a complex contrarian argument are incomparable. This book should be required reading for modern architects, who will start to whistle past the graveyard, and preservationists, who will see the error of their ways and, if they are honest, will admit it.... All I can say is read the review - or better yet, go out right now and get the book itself. It is my new bible. (David Brussat - Architecture Here and There, The Providence Journal )

With The Future of the Past, architect Steven W. Semes has planted his foot hard in the tense area between architectural innovation and historic preservation…[R]aises questions that everyone involved in historic preservation needs to think about. Semes thus deserves credit for tackling a complex issue that is playing out in myriad ways all over the world. (Kathleen Corbett - Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review )

About the Author

Steven W. Semes is Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture and Academic Director of its Rome Studies Program. A practicing architect for over thirty years, he has designed a wide variety of projects for preservation and new construction throughout the United States. He is also the author of The Architecture of the Classical Interior (Norton) and a contributor to The Elements of Classical Architecture (Norton). His essays and reviews have appeared in the National Trust Forum Journal, Traditional Building, Period Homes, and American Arts Quarterly. He is a Fellow Emeritus of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (November 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393732444
• ISBN-13: 978-0393732443
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #271,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven W. Semes is the Academic Director of the Rome Studies Program and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame. A practicing architect for thirty years, he has designed a wide variety of projects for preservation and new construction throughout the United States. Steven Semes is the author of The Architecture of the Classical Interior and a contributor to The Elements of Classical Architecture, both published by W. W. Norton & Co. His essays and reviews have appeared in Traditional Building, Period Homes, American Arts Quarterly, and the National Trust Forum Journal. He is a Fellow Emeritus of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America and was educated at the University of Virginia and Columbia University. He currently resides in Rome.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Manifesto for Preservation and Continuity, March 9, 2010

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation (Hardcover)

Our cities have many problems, of course, but architect Steven W. Semes, who looks carefully at urban buildings and urban growth, sees the particular problems of preservation. He has detailed the history of those problems, the philosophies of their solution, and his own proposals for respectful progress in a beautifully illustrated book, _The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation_ (Norton). The great difficulty is that old buildings fall down or fall to desuetude, and are continually replaced by new ones, resulting in clashes of style. Semes, in a comprehensive historical text, shows that this is nothing new; Andrea Palladio himself in 1545 repudiated the Gothic style by cladding the medieval town hall of Venice with classical stone columns and sculpture. It looks all in place to us now after all these centuries, but no length of time will make Semes's examples of modernist buildings imposed among older ones look fitting. It is the modernist imposition that Semes is trying to explain and oppose, although he repeatedly explains that he admires modernist buildings in their place: "This book is not an argument against modernism or in favor of classicism; rather, it is an argument for _continuity and wholeness_ regardless of style." For those of us who are not architects, this might seem a tiny and particularized dispute, but not only is Semes's argument convincing, it convinces the reader of the importance of the issue to the well-being of our cities.

Historical buildings, Semes demonstrates, can be thought of as documents of a time which have esthetic interest but little relevance to how buildings are now designed; or they can be considered living entities that can gradually be adapted for contemporary use while also providing examples for contemporary design. He proposes that a common ethic unite the "now disparate fields of architecture, urbanism, and historic preservation." The essential reason he is urging a change in attitude is the century-long break of the Modern Movement, modernism that with "breathtaking speed and thoroughness" took over architectural practice, academics, and construction. There are beautiful modernist buildings, Semes agrees, but modernism deliberately rejects history and reverses principles of traditional architecture. Sensibly, he proposes "that the proper place for new modernist buildings is with other modernist buildings, not as interventions within historic districts." There are different philosophies of how to bring new buildings into old. One which has been used for centuries is simply to replicate a building; copying a nearby building means inherently that the copy will fit the style around it, though Semes shows how this is to be done sensibly without infringing on the character of the original. Another way is to stay within an older style but invent within it. The Louvre and the United States Capitol were both originally old buildings that have been repeatedly added to sensitively because the architects kept to the ideas (not necessarily the measurements or the materials) of the original buildings. Less successful are new buildings that make references to their neighbors, by quoting a detail or by assuming identical proportions without assuming their style itself. Worst is the new building that deliberately opposes its older neighbors. On the cover of Semes's book is a picture of the expanded Soldier Field in Chicago, showing the original classic Doric colonnade now dwarfed by the extended bleachers above them, as if it is being crushed by a huge flying saucer. The modern addition resulted in the original building losing its listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Semes also condemns the preservationists who think they are victorious when a façade of a building is preserved while the inside is gutted for contemporary use. Not only does this stress the superficial elements of historic architecture (Semes calls it "a crude form of architectural taxidermy"), but it represents "a narrow focus of preservationists on material fabric in disregard of a building's formal design, structural integrity, use, interior space, or urban context."

By the time one gets to the end of the book, the examples of "façadism" or the rectangular metal-and-glass structures abutting classical ones (and there are many examples in photographs here) look truly horrifying. Semes takes care, though, to present counter-examples, additions and new buildings that take into account what has gone before and what exists around them, good-looking places that promote neighborliness. The illustrations in this handsome book go a long way to show how correct Semes's argument is, and how ugly can be the results of disregarding the past or insisting that contemporary architecture must be pure and untainted by previous styles. Semes shows that modernism is not the only modern style. The technical aspects of his argument need to be understood and followed by professional architects and preservationists; most of the lay public, which likes old buildings and neighborhoods, is already on Semes's side.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provides college-level collections strong in architectural theory with a powerful discussion, February 12, 2010

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation (Hardcover)

The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism and Historic Preservation offers a fine re-examination of modern historic preservation theory and practice in light of developments in the field - including new traditional design practice among modern architects and urban designers. Here a comprehensive, well-written argument for 'new traditional' architecture that continues the design of historic buildings provides college-level collections strong in architectural theory with a powerful discussion.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, excellent condition, quick shipping., November 24, 2010

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Anthony O. James "aoj" (Ardmore, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation (Hardcover)

Essential reading for everyone, whether you are interested in preservation or not! This book shows how and why our cities and towns lost their character during the 20th century, and what can be done to stop the decline. And sculptural 21st century object buildings are not the answer!