Preservation vs. Emulation: Can't We All Just Get Along?

"Over time, I began noticing a strange tension I couldn’t explain. When prominent New Urban projects embraced historic styles, it was often preservationists lobbing the charges of 'fakery.' In their view, the desire to emulate, for example, the great streetcar suburbs of the 1920s is 'contrived' and 'dishonest' because it fails to express the zeitgeist of the modern age."

"And yet, somehow, these same critics seemed to adore what appeared to me, the simpleton layman, as essentially the same thing. After all, there’s been no shortage of efforts to preserve the grand estates of late 19th century industrialists, even though many of those homes borrowed styles born during the Renaissance. That’s not just snatching from another time period. It’s snatching from another culture altogether."

"How honest is that?"

Doyon goes on to try and find some common ground between those seeking to preserve historic architecture, and those seeking to emulate.