Buildings. Who Cares? - ACE152.2

People talking about problems with buildings and maintenance. Bulldozer starts to demolish house. Derelict buildings. Commentary says old buildings of all kinds are vulnerable and need protection. Donald Insall, architect, says we need some criteria on which to base our decisions on which buildings to save. These criteria will be subjective and depend to some extent on the background and training of the person making the decisions. Bringing buildings materials onto a site. Commentary notes that conservation of the past is a relatively new idea, one of today’s good causes, but asks if we really know why we care. Post-war tower blocks and other developments. Commentary suggests that conservation has become a public issue in part because of anger and protest at the destruction that went with the redevelopment, in part because of increased awareness of environmental control and of the quality of people’s lives.
Older buildings. Commentary by Insall points out that development on war-damaged areas wasn’t confined to Britain, and that the concept of the "conservation area" appeared in both Britain and France during the 1960s. Shots of domestic architecture, preserved and restored. Insall VO wonders if criteria used to define these as worthy of conservation reduce simply to "nostalgia". Venice. Insall VO points out that a Venetian will care about the city differently from a Neapolitan, and so on. Responses to the past are conditioned by circumstances, by people’s backgrounds and by their interests. Ruins of cities in Poland destroyed by the retreating Germans. Postwar restoration in progress; some of the results. The reconstruction was carried out in a spirit of national survival and resurgence. The recreation of colonial Willliamsburg, U.S.A., begun in 1926, with the aim that "the future may learn from the past". Every nation or culture saves what it wants to save.