Eighth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

2016 marked the fiftieth jubilee anniversary commemorating the Congressional signing of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Having fulfilled its own criterion of passing the fifty-year threshold age-value, the NHPA itself is “significantly” historic. It is undoubted that this federal act has shaped the evolution of cities across the American landscape since its enactment; yet, what is questionable is its legitimacy and future trajectory. How would scholars and practitioners of the early preservation movement such as Alois Reigl, react to the NHPA, should it have been passed in the nineteenth century? How might metropoles like New York City look today had the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) created under Mayor Wagner, Jr. in 1965 never existed? The constructed environment of our modern society is a product of the law. Courts have played a key role in dictating history. We often overlook how the laws and their interpretation in Court opinions continue to preserve a long-standing tradition in shaping the built environment. Reciprocally the constructed environment has dictated human behavior and challenged the legal systems as British politician Winston Churchill once said: “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” This paper discusses the politicized underpinnings of the NHPA, identifies the interpretations of regulatory statutes relative to preservation in judiciary opinions, positions the NHPA against the broader context of social movements, and proposes a framework for the future trajectory of the discourse on preservation by a re-interpretation of key legal terms.