Heritage and the Cultural Politics of Preservation [Speaking of Places]

SPEAKING OF PLACES Heritage and the Cultural Politics of Preservatio n Ned Kaufman I f a single word could express the dominant social values of historic preservation, i t would be her­ itage. As preservationists have expanded their focus from architectural excellence to a widening range of social and cultural values, the concept of heritage has been redefined in new and some­ times more inclusive ways, while avoiding sus­ tained critique. Themes o f social diversity are prompting new demands on preservation — demands to broaden the heritage canon, to empower new groups. Pre­ servation is forging new alliances with community planning, public history, folklore and tourism promotion. Yet much preservation practice con­ Citizens contesting plans for the Audubon Ballroom brought various concerns—the impact of a large institution's expansion, the proper way to memorialize a place significant to African- American history, and an oppo­ sition to biotech research. (Ned Kaufman) by organizations like the W o r l d Monuments Fund typically emphasize royal or princely palaces or major religious complexes. W h e n sites o f special relevance to working-class history are included, i t is often by virtue of assimilation to other values: association with a war o f national liberation (a flour m i l l near Dover that was used to feed the troops fighting Napoleon) or a movement o f national expansion (a frontier mining town), ex­ emplification of upper-class ideals of charity or paternalism (model housing complexes and settle­ ment complexes), esthetic or technological merit (Victorian loft buildings), or conversion into luxury condominiums or marinas (dockside ware­ houses i n Liverpool). These biases are also reflected i n official inter­ pretations. W h e n New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission declared SoHo, N e w York's largest surviving ensemble o f nineteenth- century cast- iron loft buildings, a historic dis­ trict, the commission's official report emphasized the buildings' owners, architects, styles and mate­ rials. Hardly a word was said about the work that went on in them, and nothing about the eco­ nomic and class relations that defined that work. A tremendous resource for interpreting New York's labor history and class relations was rede­ fined as a monument to entrepreneurship, tech­ nical innovation and aesthetic skill. Nowadays these magnificently gloomy lofts have been reborn as fashionable apartments, art galleries tinues along traditional lines, which are, as often as not, built upon the concept o f heritage. W h a t does heritage mean? Heritage is what one inherits, and the word is thereby freighted with familial solidarity, generational connectedness and ownership. Family, inheritance, goods and possession define a profoundly conservative set o f values, and when historic preservation rhetoric- invokes the word heritage, i t is also bringing these values to bear. To speak, for example, of a national or even world cultural heritage is to assert metaphori­ cally that all Americans, or all people, belong to a single family and share a single cultural inheri­ tance. Family members who disagree i n identify­ ing, valuing or apportioning this inheritance — or who challenge the testator's fairness in doing so — risk being accused o f unseemly squabbling. T h i s metaphor works therefore to support an essen­ tially conservative ideology of cultural harmony, and whenever historic preservation adopts this metaphor, i t is likely to be doing so too. A great many public heritage policies are based on just such an ideology o f cultural harmony, and they frequently encode a heavy measure of class bias. T h e lists o f important heritage sites issued P L A C E S ! 1 :3