Preserving Cultural Landscapes

This thoughtful article could be useful for those interested in campus heritage preservation:

Just as the concept of cultural landscape can mitigate polarized views of nature versus artifice, so it can bridge divisive opinions on the relative importance of "architecture" versus "history."

The segregation of these terms into categories was codified by National Register criteria and other documents emanating from the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and reflects long-term attitudes among preservationists in the United States. This bifurcation can wreak great mischief, for it reduces "history" to intangibles—associations with persons, events, and the like—robbing it of any physical dimension.