Скачать или смотреть Mary Campbell Gallagher Lecture: The Destruction of Paris

October 8, 2014

We'll always have Paris. Or will we? Paris is mesmerizingly beautiful, and many Americans assume it will always remain that way. But today attention-seeking corporations and global architects claim to offer local governments modernity and a competitive edge. They have destroyed the character of cities from Shanghai to London. Now they are targeting Paris.

The preservationists who value the beauty of Paris are Davids against these Goliaths. Paris is not beautiful merely because of monuments like Notre Dame, however, but because buildings of many eras and differing qualities form a delicate ensemble of uniquely harmonious character. The stakes are high. Logical argument does not always overcome propaganda. And the law affecting preservation is more malleable than may at first appear.

Where the government supports international developers' erecting new skyscrapers at three of the gates of Paris, the city's iconic skyline is in danger. Where the government supports a global corporation's inserting a seven-story tall, one-block long, translucent glass facade into an elegant nineteenth-century Parisian shopping street, the magic of Paris is in peril.

Preservationists are using the weapons that politics, the law, and social media provide. They are appealing for international support.