Dutch Culture: Historical Architecture Conservation
One aspect of Dutch, and more broadly European culture, is that historical conservation of architecture is held at a much lower degree than in America. I have noticed that the renovation or repurposing of historical buildings in America is subject to much more scrutiny than in Europe. My main reasoning is that Europe is generally much more packed for space and it would be impossible to section off every single birthplace and workshop. One example we saw in Delft was the birthplace of Vermeer. The building had been a shop and is currently under renovation. In America, this building would be protected and used as some sort of museum or Vermeer themed business.
posted by Unknown @ June 05, 2018
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I both disagree and agree with you. Most of the cities we have visited have opted to enforce zoning/ building codes to preserve the vintage aesthetic of the cites. By the nature of this, they almost always choose to restore the exterior of the structures and change the interior(Budapest was a good example). I do think they hold a lesser sentimental value to the history of figures in their society though. With the amount of influential people to live in Europe, I think it would be impractical to preserve historic buildings given the circumstances.
I agree they struggle more with up keeping historical landmarks but if you think about it the history here is so much longer than American history if they tried to preserve every single historical landmark there would be no where left to have new life the entire continent would turn into an unchanging museum.
As they say, in Europe 100 miles is a long distance and in America 100 years is a long time.
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