Modernist Urbanism as History

brings the preservation story in Washington DC full circle by looking carefully at the highly contested attempt in the early years of the 21st century to protect and preserve Capitol Park (1959). This landmark of modern design in the national capital was built as part of Washington’s massive Southwest urban renewal project and thus remained a deeply ambivalent place for Washington’s preservationists.

Preservation, Profits, and Loss

The key to this change in perception and the activities it inspired was the maturation of preservation activism and law.

Race and Resistance

tells the story of resistance to the restoration and preservation movement focusing in particular on the racially salient critique of the restoration culture and its impact on poor, black incumbent residents in the intown areas of Washington.

The White House and Its Neighborhood

examines the catalytic impact of the Federal government on Washington’s preservation movement. The negative impacts, especially bulldozer-driven urban renewal, have been quite well documented. But the positive influence of the Lafayette Square redevelopment and of federal policy leadership have not been acknowledged.

Value

explores the economic and planning rationale for an expanded historic preservation movement particularly as it emerged in Georgetown in the 1920s. This Georgetown model was adopted by a succession of neighborhoods in later decades but also became a source of instability for the preservation movement.

Rhodes Tavern and the Problem with Preservation in the 1980s

unpacks the contradictions and conflicts within the preservation movement that emerged during and after the Rhodes Tavern controversy (1977-1984). In particular the chapter interprets the different social and cultural objectives nested within the broad preservation movement and the difficulties involved in maintain the coherence of that movement in the 1980s.

Whose Neighborhood? Whose History?

looks at the success of the neighborhood preservation movement in the 1970s and early 1980s and the fine grain of neighborhood conflict inspired by preservation’s assertiveness in that period.

Taste

argues that architectural taste was central to the expansion of preservation in the later decades of the twentieth century. The chapter analyses shifts in taste and the impact of those shifts on the possibilities for successful neighborhood restoration and preservation.