Historic preservation is at an important moment of rethinking. The field has grown exponentially in America since its first academic program was founded at Columbia University in 1965. Although initially concerned only with buildings, preservation has expanded to include the management (through protection, intervention, or interpretation) of entire urban environments, landscapes, highways, cultural traditions, artistic practices and even specific "experiences" such as historic view sheds. Most importantly, historic preservation is beginning a significant re-clarification of its purposes, sharpening and deepening its focus on the contributions old environments and artifacts make to our understanding of the human condition and to challenging our contemporary modes of life.
Future Anterior is the first and only journal in American academia to be devoted to the study and advancement of historic preservation. It brings together the interests of scholars and professionals in multiple disciplines such as architecture, art, history, philosophy, law, geography, archeology, planning, materials science, cultural anthropology, conservation, and others. Future Anterior establishes an important and much needed forum for the critical examination of this expanding discipline, to spur challenges of its motives, goals, forms of practice and results.
The appearance of Future Anterior signals a shift away from nostalgic antiquarianism toward an active involvement in the understanding and creative transformation of human environments. This turn in preservation is reflected in an increased interest in historic architecture and artifacts as expressive resources of great public importance. The destruction of patrimony is seen not just a barbarism but a source of understanding about where we are going wrong and what we need to do next. Future Anterior is a vehicle for creative individuals who produce works that engage the public in new ways of reflecting and taking on the past not as constraint but as provocation.
SUBSCRIBE
For Future Anterior manuscript submission guidelines, please click here.
Going Critical: On the Historic Preservation of the World's First Nuclear Reactor
Paul Williams
Objectivity and Aesthetics: The Problem of Stucco in Swedish Conservation, 1949–1969
Mia Geijer
The Conservation of Spain's Architectural Heritage: A Balance of Three Crucial Decades, 1929–1958
Julián Esteban-Chapapría
Document
Spanish Law Regarding Defense, Conservation, and Expansion of the National Artistic Treasure (1933)
Document
Spanish Decree on the Protection of Castles (1949)
Interview
"We will do it ourselves": Selma Al Radi on the Restoration of the 'Amiriya Complex, Yemen
Caterina Borelli
Book Review
Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation
James Conlon
Editor's Note
Special Issue on the Preservation of Soviet Heritage
Jorge Otero-Pailos
Foreword
Barry Bergdoll
Editorial
Preserving Modernism: A Russian Exception?
Jean-Louis Cohen
In This Issue
Heritage at Risk: The Fate of Modernist Buildings in Russia
Natalia Dushkina
The Leningrad Avant-Garde and Its Legacy
Boris Kirikov
Erich Mendelsohn's Red Banner Factory and Saint Petersburg's Industrial Architecture
Margarita Shtiglits
A Critique of the Preservation of Moscow's Planetarium
Anke Zalivako
Le Corbusier's Centrosoyuz in Moscow
Jean-Louis Cohen
Soviet Legal Documents on the Preservation of Monuments
Jean-Louis Cohen
Document
The USSR's 1948 Instructions for the Identification, Registration, Maintenance, and Restoration of Architectural Monuments under State Protection
Document
1973 Law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: On the Protection and Use of Historic and Cultural Monuments
Book Review
Taking Stock: Documenting Russia's Modern Heritage
Richard Anderson
Jorge Otero-Pailos, "Conservation Cleaning/Cleaning Conservation"
Patrick Ciccone, "Space, Time, and Preservation"
Reto Geiser and Martino Stierli, "Architecture Officielle Maudite"
Adrian von Buttlar, "Berlin's Castle Versus Palace"
Laurence Kanter, "The Reception and Non-Reception of Cesare Brandi in America"
Frank G. Matero, "Loss, Compensation, and Authenticity"
Cesare Brandi, "Postscript to the Treatment of Lacunae"
Randall F. Mason, "Exhibition Review: Robert Moses and the Modern City"
John Stubbs, "Book Review: A Global History of Architecture"
Jorge Otero-Pailos, "Creative Agents"
Mersedeh Jorjani, "Forces Beyond Our Control: Examining the Political Edge in Preservation"
Jukka Jokilehto, "Preservation Theory Unfolding"
Lei Gao and Marc Treib, "Making and Remaking the Yuanmingyuan"
Florian Urban, "From Periodical Obsolescence to Eternal Preservation"
Jennifer Cohoon McStotts, "The Second Fall of the Berlin Wall: Examining the Hildebrandt Memorial at Checkpoint Charlie"
Laura A. Lenss, "Capturing the Next Shift: The Mapping of Meaning onto the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia"
Fares el-Dahdah, "Lucio Costa, Preservationist"
Ricardo Abuauad, "Conservation in Central Santiago: The Diego Portales University Infrastructure Plan and the Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design Building"
Kate Orff, "Book Review: Design with Culture: Claiming America's Landscape Heritage"
Jorge Otero-Pailos, "Historic Provocation: Thinking Past Architecture and Preservation"
Jessica Williams, "Theories Towards a Critical Practice"
David Karmon, "Renaissance Strategies to Protect the Colosseum: Selective Preservation and Reuse"
Mark Wigley, "Unleashing the Archive"
Paolo Amaldi, "Chairs, Posture, and Points of View: For an Exact Restitution of the Barcelona Pavilion"
Zeuler Lima, "Preservation as Confrontation: The Work of Lina Bo Bardi"
Vincent L. Michael, "Race against Renewal: Motives for Historic District Designation in Inner-City Chicago"
Jack Pyburn, "Historic Preservation in Architectural Education: Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future"
Lucia Allais, "Ordering the Orders: Claude Perrault's Ordonnance and the Eastern Colonnade of the Louvre"
Randolph Starn, "Book Review: Architectural Imitations: Reproductions and Pastiches in East and West"
Jorge Otero-Pailos, "Echoing: How to Situate the New"
Jessica Williams, "Reaching a Global Public: Language, Technology and the Practice of Interpretation"
Sheila Crane, "Mutable Fragments: Destructive Preservation and the Postwar Rebuilding of Marseille"
S. M. Can Bilsel, "The Undoing of a Monument: Preservation as Critical Engagement with Pergamon's Heritage"
Talinn Grigor, "Preserving the Antique Modern: Persepolis '71"
Robert Rubin, "Preserving and Presenting Prefab: Jean Prouve's Tropical House"
Adam Fish, "Native American Sacred Places and the Language of Capitalism"
Nina Rappaport and Ken Smith, "Modern Landscape Architecture, a Forgotten Art: The Case of Lincoln Center"
Paul Spencer Byard and Leslie Klein, "23 de Enero: Modern Public Housing in Post-Modern Caracas"
Alessandro Angelini, "Book Review: Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture Urbanism Identity"
Marisa Oliver, "Exhibition Review: Architecture and Revolution in Cuba, 1959-1969"
Jorge Otero-Pailos, "Editorial: Now is the Future Anterior for Advancing Historic Preservation Scholarship"
Robert Garland Thomson, "Introduction: Taking Steps Towards a New Dialogue: An Argument for an Enhanced Critical Discourse in Historic Preservation"
Melissa E. Baldock, "Preserving the Honky-Tonk: Coney Island's Future In Its Amusement Past
Michael Caratza, "Past Meets Futurism Along the Cross-Bronx: Preserving a Significant Urban Expressway"
Courtney Fint, "Jackson's Mill State 4-H Camp: The Rural Summer Camp as a Cultural Landscape"
Shawna Richardson-Upp, "Industrial Evolution: Preservation Through Judicious Demolition of 20th Century Industrial Buildings"
Jon Calame and Kirstin Sechler, "Perspective: Is Preservation Missing the Point? Cultural Heritage in the Service of Social Development"
Anton Vidokle, "The Future Anterior Interview"
Thordis Arrhenius, "The Cult of Age in Mass-Society: Alois Riegl's Theory of Conservation"
Jennifer Kearney, "Cast Stone's Trials of Authenticity: How Labor and Modernism Conspired to Kill a Nascent Materials Industry"
Carol Clark, "Book Review: Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States"
