“Increasingly, I feel a new consensus emerging – a new kind of modernity, if you will. It implies that we can find effective ways of dealing with the big problems of our day, which do not oblige us to bury beneath our abstractions the very things that make life worth living. And it requires we build again the types of places we all know strike a chord in our hearts – however ‘modern’ we are, places that convey an everlasting human story of meaning and belonging.”

—His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales

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“The modernist vernacular, which conceives buildings as curtains of tinted glass raised on invisible scaffolds of concrete and steel, represents both an unusual advance for ignorance and a giant ecological threat. And architects and their theorists devoted an immense amount of intellectual labor to achieving this result.”

—Roger Scruton, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute

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“Design integrity has been assaulted and the salvage business is burgeoning. Rather than being restored or rehabilitated, many valuable historic buildings are being raided for salvage—and these parts often don’t impart value to the new structure. ‘What can you tell about a chicken from a nugget?’ asks Lauren Pinney Burge, AIA, a partner with Chambers, Murphy & Burge Restoration Architects…‘What can you tell about a building from its parts?’”

—Elizabeth Corbin Murphy, FAIA, partner, Chambers, Murphy & Burge Restoration Architects

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“For many of us (maybe most of us), modern architecture often seems chilly and dull, and ever so repetitious. How droll that early Modernists would complain of dreary repetition within traditionalist architecture, when no era in architectural history has ever produced so many totally repetitious and unimaginative buildings as our modern times since 1945.”

—Alvin Holm, principal, Alvin Holm A.I.A. Architects

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“At most, perhaps 10 percent of what the environmental movement does advances the cause of historic preservation, but 100 percent of what the preservation movement does advances the cause of the environment. You cannot have sustainable development without a major role for historic preservation. Period. It is about time we preservationists start hammering at that until it’s broadly understood.”

—Donovan D. Rypkema, principal, PlaceEconomics

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“The glass curtain wall. . .has drawn criticisms from a number of building researchers, including those who are pointing out the solar gain and the heat loss from all the glazing, plus the cost of the materials and the maintenance with the use of the building over time. Is it going to become dated precisely because it is ‘of its time,’ so strongly ‘of its time’ that in 40 or 60 years, it’s going to be torn down? Something like half the energy of a building is embodied in its construction. These are really disturbing questions that I think we have to answer.”

—Michael Mehaffy, president, Structura Naturalis, Inc.

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“Preservationists must learn to embrace adaptive reuse. Many fight change and, though they pay lip service to adaptive reuse, do not want to allow changes that make re-development attractive to the development community.”

—Mark Thaler, AIA, principal, Einhorn, Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering, PC

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“Of course with time, the Modernist has finally gotten it right. Now we architects have a full catalog of perfect, truly machine-made parts at our disposal, from the ready-made window to the ready-made door. The architect can shop the catalogs for everything needed to complete a project. Where once we made form, we are now encouraged to assemble it. How can God be found in the details when design of details is no longer a consequential part of the design process of the modern building?”

—Ethan Anthony, AIA, president and principal, HDB/Cram & Ferguson, Inc.

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“Even now, there are fewer than ten programs offering hands-on trades education, and they are struggling to survive because the public education system has been redesigned as a feeder system for higher ‘academic’ education. . .The shortfall of people skilled in the traditional trades is a problem that will continue to worsen every year if more high-quality programs aren’t created at a much faster rate than they are being created today.”

—Rudy Christian, president, Christian & Son, Inc., Burbank, OH, and executive director of the Preservation Trades Network

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“Five or ten years from now, architects and clients won’t look at sustainable issues in terms of how much they add to the cost of a project. They’ll just be an integral part. We don’t even discuss whether or not we’re going to use recycled and low-VOC materials or require contractors to recycle construction waste. They’re base assumptions now.”

—John H. Cluver, AIA, LEED AP, partner and director of preservation, Voith & Mactavish Architects, LLP

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