Constructed histories: storytelling and the practices of architectural conservation

A fundamental concern of the practices of architectural conservation is the protection of history, identity, and place, against a modernizing world that displaces and forgets. To

achieve this, these practices have relied on recourse to the past, attaching themselves to the environment of old, as well as the atmosphere and social structures that characterized

it. As a consequence, conservation has been guided by nationalist attitudes that seek to inscribe singular, dominant cultural codes onto the physical manifestation of history that

is the built environment. Indeed, these practices, oriented through the antiquated lens of homogenizing nationalisms, attempt to transform the heterodoxies of the past into a new

cultural orthodoxy. This thesis proposes, however, that practices of conservation should include, at their

core, the recognition of genuine epistemic and social difference. A building can be conserved only through the understanding and employment of its own heterogeneous

story, one that endures in and through its plurality of meanings, and transcends any particular moment in its own accumulated history. For this reason, this thesis will

explore the intersection of social theory and architecture as a means to reach a critical understanding of the motivations and ramifications of conservation practices. In doing

so, it will not only criticize the nature of traditional architectural conservation, but will also propose a framework of storytelling as a potential alternative for future practices of

conservation that would result in a more ethical and equally representative forum.