Michael Holleran 'Public Health as a Paradigm for Preservation'

Michael Holleran
Director, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation
School of Architecture, University of Texas, Austin
'Beyond Landmarks: Public Health as a Paradigm for Preservation'

In recent decades, Historic preservation in the US has broadened its purview to address large swaths of the environment, including cultural landscapes and postwar neighborhoods. Preservation practice is adaptive. The preservationist paradigm – the landmark – has not kept up. Landmarks are unique, irreplaceable, precious. We treat each landmark the way we hope our doctor will treat us as a patient. What if preservationists added a second paradigm, looking at populations of buildings in the way public health practitioners look at populations of people?

Michael Holleran directs the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. His current research is on the economics of historic preservation in Texas. His most recent project was the Austin Historical Survey Wiki, a web-based platform for crowdsourcing cultural resource inventories.