Tour Second Bank with Frank Matero

Buildings, like all of us, have their stories.  Those stories, like time itself, shapes architecture, forcing us to position a thing or place in relation to the present. As time affords a measure of change, both time and change are critical components shaping the arrival and survival of any work to the present.  How historic and artistic works are received by each generation then depends on the specific conditions of time and change.  Conservation has always been about duration, about transmission and reception.  What survives, what is forgotten, what is cared for or destroyed, describes the lives of buildings and places.   Such trajectories are dependent on many diverse factors. However, once consciously examined, all creative works have relevance in ways consistent or new to their original authorship and to contemporary society.  In this capacity they go beyond mere existence; they persevere. Since time is not reversible and history cannot be undone (only rewritten), conservation is a true historical event; a critical human action that is one of the ways in which we remember and how a work and its values are transmitted to the future. 

Current students & Faculty are invited to join Frank Matero to explore the many lives of the Second Bank of the United States and its more recent conservation history.