Is It Time to Rethink the Whole Preservation Movement?

Part of the 2025 Fall Speaker Series

The preservation movement has done more to determine the shape of American cities than nearly anything else in the last half century. But it is increasingly contributing to a crippling inertia, focusing too narrowly on bricks and mortar, divorcing itself from a broad public that has other priorities and needs--other things it wishes to preserve. Can we save what matters most in the service of progress? 

The architecture critic for The New York Times, Michael Kimmelman is the author , most recently, of "The Intimate City," founder and editor-at-large of Headway, a philanthropically supported initiative at the Times focused on global challenges and paths toward progress, and he teaches in Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. 

Q&A and refreshments to follow.