Kitty's thoughts

Some parties feel that by doing any sort of alteration of an original structure the integrity and authenticity of the site is compromised. When originality is not upheld the site almost becomes fake, useless and undermined. Other parties feel that is little is done, but the overall structure is maintained that there is no problem with altering, re-touching and doing whatever is necessary to sustain the structure. The question really remains: At what point does attempting to maintain turn a structure from the original build into something completely new?

The necessity of the vocabulary is particularly important in marking exactly what steps are being taken with such endeavors. According to the article, and in all truth, the words used really do best describe the method by which certain buildings are worked on, and the eventual outcome. By not using and understanding the proper words there will be a total misunderstanding as to what product will be produced from the work.

The importance of the article is to educate the public on the efforts and problems with the restoration process, because the US has a very long history with this issue. Also the verbiage used to discuss such activities is essential to communicating to the community dealing with such sites because it is necessary to detail exactly what activities will be taking place, what actions will be taken and what sort of final product will there be. If one is restoring a site, rehabbing it or reconstructing, the final product could be vastly different. By using modern products there will be a different result than if one seeks out the original mediums by which the structure was built in order to keep authenticity, and yet, certain parties would find that in appropriate for the final result.

My thoughts are that sometimes repair and replacement are necessary. When it comes to buildings, some materials do not last forever. The process of maintaining a site is tricky. I stand with the idea that these structures are valuable and at certain points steps must be taken in order to keep such structures around for any length of time. There eventually, all materials fail, but as much as I wish that we could keep things as they are in permanence, it is simply not possible.

Materials can be found and researched, and attempts can be made to stop or hinder destruction, but also there are debates on which destruction is worse, is it the eventual disintegration of a site that is worse, or is it the attempt to remake, or maintain the site by any means necessary that really causes the eventual loss of the site to the public. I think that the public deserves to see, keep and maintain these sites and there are ways to do this so that things can be both sustained as much as possible and maintain integrity.