preservation and memory

I don't know what got me thinking about Madison Square Garden, but its status as a New York destination is fairly secure, even if its architecture leaves something to be desired. This picture is simply beautiful, and in some ways, refers unintentionally to the incredible detail of the Penn Station that was demolished so that future generations could enjoy rock concerts and hockey games. (Disclosure: the only big rock concert I have ever been to was there--cheap seats)

I have mixed feeling about preservation, partly because I don't consider architecture as ever reaching a stopping point. A building is always changing--deteriorating, getting repaired, getting new occupants, becoming obsolete. Demolition and erasure from collective memory is the fate of things made by human hands. The longevity of religious and mortuary architecture is the exception, not the rule, and if we aspire to that type of timescale then we deny ourselves room for improvement. I'm particularly enamored of Italian churches that would undergo several facade renovations over the centuries. The Florence Cathedral is the most noteworthy example.