until Sunday September 14 2025

Swiss Architecture Museum
Steineberg 7
CH-4001 Basel
Switzerland

Contact

T : +41 (0)61 261 14 13
info@sam-basel.org
https://www.sam-basel.org/en/

Preservation is progressive: In current efforts to shift towards more sustainable building practices (known in German as the Bauwende, or ‘building turnaround’), preservation and maintenance of the existing building stock play a central role. The alteration or conversion of an existing building is considerably more resource-efficient than a comparable new build. This is leading to changes in the nature of architecture itself: where the focus used to be on new construction, building upon the built is increasingly considered the future of the discipline. In this context, the theory and practice of historic preservation also gain a new urgency. The discipline has always regarded the built stock as a valuable resource and has developed different methods and approaches to carefully preserve the existing for the future. What can be learned from this approach and what new impulses can arise from a deeper dialogue between preservation and architecture?

The exhibition takes the 50th anniversary of the European Architectural Heritage Year of 1975 as an opportunity to look into the past, present, and future of preservation.

Curated by: Yuma Shinohara (S AM)