August 2010 RM Journal
Guilty!
The inconvenient truth about our heritage
Adam Wild, (Archifact) architecture & conservation
The tentative definitions of heritage currently in use in New Zealand are perhaps reflective of our own uncertain regard for the value of stories, places, sites, monuments, buildings and objects that attest to our heritage. These definitions and an understanding of the meaning and role of heritage are perhaps all the more constrained by our historic concern for value judgements rather than for more locally derived meanings. It is strangely prophetic if one considers that the initial reaction to what qualifies today as the place of highest heritage ranking in Auckland, that at the time of its construction it was described as a “pretentious building”, a “thing to be reviled” and a “sham”.
