Twelve percent of the planet now falls under various systems of natural and cultural preservation. According to Koolhaas, heritage is becoming more and more the dominant metaphor for our lives today—a situation he calls “Cronocaos.” Koolhaas seeks to find what the future of our memory will look like, and how our obsession with heritage is creating an artificial re-engineered version of our memory. Lacking a set of coherent strategies or policies and generally not engaged by architects and designers, preservation is an under-examined topic, but increasingly relevant as we enter an age of “Cronocaos,” in which the boundaries between preservation, construction, and demolition collapse, forever changing the course of linear evolution of time.123

..... the architect Rem Koolhaas accused preservationists of aimlessly cherry-picking the past; of destroying people’s complex sense of urban evolution; and, most damningly, of bedding down with private developers to create gentrified urban theme parks.....

In other words, preservation morphed into a four-headed monster: a planning tool, a design review tool, a development tool and a tool to preserve genuinely valuable old neighborhoods and buildings. Today decisions about managing urban development are frequently framed as decisions about what and what not to preserve, with little sense of how those decisions affect the surrounding neighborhood. 

Worse, these decisions are mostly left to the whims of overly empowered preservation boards, staffed by amateurs casting their nets too widely and indiscriminately. And too many buildings are preserved not because of their historic value or aesthetic significance, but because of political or economic deal-making.

Instead of bashing preservation, we should restrict it to its proper domain. Design review boards, staffed by professionals trained in aesthetics and urban issues and able to influence planning and preservation decisions, should become an integral part of the urban development process. At the same time, city planning offices must be returned to their former, powerful role in urban policy4

• 1. http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/441
• 2. http://www.oma.eu/index.php?option=com_projects&view=project&id=1260&Itemid=10
• 3. http://www.dutchdesignevents.com/dutchartevents/usa/usa-new-york/2011/05/02/upcoming-cronocaos-exhibition-by-rem-koolhaas-at-the-new-museum-new-york-city/
• 4. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/opinion/11Goldhagen.html