08 Oct Preservation Mass conference puts people at the center of Historic Preservation
HBI made it out to Worcester for Preservation Massachusetts’s annual Historic Preservation Conference on September 27th. While it has been several years since Preservation Massachusetts held an in-person conference due to the fallout from Covid, it had been nearly ten years since the organization had returned to historic “Wormtown” for its annual state-wide conference.
The conference was held at the historic Hanover Theatre, which was originally built in 1904 as a vaudeville theatre called Poli’s Palace and had transitioned to being a movie house in the latter half of the 20th century. The architect who designed it was Thomas Lamb, who also famously designed the Boston Opera House. In the early 2000s, Edward P. Maddeus bought the building and restored the theatre to its former gilded glory, with nearly $11 million in historic preservation grants and tax credits covering a portion of the $32 million it took to rehabilitate the space. It was a beautifully appropriate place to contemplate what brings us together as preservationists.
This year’s theme was “The Power of Narrative,” with the President and CEO of Landmarks Illinois, Bonnie McDonald, giving the keynote address “Tell me a story: Narrative’s Universal Value.” Traversing state lines, Ms. McDonald reminded us all that it is imperative we keep people at the heart of preservation. Talking about our industry tendency to get carried away with a building’s architecturally significant details, she reminded us that we inadvertently make our passion for preservation exclusionary when we so heavily rely on those details for telling our stories.
Ms. McDonald reminded us that historic preservation exists to help us retain the places that tell our stories. She brought us back to why we at HBI do what we do: to make space for the places and people that have been forgotten to history to be recognized today as places that continue to inspire and create opportunity for those who remain. In failing to express the human component inherent within historic preservation, we’ve lost so much more than we’ve saved in bricks and mortar.
Thank you for a great conference Preservation MA!
