Preserving traditional architectures
When people walk on the street in downtown Shanghai or Mahantton New York, it is hard to distinguish which city or country it is. With the development of economic and worldwide information networks, more and more skyscrapers emerge around the world. People have financial and technical support to make the city as modern as they want. Some of the countries started to build lots of new buildings to show their advanced development. However, they ignore the protection of traditional architecture. While some people may say people are familiar with their countries traditional architecture, I believe we should preserve traditional architecture globally by joining and working with united nations educational scientific and cultural organization(UNESCO) or other global organizations because it gives countries a platform to share their cultural and give information they need.
With the emergence of modern architecture at the end of the century from revolutions in technology, engineering, and building materials, the world has set off a trend in the construction industry. Different countries around the world compete with each other to build the highest building in the world, the largest number of skyscrapers, and the most modern urban planning in the world because they want to show off how advanced they are. Every country wants to at least look like one of those most developed countries in the world. So they copy-paste their modernism architecture style and apply it to their own city without thinking, which cost the monotonous city outlook around the world.
Of course, there are lots of famous architects and their modernist buildings born through these years, which adds fresh blood to art. However, destroying some old, traditional architecture to crazy building identical skyscrapers will not only make all the cities become more and more similar, but it also causes the disappearance of culture. When people decided to make their city more “modern”, the first thing they want to destroy will be something “old”. People would like to replace traditional architecture with some modernist buildings especially if they cannot realize the value of the traditional architecture they destroyed. However, using traditional architecture does not mean living in the lagging old buildings. People can transform and retrofit them to make traditional buildings more suitable for modern life. For example, adding advanced electronic and water systems to traditional buildings or transforming their original office function of them to the museum. After the change and remold, traditional architecture can be something brand new with a local specialty. Some international organizations are helpful to achieve these purposes.
Hence the development around the world is unbalanced, some countries may do not have the appropriate technology to support their demand for the protection of architecture even want. Joining UNESCO means they can get help from the organization to preserve their culture. UNESCO can send technology resources and professional people to the place of historical architecture. There has another problem for undeveloped areas is that due to the lack of education, people in those places may do not have conscious to preserve local culture. The most important thing for them is basic living needs like food and a clean living environment. Then they may not pay attention to the traditional architecture and think about its meaning and usage. For example, fifty years ago, China was a country with brilliant architectural culture and undeveloped education levels. In Dunhuang, Mogao Grottoes, a guard repainted murals thousands of years ago with white color just to make the walls look clean. Not to mention lots of people around the world come to the violent removal of some architectural decorations and sell them into different places. If China work with some international organizations at that time, some professional teams would send to Mogao Grottoes and helped Chinese people to repair and preserve those brilliant cultural treasures. Also, it is hard for some countries that are going through war to protect their own traditional architecture. As we know, during the war, both sides of the war cannot distinguish traditional architecture in another country. Also, they need people to mediate between the two countries. In this situation, global organizations are the best choice. Global organizations can help countries in the war to negotiate between them and try to get an equal result.
Joining international organizations not only builds a network for sharing information and technology but also promotes national culture to the world. People from other countries will have faster access to learn diverse cultures, which makes advantages for every country. Preserving traditional architecture nationally also has public their special buildings and culture, but it is hard to publicize their own culture in other countries without any help. They may like to publicize their own culture first. When people around the world learn about the beautiful architecture in some places, people would like to visit and see what it looks like exactly and enjoy the diverse culture. As a result, it will facilitate the development of local tourism and benefit local industry. For example, after the Great Wall was defined as a World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1987, tons of tourists in every place around the world come to visit The Great Wall. Those people usually lived in Beijing for a week and eat and shopped in Beijing. The economic benefit brought by foreign tourists is over 8 billion dollars. Therefore, joining international organizations can benefit countries economically and technologically.
UNESCO is an international organization that helps lots of countries to save their cultural heritage. However, UNESCO cannot solve everything and save all traditional architectures in the world because the traditional architectures or other cultures they protected were carefully selected. People need other solutions to protect their traditional architectures globally. Joining some organizations built by volunteers is a good choice. With more and more people starting to realize the importance to protect their own culture, there are a lot of organizations built by volunteers spontaneously. People from different countries are tied together to gather information and separate those architectures with their age, style, and scarcity, which increases the efficiency in traditional architecture protection.
Preserving traditional architecture in a global way facilitates the development of economic, cultural, and technology. During this global cooperation of traditional architecture protection, it is helpful for different countries to facilitate some other cooperation in economics or politics. We should connect together to protect our common cultural heritage.
