Time out to Learn

Last week I attended the APTI conference in Los Angeles.  The Association of Preservation Technology International is a great organization of professionals involved in the restoration of our heritage in the built environment. Attendees were architects to trades men, from educators to art conservators from all over the United States Canada and South America, all there to learn from each other and share their findings. There were papers presented from Adobe restoration to saving public murals to drying wet buildings. Papers are presented on projects showing what the challenge was and the procedure followed to try and resolve the issue. Some have no easy solution and more study is needed but we all learn from both success and failures.

One of the best things in this institution is the evolvement of students. The organization has collage students who are studying preservation in collage present case studies that they are working on. It gives me much confidence in the talent that is coming out of the universities that have preservation studies.

I wish that all professionals involved in restoration would attend these conferences but sadly most do not. You have to ask though would you want a firm working on your historical building that is not keeping up with all the issues that affect the restoration of these buildings especially in the light of how some restoration efforts in past have resulted in increased damage to the buildings instead of preserving them.