Preserving The World's Great Cities

Preservation and heritage, while closely related to one another, has a separate and distinct meaning. Heritage, when used in a historical sense, relates to landmarks or places that have meaning to those who inhabit a country. Preservation, on the other hand, is the process of protecting any physical landmark or object and repairing it to its original state. Since preservation and heritage are similar, historians are essentially working to save a culture's society. This protection enables the landmark to be passed down from a country’s ancestors and preserved for future generations. Anthony Tung shows in the book Preserving the World's Great Cities: The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis that these two terms can have different

Japan, who did not leave any ethnical groups out of their culture, accepted all principles and values as a cohesive part of their heritage. In contrast, Germany refused to accept all parts of their culture. Instead, the country chose certain facets while ignoring Jewish culture that was a large part of their country. In the case study, this is shown when East Germany’s historic preservationists sought to save only traditional German structures such as castles and churches while disregarding the Jewish historical districts and culture. With great dismay, this led to the destruction of entire Jewish areas and synagogues with the development and construction of new homes and buildings where the Jewish buildings once stood. While some Jewish synagogues and landmarks remained untouched, Germany renovated the inside of the buildings that were left standing. One of these defunct buildings, the synagogue of Essen, was abandoned by the Jewish citizens after the end of the Second World War. Essen administrators transformed the building into a House of Industrial Design. As the transformation took place, the old interior of the building was dismantled to build exhibit cases and areas to display the German