We take a look at preservation issues in the United States, past and future. From its 19th-century beginnings at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, preservation has expanded to address wide-ranging issues of representation, history, and, of late, the environment.

Photomontage © Margaret Riegel

Preservation and adaptive reuse stories form our video library:

• The New Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center
• Learning from the Lieb House
• The New York Public Library’s Mulberry Street Branch
• My San Francisco: Swedenborgian Church
• My San Francisco: The Ferry Building
• My San Francisco: The Old U.S. Mint
• The Foster + Partners Courtyard at the National Portrait Gallery
• My Boston: The Liberty Hotel

Pictured: Photographer Iwan Baan shoots Alice Tully Hall

From a Brazilian Chapel to an Arkansas office building to a New York concert hall, the six projects in this month’s portfolio show designers revisiting, updating, and rethinking existing structures from a range of perspectives.

Photo © Iwan Baan

This month's technology section highlights several innovative, and unconventional approaches to building preservation. Forward-looking designers reinvent the past by updating Modern buildings, while a 20th-century addition is peeled away to reveal a historic home.

• The Iconic Lieb House Finds a New Home
• San Francisco’s 185 Post Street Gets a Luminous Lift
• Utilitarian Docks de Paris Make a Fashion Statement
• 240 Central Park South Completes Columbus Circle

Photo courtesy Douglas J. Lister, Architect

Critic Martin Filler looks back on 50 years of Lincoln Center and finds plenty to complain about in terms of its urban plan and architecture.

Photo © Arnold Newman/Corbis