In order to convey the idea that preservation is posited on the disappearance of the historical site, Ackbar defines preservation as selective and tends to exclude the dirt and pain, and provides three examples that illustrate three perspectives: we should not retain the building s that assimilate into the surrounding environment but still creates the gaze of coloniality, troubling people’s cognition of identities; the reincarnation of old buildings is not preservation since it aestheticizing the house out of existence; rebuild has its aesthetic meanings in films or architecture but no longer contain the idea of preservation.
We can see that author retains a generally negative opinion towards “preservation”. Through the unreasonable preservation took by Hongkong people, he catches the point that Hongkong people actually need a settlement of their identity and try to define a sense of place through buildings and other means, during the period that China is going to take governing right.
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I appreciate how you tried to summarize the three ideas that come out from the three preservation projects showcased by Abbas. However, I would encourage you to give your reader more context/ elaboration about your idea. For instance, in your last point on rebuilding, how to contain the idea of preservation in rebuilding then? Do you have good examples?
I understand that Abbas has critiqued the preservation projects in his text, with vivid examples. Nonetheless, if we simply state what we ‘should not’ do in preservation without examples, it will easily become didactic. In fact, every preservation project is different. I would love to see how you view other preservation projects in Hong Kong concerning your understanding of Abbas’ text.