CRITICAL CONSERVATION IS…

Critical Conservation applies issues of culture, history, and identity to design and development transcending such outdated dialectics as past/future, traditional/modern, and us/them.

The MDes program in Critical Conservation has been formed to shape a broader conversation about design and development that engages 21^stcentury questions of environmental, social and economic sustainability in service to an ever more pluralist and global society. Critical Conservation explores how history and constructed narratives of heritage are used as instruments of power to control the identity of places and the subsequent inclusion and exclusion of populations that are the focus of those acts. The program makes clear that instead of being about buildings or places, truly critical conservation is about social justice. Critical Conservation provides designers with a methodological foundation to research the cultural systems that frame conflicts inherent in making progressive places—the cultural ecology of place. It provides research methods and a theoretical background to understand the social constructs embedded in dynamic cultural meaning associated with places, artifacts, and history. The knowledge gained provides an understanding that decisions critical to place-making involving the uses of history and group identity demand that an ethical perspective be part of the design process.