Essay #102 "Old Buildings" 29.04.18 In recent decades with the growth of modern cities, it has become extremely common to demolish old buildings in order to build modern ones instead. And it has divided society into two parts: one thinks that it is just wrong to destruct our history, while the other believes that it is just a natural process. I will try to explain why national architecture is important and how it can co-exist with progress and modernization without clashing. Historical buildings are very important for national culture because they represent its unique vibes, and without them a whole nation can lose its face and became indistinguishable amongst others. With the new trend to build modern styled buildings, many cities, despite being located in different countries, became almost similar. This has happened only because they have lost their historical sites. Another thing is not about the representation of unique culture right now, but about passing it to the next generations. National architecture is one of the most important parts of a culture, and without its preservation, it is very hard for the next generations to inherit national ideas and values. We have to understand that old buildings and progress are not the opposites; we can make them to exist together in harmony. There a lot of examples all over the world where people are able to save their culture and at the same time not to impede technological progress in architecture. It is especially clearly seen in eastern countries, where skyscrapers are located side-by-side with ancient temples and old-fashioned markets without clashing with them. People just have to understand its importance that influences not only their lives, but the lives of their children as well. Moreover, we should not use progress as a means to erase the national features of countries and make them absolutely generic and faceless. To conclude, national history is very important for raising children and in the forming of society, and architecture is one of the most important parts of it. By demolishing old and replacing it with new, we lose our connection with previous generations and cut off our ancestry. Thus, this awful trend turns unique cities into some sort of worn-out pattern which influences people as well, making them indistinguishable like the cities they live in. So, in order to save our uniqueness, we have to save the uniqueness of our cities. It is the only way to protect our culture for the next generations.