The keynote speaker at the 2024 Preserve Iowa Summit was a man by the name of Brent Leggs, vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  During his talk, he said something off the cuff… just a short aside that I actually think is somewhat radical: “Preservation is grounded in interpretation.”  

When he said that, I pulled out my pen immediately and scrambled to find a piece of paper to record it on…  This quote captures the essence of this presentation: while the researching, designing, and rehabilitating a historic building can be a great way to personally understand a building’s story, SHARING that information is how we create and solidify human connections.