THE RED HOUSE : CULTURE BEING NEGLECTED!!

This is a picture of the famous Red House. This building can be said to be a cultural, historical and political  artefact and is a great object of value to Trinidad and Tobago. However, this picture does not depict a glorious building as describes but shows a deteriorating building. This once glorious building is now deemed unimportant and broken down by many citizens. The current Red House building was built in 1907, however, the building existed since 1844 but was destroyed by fire in 1903. As one can tell by the history of the building, there is a lot of value or meaning attached to this building. This then brings up the question of why this building is allowed to deteriorate when other new modern buildings are being constructed. Why not improve our buildings that have a high value within society first then look forward to building new contemporary building within the city. How long would our historical, cultural and political artefact be left to deteriorate until it disappears completely?????

According to the textbook, work done by Jon Goss gave the idea that there should be a rise in the idea that buildings should be categorized as either cultural artefacts, objects of value, signs and as spatial systems. Goss argued that all building have meanings and that we need to figure out what exactly is the meaning. According to the textbook, building s of value should be maintained as these building are landmarks to the beginning of civilization and as such have strong values attached to them. 

The links below give some important details about the restoration of the Red House and also the history and other important details: 

    

http://www.udecott.com/index.php/cc/cc_project_item/restoration_of_the_red_house/

http://www.wecaribbean.net/the-red-house/

http://guardian.co.tt/news/2013-02-16/deterioration-and-neglect-red-house-restoration-stalls

REFERENCES

Hall,Tim and Heather Barrett. Urban Geography. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print 

Hartshorn, Truman. Interpreting the City: An Urban Geography. United States of America: John Wiley and Sons, 1980. Print