ABSTRACT
Years ago, when we embarked on surveys of old cities, the number of important buildings was often felt to be too large for any government to consider supporting the conservation for all of them at once. Not only that, but many people came to the view that the buildings alone should not be conserved, but that it was important to retain as far as possible their functioning life and their value to the community, and that should include the original physical ambience of the monuments, that is, their setting in the urban fabric. They should neither be isolated from the life of the neighborhood nor from the original buildings around them, as had been done with many of the son-etlumiere presentations.
