Will a new craze for historic houses help protect China’s cultural heritage – or do just the opposite?

Well “craze” might be a bit strong…but this story and pics/video on the Asia Society’s ChinaFile site is interesting…

When, in 1996, art historian Nancy Berliner purchased a late Qing dynasty merchants’ house from Huangcun, a village in Anhui province, it was just one ordinary house among thousands like it in the picturesque Huizhou region of China. It took Berliner seven years to oversee the meticulous process of dismantling and shipping the house, called Yin Yu Tang, and then re-erecting it at the Peabody Essex museum in Salem, Massachusetts. A decade has passed since it was opened to the American public in 2003. Now the crown jewel of the museum, it is widely considered in both the United States and China to be a rare successful example of preserving a historic building by moving it from the spot where it first stood. But today a growing interest in collecting traditional architecture in China has thrown a spotlight on the practice called yidi baohu, “preservation through relocation.”