Great government houses are never still. They grow, age and change with their nations, each alteration leaving a trace of the ideals and anxieties of its time. Architecture is the archive that never stops recording. To tear down a part of it is to edit the story of who we are as a nation.

The recent demolition of the White House’s East Wing — the most consequential alteration to that building in more than a century — feels so profound, and so chilling precisely because it makes visible, in brick and dust, what happens when we lose reverence for continuity.

Every layer of paint, brick and marble holds certain truths about its makers and its era — about what was valued and what kind of future people thought they were creating. Roman concrete, for example, is a technological advancement tha

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