I read a report yesterday that the Miami Marine Stadium, Machu Picchu and the Old City of Jerusalem are all on the World Monuments Fund’s 2010 watch list, a sort of endangered species list of architectural monuments.

While I’ve never seen Machu Picchu, I have walked every foot of the ramparts of Sulieman the Magnificent’s wall in Jerusalem. When I compare my experience with the pictures of the Marine Stadium (at right), I’m at a loss to see a correlation.

Apart from the religious significance of the Jerusalem site and its environs, the Old City of Jerusalem is ancient, a necropolis, maybe the most important archaeological site in the world, a rich reservoir of architectural elements, design and construction types spanning more than two millennia. For example, you enter the Crusader-built church of Saint Anne near the pool of Bethesda and you hear pilgrims singing hymns that amplify and reverberate as though it’s a sound studio, as if in tribute to the miracle that occurred at its front door (John 5:5).  Meanwhile, a few miles away is a church designed by the prodigious Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi (1884-1960), The Church of St. Lazarus in Bethany. There, sound uttered collapses to the floor immediately. The design consumes any life within the space - despite the fact that the construction is cold, hard, reflective stone. Lazarus was surely dead in the adjacent tomb (John 11:1).

Jerusalem, and the incredible walls of Machu Picchu, like many other ancient wonders, Roman, Greek, Asian, African, are in a class by themselves. They have inherent mystery, history and poetry.  The Miami Marine Stadium is an interesting structure that captures a point in time and a sense of Americana, but it should clearly be in a different category.  Otherwise, those who would preserve such sites risk trivializing the more important sites.