I read an architecture story once where a preservationist was asked to comment on the demolition of an old public library in Brooklyn. “It was not a major work,” she said tactfully. Translation: it was ugly, and we have to pick our battles. It was an attitude I wish Moscow’s preservationists had adopted on Tuesday rather than taking to the streets in defense of the Central House of Artists, a museum complex that houses two major galleries. For one thing, these activists should be conserving their negligible political capital for buildings they have a chance of saving. For another, the Central House of Artists is an awful building that deserves to be torn down.