Historic Preservation

Historic preservation or Heritage management is the theory and practice of creatively maintaining the historic built environment and controlling the landscape component of which it is an integral part. The Secretary of the Interior of the U.S. more...

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government defines the historic environment as districts, sites, buildings, structures, objects, and landscapes which are significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture.

People practice preservation for many reasons. Preservation helps maintain identity, educates people about history, is an economic tool for planners and governments, and creates dialogues about shared values.

The creative reuse of obsolete structures dates to the end of the 4th century in Europe, when the Theodosian decrees had rendered pagan temples obsolete, and Christian basilicas began to be built within those that were not demolished. Sacred wells became baptisteries from the 5th century. Creative reuse of historic structures remains at issue today.

In England, Antiquarian interests had been a familiar gentleman's pursuit since the mid 17th century, developing in tandem with the rise in scientific curiosity: Fellows of the Royal Society were often also Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries (Summerson). The UK's Ancient Monuments Act of 1912 officially preserved certain decayed and obsolete structures of intrinsic historical and associative interest, just as Modernism was lending moral authority to destruction of the built heritage in the name of progress. The UK's National Trust began with the preservation of historic houses and has steadily increased its scope. In the UK's subsequent Town and Planning Act (1944) steps were undertaken towards historic preservation on an unprecedented scale.

In the United States, cultural resistance towards any kind of zoning as a form of intrusive interference, slowed the formation of preservation trusts with a government connection. Though a Ladies' Association had already taken responsibility for the preservation of Washington's Mount Vernon in 1889, the Richmond, Virginia-based Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities was the United States' first statewide historic preservation group. The US National Trust for Historic Preservation, another privately funded non-profit organization, began in 1949 with a handful of privileged structures and has developed goals that provide \"leadership, education, advocacy, and resources to save America's diverse historic places and revitalize our communities\" according to the Trust's mission statement . In 1951 the Trust assumed responsibility for its first museum property, Woodlawn Plantation in northern Virginia. Twenty houses in all have subsequently become part of the National Trust, most of them architecturally elite. In New York City, the destruction of Pennsylvania Station in 1964 shocked many in that city into supporting preservation. Under the direction of James Marston Fitch, the first university historic preservation program was begun at Columbia University in 1964.

Read more at Wikipedia.org