Historic Preservation & Misc Information

ARE Note: Amount of tested information on Architectural History has significantly changed from ARE 4 to ARE 5. You should thoroughly review the ARE Guidelines, such as this one provided by NCARB, to fully understand the scope of required knowledge. Regardless, historical research can only help your career.

Historic Preservation

Not all buildings are destined to be destroyed. Many buildings that provide historical or cultural significance may ultimately end up eligible for historic protection or some sort of preservation. There are many different approaches to historic preservation, between keeping a structure used by everyday society, such as a train station, to preserving old structures of historical significance such as a founding father’s homestead. How and when an intervention occurs, is determined by the scope, cost, societal value; along with ultimately the will power of the society/local governments/non-profits/etc to achieve a result.

A general strategy to most renovations regarding historic structures is only to restore those pieces that are in danger in some way. Whether it's a building that may fall on others, or a space which is on its last leg of being waterproof. You want to generally do as little work as possible to places; in order to save on cost and keep things as historically accurate as possible.