As large-scale, modernist urban renewal projects advanced following World War II, residents of Boston’s historic neighborhoods pushed back, asserting the value of the existing built environment and enlisting new strategies, like local historic districts, to mediate change. Over time, these defenders of traditional urbanism changed from relatively conventional 1950s home- and business-owners to more countercultural, back-to-the-city technocrats, the advance guard of a new middle class. Employing previously unexplored government archives and public documents, extensive contemporaneous newspaper reports, and interviews with current and former neighborhood activists, “Home Rule” analyzes historic districting as a social movement, tracing how adherents of this cause mobilized resources to effect the policy changes they sought. While the growth of the historic preservation movement in the interwar South has been well documented, the adoption of preservation planning techniques in the post-war North is less well studied. The first chapter investigates the effort to create the first historic district in the urban North on Beacon Hill, a campaign that took place against the backdrop of a destructive urban-renewal project in the nearby West End. A neighborhood association spearheaded the effort, carefully building support, consistent with the consensus culture of the 1950s. The chapter also examines the expansion of the district and challenges to its authority. The highly contested movement to designate the Back Bay occupies the second chapter, pitting a powerful mayor and his deep-pocketed allies determined to insert high-rise towers in a historically low-rise area against a large and well-heeled neighborhood association. The third chapter examines the drive to create a statutory Landmarks Commission to regulate historic resources citywide. The chapter also explores two attempts to designate historic districts after the creation of the new agency, one effort on Ashmont Hill that failed and another in West Back Bay that succeeded. The movement to designate three contiguous historic districts – the St. Botolph Street area, Bay Village, and the South End – constitutes the fourth and last chapter. These efforts exemplify the rediscovery of urban life by an educated, progressive middle class who negotiated with various ethnic and racial minorities, transformed the city, and reinvented urban renewal. / 2018-08-11T00:00:00Z

Magister Artium - MA / The mini-thesis will examine the conservation of colonial historic buildings at Old Umtali (today Mutare) in Zimbabwe and the changes that have affected the buildings in terms of use and maintenance of their architectural character. There has been a shift in heritage management priorities in Zimbabwe and all heritage linked to colonialism has been supplanted by archaeological and liberation war heritage. The result is that the category of colonial heritage which includes historic buildings, forts and memorials have been neglected and vandalised. Various international frameworks in the conservation of buildings will be referred to in this research in examining related questions of urban heritage management. The dichotomy that exists between conservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings as these issues have unfolded at Old Umtali, a former colonial town with historic buildings constructed in 1891 will be at the centre of this interrogation. Notwithstanding the changes in heritage management priorities in Zimbabwe, the irony is that heritage practitioners are still obliged to conserve historic buildings by legislation. This work then attempts to place back the question of conserving historic buildings on the conservation agenda for a post-colonial Zimbabwe. I argue that historic buildings should be conserved and used for different contemporary purposes and at the same time becoming the subject of interpretative work. Questions can then be asked about the experience of colonialism and the various movements of the Pioneer Column in Zimbabwe using the case study of Old Umtali. In this thesis conservation of historic buildings is not just a technical question but is also seen as an intellectual, epistemological and political question.

Thesis (M. L. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Includes special report study entitled: First cultural landscape. Also available in printed format.

The objective of the study was to gain new insight into archival building documentation in the United States since 1933 focusing on Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) as a case study. It sought to help explain how individuals with different levels of involvement with the HABS program, and throughout its entire history, understood the development, current operational context, and future direction of HABS. Seven general philosophical and practical issues were explored: 1) how HABS documentation standards were understood and applied, 2) the relative values of the process and products of documentation, 3) the understanding and application of the objective and subjective natures of the documentation process, 4) whether the mission of the program had changed with changes in the operation of the program since its inception, 5) the role of technology in the process of HABS documentation and how it shapes the end products, 6) defining broader historical epochs with the goal of adding to existing understandings of the history of the program, and 7) the causes and effects of HABS drawing style changes over time.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-140).

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes special report study entitled: Conservation strategies in Singapore & Hong Kong. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes special report study entitled: The pattern language of unique Stanley. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes special report study entitled: Infra-sturcture on water. Includes bibliographical references.

How can interpretation be used to promote the sustainable conservation of a historic site? What is meant by sustainable conservation of historic sites is examined and its three aspects: the social, financial, and environmental defined. On the basis of a critical literature review, objectives for an interpretation plan that promotes the sustainability of a historic site are stated. Through case studies, current interpretive practices are examined and evaluated as to their potential for meeting these objectives. Sites chosen for study were identified by heritage professionals as ‘best practices.’ Case studies include Valley Forge National Park, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania; Burton Cotton Gin Museum, Burton, Texas; Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, New Hampshire; President Lincoln’s Cottage, Washington D.C.; and the National Steel & Iron Heritage Museum, Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Based on the results of case study research, a best practices methodology is developed for writing an interpretation plan with sustainability among its central goals and practical examples of the unique ways in which each site addresses the different aspects of sustainability are given. The methodology developed is tested by outlining an interpretation plan for the Zedler Mill in Luling, Texas that promotes sustainability. This mill was a driving economic force in this small South Central Texas town for a period of nearly ninety years from 1874 to 1964. As with any historic site, conservation of the mill site today and into the future depends upon community support. My findings demonstrate how interpretation programs can provide the community (society) with social and economic benefits that can sustain that support. / text

In few cities will one find a landscape so scarred with the physical remains of its contentious recent past as Berlin. The capital city boasts recognizable and well-known relics from not only the Third Reich, but also from its time as communist East and capitalist West Berlin. Inconspicuously sitting in two of Berlin’s largest public parks though are two hills not as easily identifiable as other historic sites. Hidden beneath the grassy hills, the massive concrete remains of 1940s flak towers have slowly made their way into the historical consciousness of Berliners. In examining the evolution of the Nazi-built towers in the consciousness of Berliners, this thesis attempts to gain a better understanding of the city’s confrontation with the toxic relics in their landscape left from the Third Reich through a less-recognizable and less-contentious structure. / text