Historic buildings live a double life between climate-adapted largely-passive structures and draughty, poorly-maintained ones. Preservation professionals argue that preserving these structures is more resource effective than constructing new buildings, and that pre-electricity structures were built to take advantage of climate and geography, using passive technologies to perform efficiently. Modern technologies have also been adopted- electrical lights, air conditioning, fire alarms - as a natural progression of inhabitation. Yet in historic house museums, there is still the promise of historic representation, one unmarred by ‘inauthentic’ additions. If modern and past technological changes have been accepted and integrated, how is the historic house museum not a ‘living building culture’? And if house museums are indeed a living building culture, why not allow a more flexible representation of our historic properties if they are interpreted with integrity and honesty? The EPA estimates that buildings represent 65% of the U.S. electricity use, and predictions estimate 80% of the 2030 building stock exists today. If we truly plan to reduce our energy consumption, we must confront the reality that existing buildings are a significant contributor to our output. If, as curators, it is our hope for historic buildings to represent preservation, then we must admit that in preserving the past for the future, we must begin by preserving our future. This thesis analyses the opportunities and risks for historic house museums to respect their historic interpretation but adapt to changing conditions. Examples of energy efficiency strategies both historic and current, will be examined in historic structures, illustrating that caretakers of historic buildings are making value judgments about the future of their property, in terms of environmental, fiscal and historical sustainability. This thesis includes the analysis of a case study historic house museum in Austin, Texas, the French Legation Museum, which is used as a base model for estimating energy efficiency gains from the adoption of some low-energy technologies. Calculations based on this information indicate which integrations and additions could offer the greatest return on investment for this historic building to operate as or more efficiently than a modern code construction without visible or egregious alteration to the historic fabric. / text

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Although a sizable subcategory of the nonprofit museum sector, historic house museums have received limited attention in discussions of best practices, most notably in topics of administration, funding, and risk management. Historic house museums serve as a cornerstone of American and international cultural tourism for their accessibility and low, or free, attendance costs. This research argues for historic house museum operations, rather than its period of restorative preservation, as the focus of inquiry. The subjects of this research are three sites that were the products of late nineteenth-century industrialization in the American Midwest, a region under-studied in current literature. Past scholarship on historic houses has been dedicated to preservation methodology and interpretation. No study of house museums attends to business and legal concerns as well as architectural history and preservation. Utilizing archives, interviews, and financial documents in the analysis of three case studies, I argue that historic house museums provide an illuminating lens onto issues of professional practice facing museums in the twenty-first century. This dissertation focuses on three historic house museums constructed after the 1876 Centennial and before the turn of the twentieth century. Chapter One offers the history of the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee, a German Renaissance Revival structure built in 1892 for brewing magnate Captain Frederick Pabst, and provides a discussion of community funding and post-recession heritage tourism. Chapter Two details the story of the Driehaus Museum in Chicago, a Renaissance Revival mansion built in 1883 for banker Samuel Nickerson and now funded primarily by investor Richard Driehaus. This chapter illuminates the issues of single-donor funding, the problematization of definitions of the historic house museum, and modern development of private art collections. Chapter Three is dedicated to the Samuel Cupples House in St. Louis, a Richardsonian Romanesque residence constructed in 1890 for manufacturing magnate Samuel Cupples and now owned by Saint Louis University, and delves into topics of institutional stewardship and university management of cultural resources. The conclusion proposes a diversification of scholarship concerning historic house museums that embraces financial management to ensure operational sustainability.

Historic house museums have been the subject of very little structured research. As ideal learning environments for young children they have the potential to facilitate very special educational interactions, yet children's experiences in house museums remain relatively unexplored, with very little professional analysis of the nature, the value or the impact of school visits. As museums, historic houses are educational institutions, yet with limited professional expertise and restricted resources as commonplace, many house museums provide very little in the way of structured educational experiences for schools. This study aims to increase our understanding of educational encounters in house museums. Using Falk and Dierking's Interactive Experience Model this thesis explores the personal, physical and social contexts of young children's visits to house museums. It follows the progress of children aged 5-8 years, as they participate in class visits to two very different kinds of house museum. A structured, age-appropriate education program implemented at Calthorpes' House is compared to the approach taken at Blundells' Cottage, where a lack of resources and professional expertise has resulted in unstructured school visits, typical of amateur house museums throughout Australia. The study directly compares these structured and non-structured museum visits to determine the immediate and long term value of constructed learning experiences in historic houses. The thesis concludes that the structure of a school visit has a significant influence on the museum experience. Research revealed that structured education programs prepare children better for their visit, allow for more successful interactive experiences on site, encourage enjoyable social interactions and result in more detailed museum memories. Finally this thesis outlines implications for house museums as a result of this research and makes recommendations to assist under-resourced house museums provide more structured, more informed educational interactions for schools.

The study conducted was An Appreciative Inquiry approach into the post-merger Campbell Collections at UKZN. The study was meant to explore and discover the value of the Campbell Collections in the new merged institution, which is the University of KwaZulu- Natal. The study was appreciative in nature, and it took the complete interconnected elements that affect the system into consideration. Every year since 2004, when the University of Natal and the University of Durban Westville were officially declared as merged, there have been various changes that took place. The merger is one huge change project that the universities engaged in. Thus the concepts ‘merger’ and ‘change’ were used inter-changeably in the study. The background on the merger was brought into perspective, and an in-depth literature review on Appreciative Inquiry was conducted. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) introduced to the study a research perspective that was very different in focus from more traditional approaches. AI is a highly participative, systemwide approach that seeks to identify and enhance the life-giving forces. It concentrates on things we want to increase to add value, and it is a radical approach to understanding the social world. It concentrates on exploring ideas that people have about what is valuable in what they do and then tries to work out ways in which this can be built on. The emphasis is strong on appreciating the activities and responses of people, rather than focusing on their problems. Appreciative Inquiry is declared to be a strong pillar of research which looks to build a productive link between people and the substance of what they talk about as past and present capacities. In general AI studies are carried out through the use of 4-D Cycles. The 4-Ds represent: discovery; dream; design and destiny. This study was conducted through the application of only two Ds which are discovery and dream phases. The questions used in data gathering were crafted based on affirmative topics to meet the principles of AI. The interview technique was employed and carried out in the form of individual/one-one interviews as well as through focus groups. All Campbell Collections’ staff members were invited to participate in the study, and a few former staff members were also part of the study. The strategic decisions made about whom to invite to take part in a study were based on their experience, familiarity, and understanding of Campbell Collections and the merger. The study findings revealed the strengths and value of Campbell Collections as well as the impact of the merger, mainly in terms of decisions taken at the University’s executive level. One limitation of the study was that it was bound to Campbell Collections; therefore, the information generated could not be generalised and remained specific to the particular case studied. However, the same research can be studied further to evaluate the entire postmerger system of the University. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

One hundred and seventy-eight pieces of Victorian furniture in six Texas historic house museums have been photographed and researched in order to fulfill the three-part problem. (1) to research and write descriptive essays of the four major Victorian substyles--Victorian Empire, Rococo Revival, Renaissance Revival, and Eastlake; (2) to identify and choose six Texas historic houses which are open to the public and which display these Victorian substyles in period room settings; and (3) to identify, photograph, measure, and catalogue each piece of authentic Victorian furniture, and to compile a research guide which includes each of these six houses and their Victorian furnishings. This six-part guide includes brief histories of each house and a catalogue of authentic pieces which represent the major substyles of Victorian furniture. To give the study a broad base, and to make it useful for all students, teachers, and professional interior designers in Texas, two houses which represented the best collections of furniture from each geographic location were chosen. These included: (1 ) from North Texas, the George House and Millermore, both in Dallas; (2) in Central Texas, East Terrace and Fort House, located in Waco; and (3) in South Texas, Fulton Mansion in Fulton Beach, and McNamara House in Victoria. All four of the most popular substyles are represented in the six houses.

This thesis is an exploration of queer domesticity, queer possibility and intuitionin historic house museums. It develops a methodological framework intended to intervene in archival, research, interpretive and institutional practices at these sites. Using the Elfreth’s Alley Museum’s podcast The Alley Cast as a case study, I examine how utilizing a framework that understands queerness to be just as possible as straightness; that uses intuition to guide research; and queer and trans theory to denaturalize categories of sexuality and gender can uncover queer domestic patterns that unsettle and disrupt the public’s hetero- and cisnormative assumptions about the past. I argue that this is a framework that can be adopted by historic house museums in order to engage with queer history when evidence may be lacking or whose historical subjects’ gender or sexuality resists easy classification. Finally, I argue that implementing such a framework can only be done successfully if it is engaged as part of a larger institution-wide commitment to creating a socially just and responsive museum that understands the importance of sharing complicated and difficult history with its public and dismantling its own position of power and authority. / History

Historic house museums are the focus of an ideological tension between preservation and interpretation within the public history community. At a time where many house museums are failing, preservationists advocate for solutions to the house museum dilemma focused on saving the building. Historians and other museum professionals point to the importance of the value of the collections, memories, and documents preserved within the house as critical tools for understanding and teaching American history. Of specific focus in this thesis is the role gender influence played in the formation of historic house museums and how an examination of its continuing effect on agency within heritage sites creates access points for cutting-edge public history and interpretation. This is done through a case study of the history of the Jacobsburg Historical Society's Boulton Historic Site in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. The site was the location of the Boulton Gun Works, built in 1812 by the Henry family, manufacturers of the Pennsylvania Longrifle and key members of the early industrial community of Jacobsburg, located just north of the Moravian community of Nazareth. / History

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-144)

Chan Siu Hin. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2006-2007, design report." / "Museum in youth hostel, youth hostel in museum"--Dissertation t.p. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 101). / Chapter Part 1 - --- Study of MARK I Design / HISTORY / MARK I / THE FORMAL PRINCIPLES / GENERAL CHANGES OF MARK I / STRUCTURE / SPECIFIC CHANGES OF MARK I - VARIATIONS & TYPE SOCIAL DETAILS / Chapter Part 2 - --- Programme Study / HOUSING AUTHORITY EXHIBITION CENTRE STUDY / PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME / Chapter Part 3 - --- Exploration of the Trasformation / "MEI HO HOUSE - PLAN, SECTION, ELEVATION" / PRELIMINARY IDEA FOR TRANSFORMATION