Stranded in Time: Protecting Properties Outside the Period of Significance in Existing Historic Districts
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Date
2014
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MA in Historic Preservation
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To view a complete copy of this thesis please contact Goucher College Special Collections & Archives at archives@goucher.edu or (410) 337-6075.
Subjects
historic preservation
historic districts
National Register of Historic Places criteria
period of significance
minimum age requirements in historic preservation
preservation of modern architecture
recent past preservation
design guidelines
architectural variety in historic districts
Washington, D.C.
Cleveland Park Historic District
Historic preservation -- Theses
National Register of Historic Places
Historic districts -- Washington (D.C.) -- Preservation.
historic districts
National Register of Historic Places criteria
period of significance
minimum age requirements in historic preservation
preservation of modern architecture
recent past preservation
design guidelines
architectural variety in historic districts
Washington, D.C.
Cleveland Park Historic District
Historic preservation -- Theses
National Register of Historic Places
Historic districts -- Washington (D.C.) -- Preservation.
Abstract
Historic designation captures a judgment about the significance of historic places
and their components at a particular moment in time. The classification of resources
within a historic district as historically significant or insignificant, contributing or
noncontributing, is made at the time of designation on the basis of association with the
district's period of significance. Properties outside the period of significance receive a
lower level of protection, despite their location in protected historic places. They are
subject to alteration that destroys their integrity, as historic district regulations encourage
assimilation to the dominant styles of the period of significance. Resources that later
generations might come to appreciate as historically significant may, by reason of their
status as outliers in older historic settings, not survive intact long enough to receive
informed reevaluation. Such reassessment tends, in any case, to be a low priority in local
preservation programs.Communities have options for improving the prospects that out-of-period
properties will survive long enough to be reappraised for potential historic significance,
and that reappraisal will take place. Design guidelines and the terms of new designations
can be crafted in ways that recognize the integrity of the historic places as including
varied styles. Periodic reassessment of older judgments of historic significance can be
integrated into the preservation planning process. Creative application of newer concepts
in the preservation field, including flexibility in the National Register criteria, can help
built a public constituency for neglected out-of-period properties and thus motivate their
eventual reevaluation.