OLD BUT NOT GOOD OLD HISTORY: PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS OF FREEZING TIME IN OLD BUILDINGS

Time is an essential element in the preservation of fall historic buildings and landscapes. To implement the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the Secretary of the Interior established standards for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Buildings and landscapes must be 50 years old; retain character-defining aspects of the time period when they are significant; have integrity from that period; and either be associated with important events or people in a period of history, embody distinctive period architectural or landscape characteristics, or yield important archaeological information. These ideas about time, integrity and significance freeze buildings in a preferred period of their development, yet many historic buildings and landscapes come together in increments over a long period of time. Freezing them into a single time period misrepresents the basis of their history, which is adaptation and change over time.