Preservation Terminology

Acquisition—the act or process of acquiring fee title or interest other than fee title of real property (including acquisition of development rights or remainder interest).

Comprehensive Historic Preservation Planning—the organization into a logical sequence of preservation information pertaining to identification, evaluation, registration and treatment of historic properties, and setting priorities for accomplishing preservation activities.

Historic Context—a unit created for planning purposes that groups information about historic properties based on a shared theme, specific time period and geographical area.

Historic Property—a district, site, building, structure or object significant in American history, architecture, engineering, archeology or culture at the national, State, or local level.

Integrity—the authenticity of a property's historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property's historic or prehistoric period.

Intensive Survey—a systematic, detailed examination of an area designed to gather information about historic properties sufficient to evaluate them against predetermined criteria of significance within specific historic contexts.

Inventory—a list of historic properties determined to meet specified criteria of significance.

National Register Criteria—the established criteria for evaluating the eligibility of properties for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

Preservation (treatment)— [Current definition of this treatment standard, as revised in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 1995:

Preservation is defined as the act or process of applying measures necessary to sustain the existing form, integrity, and materials of an historic property. Work, including preliminary measures to protect and stabilize the property, generally focuses upon the ongoing maintenance and repair of historic materials and features rather than extensive replacement and new construction. New exterior additions are not within the scope of this treatment; however, the limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a preservation project.]

Property Type—a grouping of individual properties based on a set of shared physical or associative characteristics.

Protection (treatment)—[This treatment standard and definition was deleted in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 1995.]

Reconnaissance Survey—an examination of all or part of an area accomplished in sufficient detail to make generalizations about the types and distributions of historic properties that may be present.

Reconstruction (treatment)—[Current definition of this treatment standard, as revised in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 1995:

Reconstruction is defined as the act or process of depicting, by means of new construction, the form, features, and detailing of a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object for the purpose of replicating its appearance at a specific period of time and in its historic location.]

Rehabilitation (treatment)— [Current definition of this treatment standard, as revised in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 1995:

Rehabilitation is defined as the act or process of making possible a compatible use for a property through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving those portions or features which convey its historical, cultural, or architectural values.]

Research design—a statement of proposed identification, documentation, investigation, or other treatment of a historic property that identifies the project's goals, methods and techniques, expected results, and the relationship of the expected results to other proposed activities or treatments.

Restoration [treatment]—[Current definition of this treatment standard, as revised in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 1995:

Restoration is defined as the act or process of accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a property as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of features from other periods in its history and reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period. The limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a restoration project.]

Sample Survey—survey of a representative sample of lands within a given area in order to generate or test predictions about the types and distributions of historic properties in the entire area.

Stabilization (treatment)—[This treatment standard and its definition was deleted in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 1995.]