Over the concluding decades of the twentieth century, the historic preservation community increasingly turned its attention to modern buildings, including bungalows from the 1930s, gas stations and diners from the 1940s, and office buildings and architectural homes from the 1950s. Conservation efforts, however, were often hampered by a lack of technical information about the products used in these structures, and to fill this gap Twentieth-Century Building Materials was developed by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service and first published in 1995. Now, this invaluable guide is being reissued—with a new preface by the book’s original editor. With more than 250 illustrations, including a full-color photographic essay, the volume remains an indispensable reference on the history and conservation of modern building materials. Thirty-seven essays written by leading experts offer insights into the history, manufacturing processes, and uses of a wide range of materials, including glass block, aluminum, plywood, linoleum, and gypsum board. Readers will also learn about how these materials perform over time and discover valuable conservation and repair techniques. Bibliographies and sources for further research complete the volume. The book is intended for a wide range of conservation professionals including architects, engineers, conservators, and material scientists engaged in the conservation of modern buildings, as well as scholars in related disciplines.

CD-ROM contains: files for all of the plans, sections and elevations included in the book.

The first title in a new series aimed at sharing best practices in the conservation of modern heritage. This timely volume brings together fourteen case studies that address the challenges of conserving the twentieth century’s most ubiquitous building material—concrete. Following a meeting of international heritage conservation professionals in 2013, the need for recent, thorough, and well-vetted case studies on conserving twentieth-century heritage became clear. Concrete: Case Studies in Conservation Practice answers that need and kicks off a new series, Conserving Modern Heritage, aimed at sharing best practices. The projects selected represent a range of building typologies, building uses, and project sizes, from the high-rise housing blocks of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and public buildings such as the London’s National Theatre to small monuments such as the structures at Dudley Zoological Gardens and a sculpture by Donald Judd. The projects also represent a range of environmental and economic contexts. Some projects benefit from high levels of heritage protection and access to funding, while others have had to negotiate conservation with stringent cost limitations. All follow a rigorous conservation approach, beginning with a process of investigation and diagnosis to identify causes and target repairs and balancing these with conservation requirements to preserve significance. Written by architects, engineers, conservators, scholars, and other professionals in the field, these highly detailed and well-illustrated studies demonstrate sound practice, rigorous methodology, and technological innovation and represent the vibrancy of the field as it stands today. This book has something to offer anyone interested in the conservation of modern heritage.

"A balance of sophistication and clarity in the writing, authoritative entries, and strong cross-referencing that links archtects and structures to entries on the history and theory of the profession make this an especially useful source on a century of the world's most notable architecture. The contents feature major architects, firms, and professional issues; buildings, styles, and sites; the architecture of cities and countries; critics and historians; construction, materials, and planning topics; schools, movements, and stylistic and theoretical terms. Entries include well-selected bibliographies and illustrations."--"Reference that rocks," American Libraries, May 2005.

Collects some 30 papers dealing with philosophical, methodological, and technical standards in building preservation. The first section of papers present a general view of preservation. The second section offers papers which discuss the different approaches to preservation practice. The third sectio