The National Park Service's official advice on preserving and restoring historic buildings.

This edition will have color illustrations. Concrete is an extraordinarily versatile building material used for utilitarian, ornamental, and monumental structures since ancient times. Composed of a mixture of sand, gravel, crushed stone, or other coarse material, bound together with lime or cement, concrete undergoes a chemical reaction and hardens when water is added. Inserting reinforcement adds tensile strength to structural concrete elements. The use of reinforcement contributes significantly to the range and size of building and structure types that can be constructed with concrete. This Brief provides an overview of the history of concrete and its popularization in the United States, surveys the principal causes and modes of concrete deterioration, and outlines approaches to repair and protection that are appropriate to historic concrete. In the context of this Brief, historic concrete is considered to be concrete used in construction of structures of historical, architectural, or engineering interest, whether those structures are old or relatively new. Other related products: Concrete Manual : A Manual for the Control of Concrete Construction, Part 1 is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/024-003-00141-4 Concrete Manual : a Manual for the Control of Concrete Construction, Part 2 is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/024-003-00176-7 Renovation & Historic Preservation resources collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/science-technology/construction-architecture/renovation-historic-preservation

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.

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.

Over the last two hundred years, concrete has been used to produce a remarkably rich and diverse legacy of buildings and structures that are increasingly recognized for their cultural significance. With this growing recognition comes the need for protection and conservation. However, concrete conservation is still a relatively new field with limited availability of guiding resources. Conservation Principles for Concrete of Cultural Significance intends to fill that gap, recognizing that much knowledge can be drawn from best practices in general repair of concrete; however, historic structures demand additional care to ensure that any work performed retains their cultural significance.Conservation Principles for Concrete of Cultural Significance provides a framework for architects, engineers, conservators, contractors, and stewards to make sound, informed decisions for conserving culturally significant concrete buildings and structures by referencing both concrete repair standards and international conservation principles. The principles outlined in this document are meant to provide a logical approach to concrete conservation, leading practitioners through the typical conservation methodology, from investigation to the development of conservation strategies to implementation and maintenance. Its underlying premise is that concrete, in all its guises, may be of cultural significance and deserves a careful, knowledge-based approach to its care in order to sustain it for future generations. It has been extensively reviewed by experts in concrete conservation, and their contributions were valuable in shaping the final document and reaffirming its need.

Provides guidance to historic building owners and building managers, preservation consultants, architects, contractors, and project reviewers prior to treatment of historic buildings.