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ARCHEOLOGY AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION:
Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines
[As Amended and Annotated]

The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 1995

Standards for Preservation

1. A property will be used as it was historically, or be given a new use that maximizes the retention of distinctive materials, features, spaces, and spatial relationships. Where a treatment and use have not been identified, a property will be protected and, if necessary, stabilized until additional work may be undertaken.

2. The historic character of a property will be retained and preserved. The replacement of intact or repairable historic materials or alteration of features, spaces, and spatial relationships that characterize a property will be avoided.

3. Each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Work needed to stabilize, consolidate, and conserve existing historic materials and features will be physically and visually compatible, identifiable upon close inspection, and properly documented for future research.

4. Changes to a property that have acquired historic significance in their own right will be retained and preserved.

5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved.

6. The existing condition of historic features will be evaluated to determine the appropriate level of intervention needed. Where the severity of deterioration requires repair or limited replacement of a distinctive feature, the new material will match the old in composition, design, color, and texture.

7. Chemical or physical treatments, if appropriate, will be undertaken using the gentlest means possible. Treatments that cause damage to historic materials will not be used.

8. Archeological resources will be protected and preserved in place. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will be undertaken.

Standards for Rehabilitation

1. A property will be used as it was historically or be given a new use that requires minimal change to its distinctive materials, features, spaces, and spatial relationships.

2. The historic character of a property will be retained and preserved. The removal of distinctive materials or alteration of features, spaces, and spatial relationships that characterize a property will be avoided.

3. Each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or elements from other historic properties, will not be undertaken.

4. Changes to a property that have acquired historic significance in their own right will be retained and preserved.

5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved.

6. Deteriorated historic features will be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature will match the old in design, color, texture, and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features will be substantiated by documentary and physical evidence.

7. Chemical or physical treatments, if appropriate, will be undertaken using the gentlest means possible. Treatments that cause damage to historic materials will not be used.

8. Archeological resources will be protected and preserved in place. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will be undertaken.

9. New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction will not destroy historic materials, features, and spatial relationships that characterize the property. The new work will be differentiated from the old and will be compatible with the historic materials, features, size, scale and proportion, and massing to protect the integrity of the property and its environment.

10. New additions and adjacent or related new construction will be undertaken in such a manner that, if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.

Standards for Restoration

1. A property will be used as it was historically or be given a new use which reflects the property's restoration period.

2. Materials and features from the restoration period will be retained and preserved. The removal of materials or alteration of features, spaces, and spatial relationships that characterize the period will not be undertaken.

3. Each property will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Work needed to stabilize, consolidate and conserve materials and features from the restoration period will be physically and visually compatible, identifiable upon close inspection, and properly documented for future research.

4. Materials, features, spaces, and finishes that characterize other historical periods will be documented prior to their alteration or removal.

5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize the restoration period will be preserved.

6. Deteriorated features from the restoration period will be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature will match the old in design, color, texture, and, where possible, materials.

7. Replacement of missing features from the restoration period will be substantiated by documentary and physical evidence. A false sense of history will not be created by adding conjectural features, features from other properties, or by combining features that never existed together historically.

8. Chemical or physical treatments, if appropriate, will be undertaken using the gentlest means possible. Treatments that cause damage to historic materials will not be used.

9. Archeological resources affected by a project will be protected and preserved in place. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will be undertaken.

10. Designs that were never executed historically will not be constructed.

Standards for Reconstruction

1. Reconstruction will be used to depict vanished or non-surviving portions of a property when documentary and physical evidence is available to permit accurate reconstruction with minimal conjecture, and such reconstruction is essential to the public understanding of the property.

2. Reconstruction of a landscape, building, structure, or object in its historic location will be preceded by a thorough archeological investigation to identify and evaluate those features and artifacts which are essential to an accurate reconstruction. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures will be undertaken.

3. Reconstruction will include measures to preserve any remaining historic materials, features, and spatial relationships.

4. Reconstruction will be based on the accurate duplication of historic features and elements substantiated by documentary or physical evidence rather than on conjectural designs or the availability of different features from other historic properties. A reconstructed property will re-create the appearance of the non-surviving historic property in materials, design, color, and texture.

5. A reconstruction will be clearly identified as a contemporary re-creation.

6. Designs that were never executed historically will not be constructed.

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Understanding Your Work on a Historic Building

Four Approaches to Treatment--What They Are
Designed to assist historic property owners, managers, and maintenance personnel, the essay explains the philosophy behind the various work approaches on historic buildings in The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. Easy-to-read charts tell the differences between the four treatments.

Telling Historic Preservation Time
This web guidance demonstrates that TIME constitutes the philosophical framework for the four approaches to working on historic buildings--Preservation, Rehabilitation, Restoration and Reconstruction. Uses the idea of four clocks to make key points.

Using the Standards and Guidelines

The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation with Illustrated Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings
The Standards (36 CFR 67) and accompanying illustrated guidelines help property owners, developers, and federal managers apply the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation during the project planning stage by providing general design and technical recommendations. These are the standards that must be used by federal historic preservation tax credit applicants.

The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating, Restoring and Reconstructing Historic Buildings
The Standards (37 CFR 68) and guidelines provide a consistent framework for undertaking any one of four approaches to work, Preservation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Reconstruction. They pertain to both exterior and interior work on historic buildings of all sizes, materials, and types. (PDF format)

Planning Your Work on a Historic Building

A Checklist for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings
The rehab checklist suggests a typical process of documenting, evaluating, and assessing a historic building prior to undertaking rehabilitation work.

All Wet & How to Prevent It - Managing Moisture in Your Historic House
This mini-web class can help anyone who cares for, or about, a historic house to better understand how moisture can invade historic materials and what goes wrong when moisture is not adequately managed. It provides a series of simple, common sense tips to combat the problems and a quiz that's fun to take.

The BOILERPLATE "YESs!"
This web guidance focuses on approaches to rehabilitation work that serve to protect historic materials, exterior features, and interior spaces, features, and finishes in the process of making changes for new or continued use.

The BOILERPLATE "NOs!"
This web guidance illustrates what happens when inappropriate approaches to rehabilitation work cause the loss of a historic building's unique character. Includes examples of incompatible new additions--large and small.

Electronic REHAB
This popular web class is useful for historic building owners, historic preservation commissions; architects, contractors, and developers; maintenance personnel; and others involved in the care of historic buildings. Two quizzes are included.

The Walk Through--How to Read a Historic Building
This web class helps anyone identify those tangible elements or features that give historic buildings their unique visual character. Includes a challenging quiz.

Beginning Your Work on a Historic Building

Preservation Briefs 1 - 41
The Briefs are developed to assist owners and developers of historic buildings in recognizing and resolving common preservation and repair problems prior to work.

Preservation Tech Notes
Preservation Tech Notes (PTN) provide innovative solutions to specific problems in preserving cultural resources for architects, contractors, and maintenance personnel, as well as for anyone seeking the tax credit for rehabilitation.

Technical Preservation Services for Historic Buildings

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