After seven years at the University of Oregon Portland Campus, the Historic Preservation Program has returned to Eugene.
The program, which is part of the School of Architecture and Environment from the College of Design, emphasizes hands-on learning and applying “academic study to field-based preservation work,” according to UO’s website.
According to Historic Preservation Co-Director Chris Bell, the program moved to the Portland Campus in 2017 following an endowment by a donor and the promise of a dedicated space in the White Stag building, giving the program a “prideful place.”
“(We) really capitalized on that moment and built out a preservation suite. There was an entrance space, there were two offices for faculty, there was room for students to sort of gather and talk and there were lab spaces and classroom spaces. It really was an identity in its own right,” Bell said.
Historic Preservation Co-Director Larissa Rudnicki said that a motivation for returning the program to UO’s main campus was the “interconnectedness” Eugene gave to the interdisciplinary master’s program.
“We (the Historic Preservation Program) were offering some (other) courses, but we had our own curriculum that we were trying to foster and some of these really fun classes that we would have loved to have offered, but perhaps didn’t have the capacity for at the time, were offered in Eugene,” Rudnicki said.
Bell said Eugene allows students from different majors to take classes in historic preservation, not just architecture.
“We have an amazing set of students that are from anthropology, interior architecture, environmental design (and) multidisciplinary social sciences. That’s what’s cool; this program is the most welcoming and approachable type of learning,” Bell said.
Students in the program have the opportunity to focus on three concentrations: sustainable preservation design, cultural resource management planning and cultural heritage and history.
According to UO’s website, classes include “the basics of identification and designation of properties for official listing, legal aspects of protection and regulation of the treatment of historic properties and the history of buildings and intangible traditions that make up our cultural heritage.”
Examples of projects students have worked on in recent years, according to UO’s website, include conservation, restoration, identification and interpretation of historical properties, and reusing.
Students also spend three to four weeks at the Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School. The Field School, according to Rudnicki, is a collaboration between Washington, Oregon and Idaho that allows for hands-on learning with state parks and State Historic Preservation Offices.
Rudnicki described a career in historic preservation as “unique,” as it allows people to look at both the past and the future.
“We’re in this really interesting point in time right now where we can address what is done and the history that perhaps goes with it, or the significance, but then also navigate the future,” Rudnicki said. “I feel as though we are at this crossroads where Historic Preservation has a really lovely opportunity of being at the forefront of how to navigate some of these issues that we are tackling (in the) current day.”
UO’s Historic Preservation Program is the oldest preservation program west of the Rocky Mountains. According to Bell, the program has the “Oregonian spirit” that other such programs lack.
“If you’re going to figure out how to work on a building, you need to get all over it, need to understand it. You need to walk through it, maybe take some pieces off to see how it’s built,” Bell said. “The program has a strong suit in really making sure students leave here with a tactical sense of preservation.”
Graduates of the program work in a variety of places, including in the Park Services, agencies such as the Army Corps and the Bureau of Land Management, architecture firms, city planning and consulting agencies.
