Director: Andrew S. Dolkart

Historic Preservation Curriculum

Columbia University’s Historic Preservation Program offers a curriculum of extraordinary diversity. The curriculum builds on over forty-five years of experience teaching historic preservation, while remaining cognizant of the need for flexibility and the demands of a dynamic, evolving profession.. The curriculum includes a series of core courses, providing each student with basic knowledge of the field, and then broadens out, allowing each student the opportunity to develop his or her own focus. Classes are taught by a large group of dedicated full-time and adjunct professionals in the field of preservation. Students are introduced to a renowned faculty, larger and more diverse than that of any preservation program in the world.

The core curriculum is the focus of a student’s first semester. The centerpiece of this semester’s work is Studio I, a class that teaches documentation and interpretation skills, focusing on a specific New York City neighborhood. Students work individually and in groups within a studio environment, meeting one-on-one with each of the studio faculty. Key to the core curriculum is a course entitled “Theory and Practice of Historic Preservation” that provides each student with a grounding in the historical ideas behind the field. Students also take Preservation Planning, an introduction to planning as a preservation tool; Structures, Systems, and Materials I, which introduces pre-industrial building techniques and materials, and American Architecture I, a history of architecture in the United States through the 1880s.

Several of the first semester courses continue into a student’s second semester. Studio II focuses on particular timely preservation issues. The class divides into three or more small groups, each investigating a different issue. In recent years, Studio II projects have included both a planning and a design studio investigating a massive underutilized power plant designed by McKim, Mead & White; the preservation of waterfront industrial buildings in two neighborhoods of Brooklyn; issues involved with preserving six-story apartment houses, reformed housing, and sites associated with the counterculture; and a preservation plan for an endangered hospital complex in Greenwich Village. All students also take Structures, Systems, and Materials II, which introduces students to the built world from the mid-nineteenth century to the present; and American Architecture II. Conservation students who lack scientific training will also take a basic science course. Other courses during this semester are electives.

During the summer between the first and second year, each student will work at one or more internships.

Only two classes are required during the second year of study in the Historic Preservation Program. During the first semester, all students take Preservation Colloquium, a class that analyzes issues introduced in the first year and prepares students for the completion of a thesis. By the beginning of the second year, students should have chosen a thesis topic. Preliminary thesis presentations will be made during the first semester, but the bulk of thesis work will occur during winter break and during the second semester. All other classes during the second year are electives that may be taken from the offerings of the Historic Preservation Program, the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in general, or from classes in other departments and schools at Columbia.