Historic preservation in the context of "Reconstruction (architecture)"

Public history is a broad range of activities undertaken by people with some training in the discipline of history who are generally working outside of specialized academic settings. Public history practice is deeply rooted in the areas of historic preservation, archival science, oral history, museum curatorship, and other related fields. The field has become increasingly professionalized in the United States and Canada since the late 1970s. Some of the most common settings for the practice of public history are museums, historic homes and historic sites, parks, battlefields, archives, film and television companies, new media, and all levels of government.

The art world comprises everyone involved in producing, commissioning, presenting, preserving, promoting, chronicling, criticizing, buying, and selling fine art. It is recognized that there are many art worlds, defined either by location or alternative definitions of fine art. Some may use the singular art world to refer only to the elite level of globalized fine art. The art world(s) are continually changing in response both to the creativity of those that create art and in response to social change.

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic value."

The enactment of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 established the National Register and the process for adding properties to it. Of the more than one and a half million properties on the National Register, 95,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts.

World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training.

Founded in 1965, WMF is headquartered in New York, and has offices and affiliates around the world, including Cambodia, France, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In addition to hands-on management, the affiliates identify, develop, and manage projects, negotiate local partnerships, and attract local support to complement funds provided by donors.

Conservation in the Republic of Ireland is overseen by a number of statutory and non-governmental agencies, including those with responsibility for conservation of the built environment and conservation of the natural environment in Ireland. Conservation has sometimes been a contentious issue, with debates impacting its progress since the 1960s. Concrete initiatives are sometimes driven by European Union (EU) heritage protection and environmental policies, including EU environmental law, which – as a member – the Irish government is obliged to adopt and implement.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status, and regulating them after designation. It is the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation. As of July 1, 2020, the LPC has designated more than 37,800 landmark properties in all five boroughs. Most of these are concentrated in historic districts, although there are over a thousand individual landmarks, as well as numerous interior and scenic landmarks.

Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. first organized a preservation committee in 1961, and the following year, created the LPC. The LPC's power was greatly strengthened after the Landmarks Law was passed in April 1965, one and a half years after the destruction of Pennsylvania Station. The LPC has been involved in several prominent preservation decisions, including that of Grand Central Terminal. By 1990, the LPC was cited by David Dinkins as having preserved New York City's municipal identity and enhanced the market perception of a number of neighborhoods.

An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long gallery in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses served many purposes including the display of art. Historically, art is displayed as evidence of status and wealth, and for religious art as objects of ritual or the depiction of narratives. The first galleries were in the palaces of the aristocracy, or in churches. As art collections grew, buildings became dedicated to art, becoming the first art museums.

Among the modern reasons art may be displayed are aesthetic enjoyment, education, historic preservation, or for marketing purposes. The term is used to refer to establishments with distinct social and economic functions, both public and private. Institutions that preserve a permanent collection may be called either "gallery of art" or "museum of art". If the latter, the rooms where art is displayed within the museum building are called galleries. Art galleries that do not maintain a collection are either commercial enterprises for the sale of artworks, or similar spaces operated by art cooperatives or non-profit organizations. As part of the art world, art galleries play an important role in maintaining the network of connections between artists, collectors, and art experts that define fine art.

Heritage studies looks at the relationship between people and tangible and intangible heritage through the use of social science research methods. The publication of the book by David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, in 1985 is credited with creating the field (Carman & Sørensen 2009). While related to the disciplines of history, heritage conservation, and historic preservation, heritage studies is not necessarily concerned with the objective representation of the past. History is "the raw facts of the past" (Aitchison, MacLeod, & Shaw 2000, p. 96) while heritage is "history processed through mythology, ideology, nationalism, local pride, romantic ideas or just plain marketing" (Schouten 1995, p. 21). The meanings of heritage are therefore subjective and rooted in the present; these meanings are defined by social, cultural, and individual processes. In other words, the meanings of heritage can be understood through contemporary sociocultural and experiential values. Lowenthal (1985, p. 410) argues that in the realm of human experience, we create heritage; to most people, heritage is therefore more important than history and is a product of human invention and creativity.