The School of Architecture & Environment's Historic Preservation program—the oldest such program on the West Coast—operates out of the University of Oregon’s Portland campus, where students can study the city’s rich physical and social heritage and participate in the dynamic planning processes that are shaping this center of urban sustainability. Students take classes in the White Stag Building, an award-winning adaptive reuse of several historic commercial buildings, and apply the skills they learn in real-world projects that help communities understand and protect their cultural resources and traditions.
The Student Experience
Portland hosts a very active preservation community that offers many opportunities for both internships and permanent employment for UO students. UO also offers a specialization in historic preservation for master’s degree students in architecture and a minor in historic preservation for undergraduates at the Eugene campus. Graduates of our Historic Preservation Program are employed in a wide range of preservation-related fields, including private architectural firms, city planning departments, state historic preservation offices, federal cultural resources divisions, and nonprofit agencies.
Hands-on Environment
Our program emphasizes experiential learning in which students apply their academic study to field-based preservation work. This commitment starts with our field school, in which students learn practical skills in building materials and construction on historic sites throughout the Pacific Northwest and continues with a variety of partnerships with preservation organizations, such as state and national parks agencies, the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, the Oregon Historical Society, and the City of Portland.
Examples of projects that UO preservation students have worked on in recent years include conservation of a 1930s CCC complex at Mt. Rainier National Park, identification and interpretation of historic properties in a historically African-American neighborhood in Portland’s Albina neighborhood, and proposals for reuse of Multnomah County’s 1914 courthouse.
Research Spotlight
Historic Preservation Receives Mellon Grant to Tell Story of Portland’s African Americans
The Historic Preservation (HP) program has received a three-year research grant to explore the history of Portland’s African American community as part of the new Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for Racial and Climate Justice. Some of the $4.52 million award to the UO from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is designated for HP to support a digital mapping project using existing historical archives and residents’ oral histories to tell the story of the historically Black community of Albina, from wartime boom to urban renewal to a community facing the rapid gentrification of a neighborhood in the 21st century.
Enrich Your Academic Experience
In addition to classroom learning opportunities, students can take advantage of opportunities at the Watzek House and the Shire, part of the John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape. During the summer participate in a field school in the Pacific Northwest at a location chosen annually.
Connect with Us
Learn More
Students interested in our graduate program can tour the Portland campus, and students interested in our undergraduate offerings can tour our Eugene campus to learn more about what we offer.
