The Collection and Exhibition of in Situ Historic Buildings

Historic buildings have long been a focal subject in the field of architecture, planning, and tourism. This paper examines historic buildings through museological and heritage management perspectives. In addition, the theory of historic buildings as collections and the practical application of historic building collections as museum exhibitions are explored. The traditional museum collection functions of preservation, research, communication, and administration can be applied to historic building collections in a town, city, county, region, state, or nation. Some differences have been noted between the traditional, climate-controlled museum collections, open-air museum collections, and historic building collections in situ, such as the adaptive re-use of historic buildings. However, adaptive re-use is not a hindering factor when considering historic buildings in political jurisdictional boundaries as collections. The purpose of this paper is to situate historic buildings, as in situ collections, in a city ready for exhibition use.