Today in the mail I received my first earned income in almost 9 years. Amazing, I know! It was a check from the city of Murray, where I've been doing an architectural history project for the past few months. Here's a little more about what I do in this part of my life:
My bachelor's degree is in Architectural History and Preservation. Yawn for most people, but not for me-- I loved school and really enjoy studying buildings as historical documents. They can tell us so much about the culture of the time they were built: their values, their standards, their lifestyles. I find it pretty fascinating.
The unfortunate things about this profession are 1)you really have to know someone to get into it-- there are no historic preservation jobs posted on Monster.com or craig's list; and 2)many of the available jobs are for non-profit organizations which translates to volunteer or very low-paying work. Consequently, when I got out of school I ended up taking a lot of detours and never really working in my field, much to my sadness.
When I returned to Salt Lake City 18 months ago, I contacted some of my friends from school, and they've hooked me up with some consulting work, and voila! The contract I have right now is a survey of about 50 square blocks in Murray where there are a lot of subdivisions constructed in the 1950s and 1960s. Believe it or not, these buildings are being considered historic right now, as they are over fifty or almost fifty years old. Basically, I document each house (1100 in total) by taking a picture of it, entering a few pieces of information about it into a database, and noting it on a map. When the documentation is done, I'll give the city an analysis of my findings and recommendations for actions to be taken, such as further studies, protecting some of the prime examples or changing zoning ordinances to slow development and commercialization.
I like the work, but it can get a little tedious, mostly because the nature of these subdivisions is that they were built all the same, so the houses get monotonous. But, unlike work I've done in the past, I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the original owners (you don't really get that with a Victorian house built in 1899).
In the future I hope to receive other contracts with city or county governments, as well as some private consulting jobs with homeowners, contractors, or architects. It's nice because it's usually pretty flexible as far as scheduling and I can do a lot of it from my home office, so it works out pretty well.
The picture above is of one of my first preservation projects when I was in college, a study of my parents' house built in 1929.
3 comments:
Super awesome pic of the house. Also, now I understand more about the point of your new job. And cool that you get to tell the city what to do after you finish your study! Good job!
Sounds awesome. I would be really interested to know more about what you find during this contract. I like learning.
Way to go, Keri. Sounds very interesting.
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