Historical churches are some of the most meaningful historical buildings in the world. You can’t just see them as old buildings. They’re places of worship. Beyond that, they’re places of worship steeped in history that is often hundreds of years old or even older.
People from all walks of life entered those historical churches not just to handle a mundane task, but to learn the scripture and find peace that only comes from an intimate relationship with God.
As such, preserving the world’s historical churches is a top priority. Saving that precious history gives us more than just the satisfaction of saving a building. We know that we’re preserving something truly meaningful.
It’s also a very difficult task, and that’s what we’re going to explore today. The challenges, and the solutions to them, when it comes to historical church restoration and preservation.
Maintaining Authenticity to the Time Period
This is one of the most difficult challenges when preserving a very old church. Over time, materials change, production methods change, and even some design philosophies can be lost.
Those things all come together to make it very hard to properly refurbish a historical church. Especially if it fell into disrepair and some things are missing entirely.
For example, let’s say there’s a 400-year-old church that was abandoned a century ago with few surviving pictures. Over 400 years, construction materials have changed dramatically.
Not only are the metals we use more sophisticated and mass-produced to perfect standards, but the wood we use isn’t even the same. Old-growth wood with a different appearance and characteristics would have been used, and that’s not very common at all, anymore.
Then, there are various design philosophies that might be lost. Something as simple as replacing a mantle in a small room can be a challenge because there might not be an authentic example of how it should have looked.
Honoring Tradition and Bringing Glory to God
This is the first priority in any church building project. Even a brand-new church has to follow these standards.
When your construction project is a church, you have to consider the traditions used in church building throughout time. We must incorporate those traditional design philosophies, because not only are they part of a historical church’s authenticity, but they were meant to honor God and create a church environment that is a worldly representation of heaven.
Every single restoration needs to have that in mind, and every concept we talk about revolves around it in one way or another. From the materials used to how things are depicted in sculptures and art.
Ensuring Long-Term Preservation
Authenticity and sticking to the core concepts behind a church’s construction are two primary concerns when restoring a historical church, but ensuring that the effort isn’t short-lived is also a priority.
It doesn’t make much sense to invest a lot of money into a restoration just for more of it to continue degrading or for those new upgrades to fall apart in short order.
This can be challenging to achieve because you’re often trying to implement new technologies into an existing, and very old, infrastructure.
Something as simple as adding a sound system to a very old church made of stone infrastructure can prove to be extremely challenging without risking the historical parts of the church. Let alone massive overhauls designed to bring a very degraded church into the new world.
How These Challenges Are Resolved in Professional Historical Church Restoration
We’ve highlighted the challenges, but now it’s time to talk about the cutting-edge techniques and classical philosophies that allow us to overcome those challenges successfully in the process of historical church restoration.
1: Technology Plays a Massive Role
First, modern technology actually plays a large role in restoring historical churches accurately.
As we said earlier, materials that were used when the church was originally constructed might not be available anymore, and modern versions might not be accurate.
Luckily, by using molded foam and other high-tech materials, almost anything can be mimicked accurately. That includes the look and feel of old materials that are no longer available.
Technology also allows us to scan the construction zone and create precise 3D scanning replications of that environment.
Within that 3D world, every change can be made before a single piece of wood is cut, they can be verified by historians and specialists, and tweaks can be made as needed until the restoration plan is perfect.
This greatly increases our ability to restore a historical church accurately and avoid costly mistakes that might take away from its heritage and original concept.
2: Hands-on Experience with Church Design Philosophy
This isn’t true for every architecture company, but at Baker Architects, our church architects know why the various core design aspects are as they are. We understand church design conceptually and spiritually.
This puts us at an advantage because we can look at a historical church requiring restoration.
We understand what we’re looking at, what it would have been like in the past even if something is missing or unrecognizable, and we can appropriately refurbish those things.
Again, this isn’t something you can get with just any architect, but it is a trait we have.
3: Ensuring Long-Term Results
Finally, ensuring long-term results is achieved with two different approaches used in tandem.
First, the more advanced materials we talked about earlier are far more resilient to the vast majority of elements that tend to break down materials the fastest. Molded foam is practically impervious to most elements, for example.
Beyond using materials that help preserve the restorative work for many years to come, it also comes down to the quality of the work and ensuring everything is done properly.
From the design phase to scanning the environment for accurate planning, all the way to ensuring that contractors are properly implementing those plans, high-quality work leads to long-term results.
Get Help with Your Church Restoration from Baker Architects
If you’re looking into historical church restoration, or just bringing an older church into the modern era, we can help. We leverage the latest technology and highest quality standards, but we also understand the spiritual requirements of any church project.
Contact Baker Architects today to learn more.
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