Our City, Community, & Home
Preserving and Promoting
As with many cities around the world, San Antonio is experiencing the pressures of supporting new economic development and growth while protecting community character and cultural heritage. The Living Heritage program works to develop innovative treatments to better protect culturally significant properties and intangible heritage since traditional design guidelines aren’t necessarily sufficient to guide in decision-making in these cases. We aim to develop tools and strategies that better help to manage cultural heritage and sustainable development while promoting living heritage to benefit the community.
WHAT WE DO
The Living Heritage program works to develop innovative treatments to better protect culturally significant properties and intangible heritage. Traditional design guidelines, which are typically focused on architecture, aren’t necessarily sufficient to guide in decision-making when dealing with resources that weren’t identified based on architectural significance, and these cases can be difficult for staff, the Historic Design and Review Commission, and for the community.
San Antonio is not alone in dealing with these issues, so we work with policymakers, heritage professionals, academics, community organizations, neighborhood advocates, and activists to develop tools and strategies that help better manage cultural heritage and sustainable development while promoting living heritage to benefit the community, bolster resilient communities, and ensure a thriving future.
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The San Antonio Living Heritage Symposium is a collaborative forum bringing international and local heritage professionals, policy-makers, grassroots preservationists and academics together for an exchange of ideas leading to the development of best practices for safeguarding cultural heritage.
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The Living Heritage Action Plan is created through consensus and input from attendees of the San Antonio Living Heritage Symposium. After hearing presentations from invited speakers, everyone who attends the symposium works together in a World Café format to develop recommendations. Read the Action Plans from the 2017-2019 symposiums.
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Cultural Heritage recognition is an endorsement of noteworthy sites, structures, objects, businesses and the living heritage—the expressions, traditions, knowledge, skills, identity and representations— that impart a distinct aspect to the city and serve as tangible and intangible reminders of the city's culture and heritage. The intent is to build awareness and knowledge of San Antonio’s living heritage. The recognition is designed for neighborhoods, corridors, individual buildings, sites, objects and elements of social heritage that hold historic or cultural value to the community beyond architectural value. Cultural Heritage recognition is an honorific title endorsed by the Historic and Design Review Commission (HDRC) upon recommendation from the Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) staff. There is no design review process for Cultural Heritage Districts or Cultural Heritage Buildings.
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Past, Present, Future is the Office of Historic Preservation’s “museum without walls,” this site provides stories about San Antonio’s festivals, traditions, myths and folklore, practices, knowledge, skills, and the people behind them; and connects them to the world.
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The Office of Historic Preservation’s Legacy Business Program is a direct result of the Living Heritage Symposium. Part of the Action Plan developed at the 2017 Living Heritage Symposium, The San Antonio Legacy Business program pay tribute to legendary businesses located in San Antonio. The program acknowledges the contributions businesses have made to the city’s culture and economy and aims to champion the continued success of legacy businesses through promotional and educational support.
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The Office of Historic Preservation has set out to locate every shotgun house in SanAntonio. To date, over 700 have been found. Sustainable, affordable, culturally significant, and climate-wise, this is the original “tiny house.”
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OHP works with community members to collect shared experiences that reflect the “intangible” heritage—traditions, arts, spirituality and events, as well as significant places—through story-telling and map-making.