“Chicago’s preservation scholarship and documentation have long lived in separate silos — city, state, and federal landmark databases, university archives, survey records, and community resources without common infrastructure.

“MappingChicagoPreservation.org changes that.

“Dr. Melissa Rovner, architectural historian, and Dr. Emily Talen, Professor of Urbanism at the University of Chicago, developed the site to support the interests identified by the Academic Consortium for Chicago Preservation that they co-founded in 2025.

“The platform is a free, open-access digital tool that places landmarks data, historic surveys, photographs, original scholarship, and community resources into a single interactive map. Users can see how historic recognition interacts with urban phenomena like displacement pressure, or research endangered or lesser-known sites and buildings.

“This platform is shared infrastructure for the field, designed to serve researchers, educators, advocates, and residents interested in recognizing and preserving buildings and sites important to place-keeping and community memory,” says Rovner.”

“The site organizes preservation resources across four map layer categories: historic designation (Chicago Landmarks, National Register properties and districts, National Historic Landmarks); historic resources and reuse (the Historic Resources Survey, adaptive reuse sites, the Chicago Mural Registry, and Preservation Chicago’s Most Endangered list); urban phenomena (gentrification analysis, race/ethnicity, and financial data); and student projects, beginning with a Legacy Businesses layer.

“Beyond the map, the site includes Scholar Share, an indexed collection of faculty research; Student Projects, a growing archive of course-based documentation; and Academic Programs, a directory of preservation and cultural heritage programs across the region. The platform is designed to grow. Researchers, educators, preservation organizations, and community groups interested in contributing data, scholarship, or survey documentation are encouraged to reach out through the site’s Inquiries/Feedback page.” (MappingChicagoPreservation.org)

For more information, contact:
Dr. Melissa Rovner
Interim Associate Director, Krebs Center for the Humanities, Lake Forest College
Co-founder, Academic Consortium for Chicago Preservation
mr*****@********st.edu
mappingchicagopreservation.org

https://mappingchicagopreservation.org/