Reconstruction in historic preservation is the act of constructing a feature or an entire building of new materials to match the exact form, materials, and details as the original design. This is sometimes required when the client wants to recreate the look and feel of a historic building at a particular point in history, but some features have been lost due to storm damage or remuddlings. We have not yet been fortunate enough to have original construction drawings for the projects that require reconstruction, so we work from historic photographs using digital enhancements and 3-D renderings where possible.
VOH projects that requiring reconstruction based upon physical or photographic evidence include:
- The original tower reconstruction was designed from a single historic photograph.
- We designed the reconstruction of the historic courtroom from physical evidence following a fire, archival and oral history
- The exterior tower reconstruction was based upon historic photographs
- The front balcony of decorative sawn balusters, common in the 1870s, could be barely seen in one historic photograph. We used digital enhancements to design the accurate reconstruction of the balcony.
- The north wall was completely removed in the construction of the jail addition in 1931. We used original construction drawings and references to other J. Riely Gordon courthouses as reference for the reconstruction and detailing of the north exterior wall.
- The District Courtroom was remodeled in 1931, and again in 1962, eventually removing all traces of the original courtroom design. We used three historic photographs and references to Comal’s sister courthouse, Lee County, to accurately reproduce the courtroom design in the recent restoration.