Richard Pieper is an architectural conservator specializing in the documentation of
historic architectural technology and the conservation of metals and masonry materials.
Pieper is a Partner and Director of Preservation for Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, a
preservation architecture firm in New York City.
While at the Pokorny office, Pieper has directed a number of large projects, including
the exterior restoration of the 1908 Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan, the
restoration of the dome and rotunda of the New Jersey State House, the restoration of
the tile and ornamental copper roof of the Guardian Life Insurance Company Building,
and the exterior restoration of Olana, Frederic Church’s historic homestead. Pieper has
written several articles for the Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology,
including “Preserving Historic Guastavino Tile Ceilings, Domes, and Vaults: An
Overview” (1999), “A Checklist for the Restoration of Architectural Cast Iron in the U.S”
(2013), and “The “White Metals” of Early-Twentieth-Century American Architecture”
(2015)
For the National Park Service, Pieper authored Preservation Brief #42, The
Maintenance, Repair and Replacement of Historic Cast Stone, as well as Restoring
Metal Roof Cornices, a Park Service Tech Note. Pieper published Earthen
Architecture in the Northern United States in the Park Service’s Cultural Resource
Management Bulletin.