People And Places And People
This year at PastForward, the National Preservation Conference, the National Trust for Historic Preservation focused on People Saving Places. “People” is operative, because for many – notably wonky architectural historians like myself – it had often been about buildings. Even for those in the planning profession, it had been a technical question rather than a human one. That is wrong.
Evidence and Storytelling
I wrote a blog inspired by Don Rypkema’s presentation at the Living Heritage Symposium in September. Here is one inspired by Donna Graves at the same event, who urged the audience to embrace storytelling. This is why we save places, because of the stories they tell.
The Future of Heritage Conservation
Project Row Houses by Rick Lowe – I finally saw it 20 years after I met the man.
Well, it finally started to happen, and in Houston of all places. PastForward, the National Preservation Conference of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, witnessed the emergence of the next generation of “preservation” practitioners and highlighted the future of the movement. Featuring inner-city artists who save places like Houston native Rick Lowe and Chicagoan Theaster Gates, it felt to many of us like the movement had finally turned the corner and embraced the future. Continue Reading
What is the Fabric of Cultural History?
This is the Malt House in San Antonio. Dating to 1949, it is the classic car-service restaurant, known for its malted milkshakes. Generations experienced their localized version of American Graffiti with Mexican and American comfort food and the best malts in town. Continue Reading
Integrity and Authenticity
My favorite example: where Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man. Authenticity? Integrity?
I will presenting at the 7th National Symposium on Historic Preservation Practice this weekend at Goucher College, on the Diversity Deficit and the National Register of Historic Places. I have written often about this subject over the last five years, but lately my recommendations are getting more specific. One of those has to do with the concept of Integrity, which I have previously proposed needs to be replaced with Authenticity. Continue Reading
Diversity and American History
I took this picture in the United States.
For several years I have been working on a problem: the “Diversity Deficit” in the National Register of Historic Places. 95% or more of our historic sites have as their primary significance the story of a male of European descent. You can see some of this year’s blogs on the topic here and here. Continue Reading
Finding the East out West
When I spoke to the National Tribal Preservation Conference two days ago, my host Bambi Kraus of the National Association of Tribal Preservation Officers introduced my talk by noting that the Tribal Historic Preservation Officers should “be themselves” and offer alternatives to the “Western” approach to historic preservation. Continue Reading
National Historic Preservation Act: Addressing the Diversity Deficit
Two weeks ago I spoke during the meeting of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation regarding the Future of the National Register of Historic Places, which will be 50 years old next year. I detailed some of the shortcomings that have emerged over that time, including a startling “Diversity Deficit.”
Less than 5% of the buildings listed on the National Register evoke the nation’s diverse history – the rest chronicle white men, who are much less than half the country. I also detailed many of the challenges in preservation practice that we inherited from an architect-driven 1960s practice, one that has a tendency to focus too much on the formal.
The photo is one of may favorite examples, from St. Nicholas Avenue in Hamilton Heights, New York, the building lacks architectural integrity. But Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man there in 1947, a book more relevant than ever today. The building is authentic but does not have integrity. The problem is not the building but our practice – we adopted the architectural concept of “integrity” in 1966 instead of the international concept of “authenticity.” Continue Reading
Literature and Landmarks
This is the building in Harlem New York where Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man. There have been extensive alterations, some of which were there in 1947 when he wrote the book.
This week Ray Bradbury’s classic book Fahrenheit 451 was occupying our living room couch because my daughter was reading it as a high school assignment. As I did, as many of us did. It is a classic about the need for books, for culture, in the face of dystopia. At the same time, the author’s home for over 50 years was being demolished a few hundred miles to the south, in Los Angeles, by the prize-winning architect Thom Mayne. You can see the demolition and read about it here. People are so upset that Mayne himself said it was “a bummer,” and you know how hard it is to crack an architect’s ego.
But the larger and more interesting question is: How do we preserve the legacy, the memory, the significance of a literary landmark? The issue is at the heart of many of our current debates about the National Register of Historic Places and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, both of which are geared toward architecture and are not always ideally suited to the preservation of memory, of culture, of the rich loam that nourishes books like Fahrenheit 451 and all of the students who have read it for the last half-century. Here are a few examples I have used to illustrate literary landmarks over the years, and each of them betrays an architectural modesty, if not monstrosity. They are significant not because of their form, but because of what happened there. Continue Reading