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President's Column

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 23:00:00 GMT

by Gretchen Buggeln

In just a few weeks, from June 1-4, we’ll be gathered in Durham, North Carolina, for the annual meeting of the VAF. We’ll begin hospitably with a Wednesday night reception at the Durham Convention Center and a plenary lecture by our very own Catherine W. Bishir, who will orient us to her beloved North Carolina piedmont region. Following Catherine, Jim Goodmon, CEO of Capitol Broadcasting, will talk about Durham’s remarkable transformation over the last twenty years thanks in large part to the repurposing of the city’s industrial landscape. I’m anticipating a spectacular program of tours on Thursday and Friday, thoughtfully planned by our conference committee chaired by Marvin Brown and Claudia Brown and guaranteed to hold up the VAF tradition of good fellowship, excellent local food, music, libations, and, of course, a wealth of wonderful buildings. You can read about these tours on the VAF website at http://www.vafweb.org/DurhamProgram/.

I’d like to highlight a few of the events on Saturday, our day to engage each other’s work in formal papers sessions and colloquia. There will be ten papers sessions that each include three twenty-minute presentations followed by Q&A. The list of speakers and topics on the Saturday program can be found here: http://www.vafweb.org/DurhamPapers/. In addition to these sessions and the book tables, there will be four new programs. First, a “User’s Guide to the VAF,” especially recommended for newcomers to our organization. VAF representatives will share ideas about how to get involved, give papers at conferences, develop membership chapters, propose conferences, and get published in our journal, newsletter, or book series. Second, a lunchtime organizational session for graduate students interested in a new grad student VAF chapter. Third, a lunchtime historic preservation program, “From Analysis to Action: Putting Vernacular Architecture Studies to Work,” led by innovative local and regional preservationists. And fourth, a “Field Notes” session, in which eight speakers will give short presentations about their current research methods and findings. Saturday promises to be a lively and fun day of scholarly and professional exchange and encouragement.

And after all that, who wouldn’t want to celebrate with a party? Our annual meeting and banquet will be at the Durham Armory, and I am especially looking forward to hearing Mel Melton and the Wicked Mojos with 86-year old special guest John Dee Holeman play the blue – both traditional piedmont blues and the kind we can dance to. Check out Mel and his band here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi2TO12hI44 !

Looking forward to seeing y’all in Durham.

Gretchen

Statement on HB2 and the Annual Conference in Durham

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 22:58:00 GMT

Message from VAF President Gretchn Buggeln:

As many VAF members know, on March 23, 2016, North Carolina’s General Assembly passed into law legislation known as House Bill 2 (HB2). The leadership and members of the Vernacular Architecture Forum are troubled by this discriminatory bill. This law overrides local LGBTQ nondiscrimination ordinances and bans transgender people from using certain restrooms.

HB2 is highly controversial within the state of North Carolina and many citizens are fighting the law. The ACLU of North Carolina has filed a federal lawsuit and the state attorney general is a vocal opponent. Moreover, the city council of Durham, the site of our June 2016 conference, unanimously condemned the legislation:http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article70554782.html.

Please read this message from Durham City Council Member Steve Schewel:

"The City of Durham and its people offer a warm welcome to the Vernacular Architecture Forum when you hold your conference here in June--and that welcome extends to everyone including especially members of the LGBTQ community. Our city council and our county commission have both unanimously passed resolutions condemning HB2 for its discriminatory intention and effect. Durham welcomes with open arms all people and recognizes their rights and liberties regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. While our state legislature passes laws that endorse discrimination, Durham stands tall for diversity and equality. We embrace difference in Durham, and we welcome all of you to our city."

Best wishes,
Steve Schewel
Durham City Council

Councilman Schewel recommends that those wanting to support the opposition to HB2, and the fight for its repeal, can contribute to Equality North Carolina at equalitync.org. They do great organizing work statewide.

Claudia Brown, Marvin Brown, and their team have worked long and hard to prepare a marvelous conference for us. I urge you all to come to Durham and to spread the VAF’s message of concern and care for communities—their buildings, landscapes, but most especially their people—and our vision of equality, dignity, and justice for all.

Gretchen T. Buggeln
President

VAF Durham Conference, June 1-4, 2016

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 22:30:00 GMT

Let’s keep it brief.

For the conference details, go to http://vafweb.org/Durham-2016 and click on the bold program and paper sessions links. To register and book the best and best-priced room in town, click on the register and lodging links.

For the mise-en-scène, the terroir, the good old Southern sense of place, read on and peruse the attached photos. You’ll have the opportunity to see the places that define our traditional piece of piedmont North Carolina: tobacco barns and fields; packhouses, striphouses, ordering pits, and farmhouses; rural and urban mill villages and mills; African-American schools, big and small, public and private; meetinghouses and churches; slave houses and plantation seats. We’ll hear about the Quakers and the Germans; working-class white folks and a few wealthy ones; African-American North Carolinians—free black and successful, enslaved, toilers in the mills, pillars in their middle-class communities.

You’ll also have the opportunity to eat and drink like a piedmont North Carolinian. We’re having a pig-pickin’ (with vegetarian options of course). Over the course of the conference, we’ll serve up collards, hush puppies, chicken pastry, black-eyed peas, cornbread, grits, banana pudding—all washed down by copious amounts of sweet tea. And a beer crafted just for us.

There will even be traditional piedmont blues and some boogie-woogie to listen and dance to. For the Saturday night banquet, we’ve engaged Mel Melton and the Wicked Mojos with special guest John Dee Holeman. Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM85ACbXSlY to see them playing together. (Watch the folks in this video: they should improve your dance-floor comfort level.) Mel is a nationally recognized blues harpist and Mr. Holeman is still going strong at 86, playing the piedmont blues as the Lord intended.

We look forward to seeing you and showing you how the people around here used to, and in many ways still, live.

Claudia Brown, Marvin Brown

Durham conference co-organizers

Call for Participation: Student Roundtable--What do current students of vernacular architecture have in mind?

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 22:00:00 GMT

Vernacular architecture scholars are trained in a range of departments and programs, including architecture, architectural history, art history, area studies, history, geography. Thus, the annual meeting of VAF is an important opportunity for such dispersed students to meet up, exchange ideas, and forge professional networks. More than 35 years after the forum's establishment, what can current students do for VAF as future scholars/professionals in this field? In turn, how can the VAF assist in shaping students' careers and their ability to contribute to the field? This student roundtable aims at collective brainstorming about student involvement in VAF. If interested (even if you cannot physically come), please complete a short survey (http://goo.gl/forms/o9Lz0VCVzV) and add your thoughts on Google Doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-mKc7vgFhDy_7CSOJlvr415RnbrnGOxfPyp4FOTYZeQ/edit?usp=sharing).

For any question, please contact Yuko Nakamura (PhD candidate in architecture, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) at nakamur4@uwm.edu.

A Vernacular Investigation in the Shenandoah Valley

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 21:30:00 GMT

by Samuel Biggers

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia is an area rich in history marked by a unique settlement pattern during the mid-18^th century by two groups: the Scots-Irish and the Germans. The valley in Virginia is bordered generally by Winchester on the north, Roanoke on the south, the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east, and the Alleghenies on the west. As opposed to the Piedmont region to the east, which was settled by the westward-traveling English from the Tidewater, the Shenandoah Valley was settled primarily by Germans and Scots-Irish from points northward. Much has been written

Shenandoah Valley location. Photo: Virginia is For Lovers.

on this settlement and the subsequent diffusion of the settlers’ cultural habits. This includes multiple studies on the architecture of the region, with particular interest given to how different styles and details defined certain cultures and how those styles changed over time. Over ensuing generations, the strong cultural traits that manifested themselves in the architecture of the area began to fade in favor of more generalized local architectural traditions.

"Augusta Expo House." One of many houses lost from the landscape in the Barterbrook area. The central log portion was believed to have dated to the 18th century. Photo: Virginia Department of Historic Resources

At the heart of the Shenandoah Valley is Augusta County. When traveling on Route 608 in the county between Stuarts Draft and Fishersville, there is a small cluster of houses known as Barterbrook, and just as soon as you discover you’re in its center, you’ve already left. As is the case with many small communities, there are few vestiges of the once-thriving Barterbrook: old roads, locations of long-gone houses, old bridges. These traces on the landscape tell the story of what was. In Barterbrook, the old Route 608 is visible, which leads an idle mind to imagine how the community appeared before the road was straightened. A mile up the road from Barterbrook toward Fishersville is a ca. 1820 brick farmhouse, where I grew up. My interest first in local history, then later in historic preservation, led me to delve into the history of my house. Through my research, I discovered that the house was once part of a 1,000 acre farm that stretched clear to Barterbrook. As I researched my house further, I expanded my focus to include the surrounding area, to provide the context necessary to tell the story of my house. I began to combine the observable landscape with historic documents and photos, which began to paint a picture of the history not just of one house, but of the community.

"Stony Point." Built in 1852, the house represents the Gothic Revival influence in the Barterbrook area. Photo: Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

In 2012, I began studying historic preservation at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. During my sophomore year, I decided to formally study the Barterbrook community. Under the guidance of Gary Stanton, I authored “The Evolution of Architecture in the Barterbrook Area,” which was my attempt at organizing existing archival, survey, and observational data into a coherent work. One of the more insightful resources was the house surveys completed by Ann McCleary during the 1980s for the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission. These surveys provided valuable information into the lost buildings in the area. Through my study, I quickly discovered that very few examples of “frontier architecture” survive on the landscape in Augusta County. This very fact tells us much about the nature of the first buildings constructed during the initial settlement period. The extant buildings in the Barterbrook area represent a trend that occurred in Augusta County during the antebellum period, which saw a marked increase in residential construction. In Barterbrook, this trend manifested itself through brick construction. The use of brick was a clear sign of permanence, and one in contrast to the more ephemeral log construction that characterized the frontier.

"J.H. Stump House." Detail of a molded brick cornice, a common feature of houses in the Barterbrook area. Photo: author.

I discovered that the architecture in the Barterbrook area, broadly defined as a roughly three square mile area, is varied in style, form, and material. I suppose this is to be expected from a farming community that developed organically, but there were some common features of the houses. Molded brick cornices seemed to have only been in style for a period of about six years in the 1820s, before the style shifted to the corbelled cornice. The single-pile “I-house” predominates in Barterbrook, though there are multiple double-pile houses included in the survey. Though examples of log construction exist, the vast majority of antebellum houses are constructed of brick, which is in line with the trends occurring in the county during that period. My conclusions have not been surprising or monumental by any means. Many of my discoveries do not distinguish Barterbrook from nearby communities, but rather tie the community into the surrounding area’s history.

"Barterbrook." The 1826 house, named after the community, is one of two surviving 'three-part Palladian' houses in Augusta County. Photo: Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

This detailed investigation has been complemented by interaction with local landowners and historians, who have graciously welcomed me into their homes, giving me valuable first-person insight into the area. Additionally, I was fortunate to have my paper included in the 2016 edition of the Augusta Historical Bulletin, a yearly publication of the Augusta County Historical Society. I have no idea what an end product to this study will look like, or if there will be one. Threats to historic communities are numerous and growing, with road projects, development, and neglect contributing to the rapid change occurring daily. Because of these and other threats, communities such as Barterbrook are in dire need of comprehensive studies. These communities will certainly change in the coming years, some drastically, but without a record of the past, we risk losing them altogether. Communities such as Barterbrook are superb laboratories for the study of vernacular architecture, which is a mutually beneficial endeavor: a community’s history is recorded and the researcher gains a new perspective on an area. In my study of Barterbrook, I’ve found this to be true. My study of Barterbrook has connected me to the past and has helped to uncover a largely forgotten community.

The Reviews Are In!

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 21:00:00 GMT

The two books published in VAF’s Vernacular Architecture Studies Series (also known as the Special Series) have been garnering rave reviews. Thomas Hubka’s Houses Without Names (2013) was called “a highly significant contribution to the interpretive toolkits of archaeologists and architectural historians alike” (Hayden F. Bassett, Historical Archeology), while Thomas Carter and Elizabeth Cromley’s Invitation to Vernacular Architecture (2005) was termed “ideal for classroom use…a thoughtful, readable, and ultimately helpful guide” (Karen Duffy, Journal of American Folklore). The two books have become core texts in the understanding of the built environment.

And you, too, can be a part of this series. We are seeking authors and ideas for future volumes. The Vernacular Architecture Series, sponsored by VAF and published by the University of Tennessee Press, is intended to encourage and support the publication of short (100-page manuscripts), well-illustrated (100 images) books that introduce, clarify, and explore central issues in the theory and technique of vernacular architecture studies. For more information, consult our website: http://www.vernaculararchitectureforum.org/Special-Series. Series Editor Kim Hoagland will also be at the meeting in Durham, where she will happily meet with prospective authors. You can find her at the “Users’ Guide to the VAF” session, or email her directly: hoagland@mtu.edu. We look forward to hearing from you!

Field School in Built Heritage and Cultural Landscapes, April 23, 2016

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:30:00 GMT

SAH call for papers, award applications, and field seminar

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:00:00 GMT

submitted by Society of Architectural Historians

The Society of Architectural Historians is accepting abstracts for its 2017 Annual International Conference in Glasgow, Scotland (June 7–11). Abstracts may be submitted for one of the 36 paper sessions, Graduate Student Lightning Talks or for open sessions. SAH encourages submissions from architectural, landscape, and urban historians; museum curators; preservationists; independent scholars; architects; and members of SAH chapters and partner organizations. The deadline is June 6, 2016.

Applications are open for the SAH/Mellon Author Awards, which are designed to provide financial relief to scholars who are publishing their first monograph on the history of the built environment, and who are responsible for paying for rights and permissions for images or for commissioning maps, charts or line drawings in their publications. The deadline is May 15, 2016.

SAH invites nominations and self-nominations for the next Editor of JSAH to serve a three-year term: January 1, 2018–December 31, 2020. The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, JSAH, is a quarterly, blind-peer reviewed international journal devoted to all aspects of the history of the global built environment and spatial practice, including architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism, and city planning. Published since 1941, JSAH has defined the field of architectural history, and is a pioneer in digital publication. Articles published in JSAH are historically rigorous, conceptually sophisticated, and theoretically innovative. The deadline is June 15, 2016.

Registration is open for the SAH Field Seminar “Architectural Layers of a Southeast Asian Region,” December 1–13, 2016. The program will explore the fascinating architectural landscape of Vietnam, focusing in particular on the modern era from the nineteenth century to today. Participants will also visit the spectacular Angkor complex in Cambodia, capital of the Khmer empire from the ninth to fifteenth century. The SAH Study Program Fellowship deadline is August 11, 2016.

Society for Early Americanists call for session proposals May 2 and individual papers August 15, 2016

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 19:30:00 GMT

The Summer 2016 Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School, Picturing Milwaukee:Washington Park

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 19:29:00 GMT

Picturing Milwaukee: Washington Park

The Summer 2016 Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School

www.TheFieldSchool.weebly.com

Class Dates: June 13 - July 15, 2016;

Preparatory Workshop (attendance required), June 6, 2016, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM, AUP 183, SARUP, UWM

Final exhibit: July 29, 2016

Check out student testimonials at: http://thefieldschool.weebly.com/testimonials.html.

Field school is free for community volunteers. Students may decide to participate as community volunteers. However, if you decide to enroll in summer classes then you may take a maximum of 6 course credits.

Choose up to 6 credits from the list below:

ARCH 534 Field Study. –3 cr.

ARCH 550 Buildings Types and Settings - 3cr.

ARCH 551: American Vernacular Architecture, -3 cr.

ARCH 553: Vernacular Buildings/Groupings -3 cr.

ARCH 561 Measured Drawing for Architects. –3 cr.

ARCH 562 Preservation Technology Laboratory. –3 cr.

Course Description: This summer course provides students an immersion experience in the field recording of the built environment and cultural landscapes and an opportunity to learn how to write history literally “from the ground up.” The 2016 field school focuses on Washington Park, a racially, economically and culturally diverse neighborhood known for its artist communities and active neighborhood groups. This summer we will collaborate with ACTS Housing Inc., a local nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote economic self-sufficiency and homeownership. We will study a variety of homes in this neighborhood—everyday residences, boarded up homes, refabricated and reused homes, homes transformed into stores and workplaces, homes as works of art, homes remembered in family histories and homes as domestic worlds. This project seeks to employ the enduring creativity of storytelling, the power of digital humanities, and depth of local knowledge in order to galvanize Milwaukee residents to talk about their homes as repositories of community memory, spaces of caring and markers of civic pride.

The five-week course calendar covers a broad array of academic skills. Workshops during Week 1 will focus on photography, measured drawings, documentation and technical drawings; no prior experience is necessary. Week 2 will include workshops on oral history interviewing and digital ethnography. Week 3 is centered on mapping and archival research. Week 4 and 5 will be devoted to producing final reports and multi-media documentaries. Students will learn how to “read” buildings within their urban material, social, ecological and cultural contexts, create reports on historic buildings and cultural landscapes and produce multimedia documentaries. Nationally recognized faculty directing portions of this school include Jeffrey E. Klee, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Anna Andrzejewski, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michael H. Frisch, Professor and Senior Research Scholar, University at Buffalo, Arijit Sen, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and Matthew Jarosz, Associate Adjunct Professor of Architecture and Historic Preservation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

For details please contact Arijit Sen at senA@uwm.edu.

Obituary for Ronald W. Brunskill, RIBA, OBE, FSA, PhD, 1929-2015

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 19:00:00 GMT

Ronald W. Brunskill, architect, conservationist, and teacher, whose many books on English vernacular architecture appealed to a broad audience of students, scholars, and antiquarians in Britain and America, died on October 6, 2015. He was 86 years old. He is survived by his wife Miriam, “Mimi,” and two daughters, Lesley and Robin, and several grandchildren. A man noted for his modest demeanor and exceptional talents, Brunskill was born on January 3, 1929 in Lowton, near Leigh in Lancashire in northwest England. His passion for traditional architecture blossomed early as he walked and bicycled the lanes of the Eden Valley nestled between located between the Lake District in the west and the Pennines in the east. The stone dwellings and farm buildings of this lush rolling landscape captured his imagination. In high school he wrote a prize-winning essay on its early buildings.

Trained as an architect at Manchester University just after World War II, Brunskill also received his MA and PhD from that institution where he studied under the legendary R. A. Cordingley, who pioneered the study of regional architecture and offered him a job in the School of Architecture where he taught from 1960 to 1989. His academic training may have shaped Professor Brunskill’s intellectual perspective, but early encounters with vernacular buildings in the Eden Valley led him to revisit the area in his master’s thesis. This work was eventually expanded and incorporated in Vernacular Architecture of the Lake Counties.

The pattern of his scholarship was set and would have a tremendous impact in Britain and the United States from the 1970s onward. “Brunskill’s Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture is where we all started,” observed Barbara Watkins, Secretary of the English Vernacular Architecture Group. This and others such as Traditional Farm Buildings of Britain, English Brickwork, and Timber Building in Britain have been primers for two generations of amateur recording societies and professionals alike. Their orderly presentation of plans, structural elements, and decorative details emphasize the richness of regional building practices in Britain, but most importantly, opened the sometime esoteric study of traditional buildings to a broad readership. They emphasize that recognizing and preserving this architectural heritage is not merely the preserve of the scholar but beckoned the lay person as well, appealing to an ethos that did not fully blossom in this country in the way it has long bloomed among the scores of amateur historical and antiquarian societies in Britain. In the United States a few students in special programs are taught the rudiments of recording historic structures; in the British Isles, men and women from all walks of life come together to spend their weekends and holidays to measure neighboring farmhouses accompanied by a Brunskill volume in their kitbag.

Brunskill was a highly successful missionary and publicist for vernacular architecture. J. T. Smith, the retired principal investigator for Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, described Professor Brunskill’s lectures as “inspiring and beautifully delivered.” He recalled that one of them given in the mid 1960s “aroused the audience’s enthusiasm to a remarkable degree and made even a seasoned practitioner like myself want to rush out and record whatever lay to hand.”

Brunskill remained a practicing architect throughout his career. Following two years in national service, he joined a group of architects at London County Council working on large scale housing projects that helped alleviate post-war shortages in the metropolis. In 1956 he received an architectural fellowship and spent a year at MIT teaching as well as traveling extensively throughout the United States. On his return to England, he took up an architectural post at a bank where he was responsible for the design and upkeep of many branch buildings. He was a partner in the firm of Carter, Brunskill and Associates, which was founded in the late 1960s. The firm did much conservation work as well as new projects in Britain and internationally. On the domestic side, in 1962 he designed a house in Wimslow where he and his wife lived for more than fifty years.

In addition to his academic responsibilities, Dr. Brunskill more than shared his time as a committee member serving as an advisor, reviewer, and leader of numerous architectural, antiquarian, and historical commissions and professional societies. He served as president of the Vernacular Architecture Group, vice-chairman of the Weald and Downland Museum, and was a member of the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, commissioner for six years at English Heritage, and was chairman and president of the Ancient Monuments Society and the Friends of Friendless Churches to name but a few in an exhaustive list of national heritage bodies. He also remained firmly tied to his origins, serving as president of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, through which he had published his first articles on vernacular architecture many years before.

Ronald Brunskill’s career bounded the Atlantic in ways that have allowed us to claim him as one of our unofficial founders. In 1960 he married Mimi Allsopp from Georgia and that bond that united our two countries gave rise to his deep interests in America over the next half century. During his traveling fellowship in 1956, he visited the newly reconstructed settlement at Jamestown Festival Park with its collection of cruck buildings that demonstrated to him the remarkably limited understanding that Americans had of English vernacular building. Not long to be discouraged, he discovered an affinity in the farm buildings of Pennsylvania and those in his beloved Eden Valley in Westmoreland and Cumberland. From this discovery, he was emboldened to introduce the term “bank barn” to vernacular building in England. In his teaching at Manchester and courses at the University of York, he managed to attract American students including Charles Peterson, one of the founding lights of the Historic American Buildings Survey, and organized several exhibitions in England of HABS work.

Professor Brunskill traveled widely in the United States and met most people who were involved in the study of traditional architecture including Jay Edwards, Abbott Cummings, and Blair Reeves. He was a visiting professor at the University of Florida for a year and also lectured in Virginia and Toronto. Intriguingly, in the late 1960s he met with John Pearce, Rusty Marshall, Richard Candee (another summer students at York in 1968), and others to discuss the establishment of an American organization equivalent to the English VAG but the general consensus was that the time was not yet ripe for such a venture. More than a dozen years later after the VAF was formed, he attended a number of our early meetings including Sturbridge, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Portsmouth. Even from afar, he continued to keep an eye on the progress of field work in America. He would inquire in his gentle manner about the research that we were doing at Colonial Williamsburg when we attended the VAG spring meetings in the 1980s and 1990s. No mere courtesy, he would often follow up with a letter to see how that work was progressing. Ronald Brunskill received the Henry Glassie Award from the VAF at the 2009 annual meeting in Butte in honor of his long and distinguish career in teaching and the promotion of the study and conservation of vernacular architecture in Great Britain and in this country.

Carl Lounsbury

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

VAF Member Richard Longstreth receives honors from SAH

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 18:30:00 GMT

Richard Longstreth received the Award for Excellence in Architectural Scholarship and Preservation Advocacy at the Society of Architectural Historians 75th Anniversary Gala in Chicago on 6 November. He also received the Award for Excellence by the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians for the best essay in 2014-15 for "The Continual Transformation of Savannah's Broughton Street," part of his latest book, Looking Beyond the Icons: Midcentury Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism, published by the University of Virginia Press. Also published, by Rizzoli-Universe, "Road Trip," a collection of color photographs of roadside architecture nationwide taken by him during the late 1960s and 1970s.

VAF Member Francesa Ammen has authored a new book, Bulldozer

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 18:00:00 GMT

Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape was published in April 2016 by Yale University Press.

Although the decades following World War II stand out as an era of rapid growth and construction in the United States, those years were equally significant for large-scale destruction. In order to clear space for new suburban tract housing, an ambitious system of interstate highways, and extensive urban renewal development, wrecking companies demolished buildings while earthmoving contractors leveled land at an unprecedented pace and scale. In this pioneering history, Francesca Russello Ammon explores how postwar America came to equate this destruction with progress.

The bulldozer functioned as both the means and the metaphor for this work. As the machine transformed from a wartime weapon into an instrument of postwar planning, it helped realize a landscape-altering “culture of clearance.” In the hands of the military, planners, politicians, engineers, construction workers, and even children’s book authors, the bulldozer became an American icon. Yet social and environmental injustices emerged as clearance projects continued unabated. This awareness spurred environmental, preservationist, and citizen participation efforts that have helped to slow, though not entirely stop, the momentum of the postwar bulldozer.

Francesca Russello Ammon is assistant professor of city and regional planning and historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies the history of the built environment, focusing on the social, material, and cultural life of cities in the twentieth-century United States. She lives in Philadelphia, PA

VAF Member Timothy Kelly co-authored new book, Hope in Hard Times

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:58:00 GMT

Member Timothy Kelly recently co-authored with two colleagues, Margaret Power (Illinois Institute of Technology) and Michael Cary (Seton Hill University), Hope in Hard Times: Norvelt and the Struggle for Community During the Great Depression which will be published in June 2016 by Penn State University Press. The book traces the history of a subsistence homestead community built during the Great Depression to house unemployed coal miners and others from Westmoreland County in southwestern Pennsylvania. The community was one of four designed specifically for unemployed coal miners, and aimed to provide dignified lives for those struggling amidst great poverty. The other three communities were located in West Virginia and Tennessee. This history focuses primarily on the years during which the federal government was heavily involved with the community (1934-1946), and one chapter examines the domestic architecture directly.

Publishers description:

In the midst of the Great Depression, 250 desperate families in western Pennsylvania joined a federally sponsored program to create a new kind of community. They helped build and then moved into modest homes on generous plots with ample gardens that helped to feed the men, women and children who called Norvelt home. They undertook a great experiment in cooperative living that many hoped would spur similar efforts throughout the country. This book conveys their successes and struggles as they shaped the community that remains vibrant today.

VAF Member Joan Berkey authors new book on wood architecture in New Jersey

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:57:00 GMT

Written by architectural historian, Joan Berkey, the heavily illustrated book examines the forces that shaped the earliest wooden buildings erected in Cumberland County. Dating as early as the late 1600s, these heavy timber frame (also known as post and beam) structures are strikingly similar to those built in 17th-century Massachusetts. Years of research and examination of more than 40 extant buildings reveal important differences, however, and suggest a direct-from-England influence as well. While the book focuses on those built before 1750, it also includes others dated as late as ca. 1840 to demonstrate how timber framing evolved over a century and a half.

Berkey also encountered several log and Dutch-American frame buildings during her research and devotes a chapter to each in the 208-page volume. More than 230 photographs (many in color), drawings, and maps enrich the text.

VAF member Christine O'Malley works with Alpha Phi Alpha to get structure nominated and stabilized

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:30:00 GMT

Christine O'Malley has been working with Alpha Phi Alpha, the first African-American Greek letter intercollegiate fraternal organization in the US to get the Dennis-Newton house in Ithaca, NY (considered the birthplace of their fraternity) locally designated, which was achieved in 2015. Building on that accomplishment, she is currently working with the NY SHPO to get the structure listed on the National Register for Historic Places. She also helped get the house nominated for the Seven to Save list as a path to stabilize the house for the future. Seven to Save is the Preservation League of New York State list that draws attention to the plight of New York State’s vacant or underused National Historic Landmarks, historic communities prone to flooding, African American cultural heritage, and industrial heritage.

News from the Gaspé!

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:29:00 GMT

We've added complementary documentation to the 2013 Gaspé-Percé VAF booklets. The photographs and drawings can be accessed via the following web page: http://www.crcprb.chaire.ulaval.ca/en/activities/vernacular-architecture-forum.html

Call for Co-Editor, Buildings & Landscapes, June 1, 2016

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:00:00 GMT

Call for Co-Editor

The Vernacular Architecture Forum is seeking nominations for a new co-editor for its acclaimed academic journal Buildings & Landscapes: The Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. The new co-editor will be named roughly one year in advance of assuming the position to allow for a smooth transition. The editor designee will be expected to follow the editorial process beginning in the summer of 2016 and begin a four-year term as co-editor in June of 2017.

B&L’s two editors work closely with the publisher, the University of Minnesota Press. The terms of the two co-editors are staggered so that every two years one editor rotates off. New co-editors are appointed by the President of the Vernacular Architecture Forum with the approval of the VAF’s Board of Directors. The co-editors hold a joint position on the Board of Directors of the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

Buildings & Landscapes appears in print twice a year as an attractive, large-format journal. Significant attention is paid to the physical appearance of the print journal, which features abundant black-and-white illustrations and high quality paper. Digital on-line access is available through JSTOR, as is a digital supplement that allows enhancements including color illustrations, 3D models, film, and audio. Working with the University of Minnesota Press, the co-editors pay close attention to editing and image quality. Future opportunities include continuing to refine and expand the digital edition of B&L available through JSTOR, which may include experimenting with new media.

B&L editors oversee all aspects of publication: soliciting scholarly contributions (through conferences, word of mouth, and other means); vetting submissions by working with peer reviewers; preparing manuscripts for publication by working closely with authors; coordinating copyediting and page proofs with the University of Minnesota Press; working closely with authors and the B&L image editor on image permissions; and arranging with the review editor for the timely submission and editing of reviews.

The ideal editor will have a strong record of previous publications; a history of involvement with the VAF; editorial experience; and a keen interest in collaborating with other scholars. Institutional support – from the candidate’s academic institution or professional organization – would be beneficial, including funding to support travel to conferences (to solicit contributions to the journal), funding for editorial assistants (such as graduate research assistants), and flex time during the academic year to facilitate editorial work.

Nominations (including self nominations) should include a 1-2 page statement of interest that outlines the candidate’s background and preparedness for this position along with a current CV. Please send nominations (as a single .pdf) to Anna Andrzejewski at avandrzejews@wisc.edu by June 1, 2016. Inquiries and questions are also welcome.

Spring 2016 Bibliography

Christine R Henry — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 16:30:00 GMT

Compiled by Ian Stevenson and Zachary Violette

Abramson, Daniel M. Obsolescence: An Architectural History. Chicago ; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Aigner, Anita. “Heritage-Making ‘from Below’: The Politics of Exhibiting Architectural Heritage on the Internet – a Case Study.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 22, no. 3 (March 15, 2016): 181–99. doi:10.1080/13527258.2015.1107615.

Allmond, Gillian. “Light and Darkness in an Edwardian Institution for the Insane Poor—Illuminating the Material Practices of the Asylum Age.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20, no. 1 (March 2016): 1–22. doi:10.1007/s10761-015-0316-3.

Amsterdam, Daniel. Roaring Metropolis: Businessmen’s Campaign for a Civic Welfare State. American Business, Politics, and Society. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

Apotsos, Michelle. Architecture, Islam, and Identity in West Africa: Lessons from Larabanga. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Ara, Dilshad Rahat, and Mamun Rashid. “Between the Built and the Unbuilt in Vernacular Studies: The Architecture of the Mru of the Chittagong Hills.” The Journal of Architecture 21, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 1–23. doi:10.1080/13602365.2015.1137620.

Birch, Eugenie Ladner, Susan M. Wachter, and Shahana Chattaraj, eds. Slums: How Informal Real Estate Markets Work. The City in the Twenty-First Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

Bluestone, Daniel. “Charlottesville’s Landscape of Prostitution, 1880–1950.” Buildings & Landscapes 22, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 36–61.

Conner, C. A. “‘The University That Ate Birmingham’: The Healthcare Industry, Urban Development, and Neoliberalism.” Journal of Urban History 42, no. 2 (March 1, 2016): 284–305. doi:10.1177/0096144215623951.

Dainese, Elisa. “Histories of Exchange: Indigenous South Africa in the South African Architectural Record and the Architectural Review.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 74, no. 4 (December 2015): 443–63.

Day, J. N. “Health Care and Urban Revitalization: A Historical Overview.” Journal of Urban History 42, no. 2 (March 1, 2016): 247–58. doi:10.1177/0096144215623949.

Dines, Nick. “Critical Ethnographies of Urban Heritage in the Western Mediterranean Region.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 22, no. 2 (February 7, 2016): 85–88. doi:10.1080/13527258.2015.1110532.

Domin, Christopher, Joseph King, and Ezra Stoller. Paul Rudolph the Florida Houses. New York; Enfield: Princeton Architectural ; Hi Marketing [distributor], 2005. http://books.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/ebooks2/springer/2011-02-17/1/1568986475.

Duwe, Samuel, B. Sunday Eiselt, J. Andrew Darling, Mark D. Willis, and Chester Walker. “The Pueblo Decomposition Model: A Method for Quantifying Architectural Rubble to Estimate Population Size.” Journal of Archaeological Science 65 (January 2016): 20–31.

Fisher, Lewis F. Saving San Antonio: The Preservation of a Heritage. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2016.

Flynn, Katherine. “A More Perfect Union in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.” Preservation, 2016.

Hart, Emma. Building Charleston: Town and Society in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World. Columbia, South Carolina: The University of South Carolina Press, 2015.

Heller, Gregory L. Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia. 1st ed. The City in the Twenty-First Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

Ingram, Mark. “Emplacement and the Politics of Heritage in Low-Income Neighbourhoods of Marseille.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 22, no. 2 (February 7, 2016): 117–30. doi:10.1080/13527258.2015.1068212.

Jobst, Marko. “Writing Sensation: Deleuze, Literature, Architecture and Virginia Woolf’s The Waves.” The Journal of Architecture 21, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 55–67. doi:10.1080/13602365.2016.1140671.

Kamin, Blair, ed. Gates of Harvard Yard. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2016.

Keys, Cathy. “Designing Hospitals for Australian Conditions: The Australian Inland Mission’s Cottage Hospital, Adelaide House, 1926.” The Journal of Architecture 21, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 68–89. doi:10.1080/13602365.2016.1141790.

Laurence, Peter L. Becoming Jane Jacobs. The Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

LeCavalier, Jesse. The Rule of Logistics: Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment. Minneapolis ; London: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

Longstreth, Richard W. Looking beyond the Icons: Midcentury Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015.

Mímisson, Kristján. “Building Identities: The Architecture of the Persona.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20, no. 1 (March 2016): 207–27. doi:10.1007/s10761-015-0322-5.

Mualam, Nir, and Martin Sybblis. “The Functional Threshold of Modern Heritage: Form versus Function and the Struggle over Tel Aviv’s Concert Hall.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 22, no. 2 (February 7, 2016): 145–64. doi:10.1080/13527258.2015.1103299.

Murphy, Kevin. “Viewpoint: Peculiar Places and Strange Guests: Obsolete Resorts in Some Mid-Twentieth Century Children’s Books.” Buildings and Landscapes 22, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 1–17.

Nicoletta, Julie. “Selling Spirituality and Spectacle: Religious Pavilions at the New York World’s Fair of 1964–65.” Buildings & Landscapes 22, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 62–88.

Risse, G. B. “‘Bringing DNA into the Neighborhood’ in San Francisco: A Personal Recollection.” Journal of Urban History 42, no. 2 (March 1, 2016): 346–58. doi:10.1177/0096144215623956.

———. “Conflict or Collaboration: Academic Medical Centers and Their Communities, A Commentary.” Journal of Urban History 42, no. 2 (March 1, 2016): 359–62. doi:10.1177/0096144215623957.

Robertson, Lisa C. “‘We Must Advance, We Must Expand’: Architectural and Social Challenges to the Domestic Model at the College for Ladies at Westfield.” Women’s History Review 25, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 105–23. doi:10.1080/09612025.2015.1047255.

Rosner, D., and G. Markowitz. “Building the World That Kills Us: The Politics of Lead, Science, and Polluted Homes, 1970 to 2000.” Journal of Urban History 42, no. 2 (March 1, 2016): 323–45. doi:10.1177/0096144215623954.

Rubin, Jasper. A Negotiated Landscape: The Transformation of San Francisco’s Waterfront since 1950. Second Edition. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016.

Shackel, Paul A. “The Meaning of Place in the Anthracite Region of Northeastern Pennsylvania.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 22, no. 3 (March 15, 2016): 200–213. doi:10.1080/13527258.2015.1114009.

Shkuda, Aaron. The Lofts of SoHo: Gentrification, Art, and Industry in New York, 1950-1980. Historical Studies of Urban America. Chicago ; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Simpson, A. T. “‘We Will Gladly Join You in Partnership in Harrisburg or We Will See You in Court’: The Growth of Large Not-for-Profits and Consequences of the ‘Eds and Meds’ Renaissance in the New Pittsburgh.” Journal of Urban History 42, no. 2 (March 1, 2016): 306–22. doi:10.1177/0096144215623952.

Stilgoe, John R. Landscape and Images. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Stobart, Jon, and Mark Rothery. Consumption and the Country House. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Thomas, Zoë. “At Home with the Women’s Guild of Arts: Gender and Professional Identity in London Studios, c .1880–1925.” Women’s History Review 24, no. 6 (November 2, 2015): 938–64. doi:10.1080/09612025.2015.1039348.

Tronchin, Lamberto, and David J. Knight. “Revisiting Historic Buildings through the Senses Visualising Aural and Obscured Aspects of San Vitale, Ravenna.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20, no. 1 (March 2016): 127–45. doi:10.1007/s10761-015-0325-2.

Tutter, Adele. Dream House: An Intimate Portrait of the Philip Johnson Glass House. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016.

Valle, Luisa. “Object Lesson: Thomas Hirschhorn’s Gramsci Monument: Negotiating Monumentality with Instability and Everyday Life.” Buildings & Landscapes 22, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 18–35.

Walser, Lauren. “California Dream: Lincoln Place Apartments.” Preservation, 2016.

Wegmann, Jake. “Research Notes: The Hidden Cityscapes of Informal Housing in Suburban Los Angeles and the Paradox of Horizontal Density.” Buildings & Landscapes 22, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 89–110.

Wilson, Thomas D. The Oglethorpe Plan: Enlightenment Design in Savannah and Beyond. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012.

Zhang, Yingchun, and Zongjie Wu. “The Reproduction of Heritage in a Chinese Village: Whose Heritage, Whose Pasts?” International Journal of Heritage Studies 22, no. 3 (March 15, 2016): 228–41. doi:10.1080/13527258.2015.1114505.