Feature Archives

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

c. 1908

Cultural landscapes give us a sense of place and reveal our relationship with the land over time. At the University of Kansas, the cultural contributions and the landscape of the campus are part of their regional heritage and a part of the lives of many generations of graduates, citizens of the state and community, visitors and future alumni.

The Kansas report presents a strategy to identify where change may best be suited to occur on this historic campus. It presents a means for blending potential building additions and new sites for construction with the goal of protecting the most significant historic resources of the campus. Historic preservation and stewardship are seen as a strategy for responsible asset management and not as an impediment to change. Campus stewardship thus is not about freezing change but making wise choices.

This report identifies and defines preservation terms, clarifies how terms such as landscape, topography, and periods of development are used in the report. This includes the word “viewshed”, an urban planning term referring to views to an area of water, land or other elements within the environment that are visible from a given vantage point.

In addition, this report illustrates the importance of space, sites, views, and topography to place campus buildings in a wider context.

University of Kansas page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The National Council for Preservation Education has over fifty member institutions located across the United States. These academic programs in historic preservation and allied fields have educated thousands of students, many of whom have developed professional careers as professional historic preservation leaders working for local, state, federal government agencies, non-governmental organizations and in the private sector in the US and elsewhere in the world.

This organization provides a comprehensive guide for academic programs in historic preservation at universities across the country. The National Council for Preservation Education also publishes a peer-reviewed journal, Preservation Education and Research. This publication may be a substantial resource in itself.

Preserve Net which is a preservation database of internet resources is another operation sponsored by this organization. Preserve Net was presented as a featured resource on this website in October 2009. You may review that resource at the Feature Archives tab.

With the encouragement of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Feature of the Month February 2010, this organization was established in 1980 with the following objectives:

* Encouraging and assisting in the development and improvement of historic preservation education programs and endeavors in the United States and elsewhere;

* Coordinating efforts related to preservation education with public and private organizations and interested individuals;

* Facilitating the collection, exchange and dissemination of information and ideas concerning preservation education;

* Creating public awareness of endeavors in preservation education.

For those interested in historic preservation educational programs, this is a major resource for you.

BROWN UNIVERSITY

94 George Street Architect - Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge

1989 Addition Architect - Hartman-Cox

Almost from the very beginning, Brown University and the city of Providence were woven together on a common ground. In 1770, the Corporation charged the selection committee with seeking a site for Rhode Island College in Providence.

In the 235 years since Brown located to Providence and erected University Hall at the crest of College Hill, it has grown to include 235 buildings, and over 6,000,000 square feet of academic and related space. Only 31 of these buildings were constructed by Brown for their own use, before 1955. Only 60 buildings were built by Brown, or others, after 1955. The remaining 144 structures were built before 1955, by others, for other uses. Included in this total, for example, are over one hundred houses. The character of the campus is therefore largely historic, and entirely urban. The pattern of growth is characterized by adaptive reuse, more than by new, purpose built construction. The perception of place is bound into the perception of Providence. The campus has evolved through adaptive reuse.

Seventy historic buildings representing East Coast American architecture, stretching from the late eighteenth–century Greek Revival to the present day, with works by such eminent architects as McKim, Mead, and White; Philip Johnson; and Rafael Viñoly were studied for the Brown report to the Getty Foundation.

Brown University page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The Historical Postcard Collection documents the buildings and environs of the Princeton University campus in the form of picture postcards. Featuring both monochrome and color postcards , the bulk of the collection ranges in date from 1900 through the 1960s. Both unmarked and canceled postcards exist in the collection. Several postcard makers are represented in these materials.

The collection includes buildings, campus ornamentation, Princeton borough and township, and postcard booklets. Each post card in the building section for example, includes a brief description. This is an impressive collection with 60 post cards illustrating ornamentation, and 884 post cards on buildings.

You can find additional information about the postcard collection and other resources on our links to related organizations.

Enjoy browsing!

The University of Chicago report to the Getty Foundation outlines Preservation Plans for Contemporary Architecture. Ten noteworthy mid-century campus buildings were selected by the university for assessment with plans for preservation.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the University began to add modern buildings to the formerly all-Gothic campus. These included the Laird Bell Law Quadrangle (Eero Saarinen, 1959) and the School of Social Service Administration (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1965). In 1963, the University acquired the Robie House, built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1909. By 1970, the Regenstein Library—at seven stories, and almost a block square, the largest building on campus by far—occupied the site of Old Stagg Field.

The university wishes to maintain these buildings as part of the functional physical plant of the campus, and recognize their architectural heritage value as they complement the existing traditional Collegiate Gothic buildings on campus.

The ten buildings:

• Administration Building – Holabird and Root, 1948
• Laird Bell Law Quadrangle – Eero Saarinen, 1959
• Pierce Residence Hall – Harry Weese & Associates, 1960
• University High School – Perkins and Will, 1960
• Kellog Center for Continuing Education / New Graduate Residence Hall, Edward Durell Stone, 1962
• Lab for Astrophysics and Space Research – Skidmore Owings Merrill, 1964
• School of Social Service Administration – Ludwig Mies van de Rohe, 1965
• Henry Hinds Laboratory for Geophysical Sciences – I.W. Colburn, 1969
• Joseph Regenstein Library – Skidmore Owings Merriall, 1970
• Smart Museum – Cochrane Woods Art Center – Edward Larrabee Barnes 1974

OWP/P and Cannon Design has developed a Higher Education Case Study booklet with the title of “Recapitalizing a Campus, The University of Chicago Law School.”

The University of Chicago page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

In the last decades, the architectural heritage of the modern movement appeared more at risk than during any other period. This built inheritance glorifies the dynamic spirit of the Machine Age. At the end of the 1980s, many modern masterpieces had already been demolished or had changed beyond recognition. This was mainly due to the fact that many were not considered to be elements of heritage, that their original functions have substantially changed and that their technological innovations have not always endured long-term stresses.

• act as watchdog when important modern movement buildings anywhere are under threat
• exchange ideas relating to conservation technology, history and education
• foster interest in the ideas and heritage of the modern movement
• elicit responsibility towards this recent architectural inheritance.

At present, Docomomo International includes 53 chapters and more than 2,300 members, in Europe, America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. In their variety of cultures and experiences, the chapters represent the true richness of Docomomo International.

Every two years Docomomo organizes an international conference, providing an opportunity to inquire into a theme that deals with an important aspect of the modern movement. The conferences are also a platform where specialists from all over the world can meet, exchange knowledge and make contacts.

Jon Buono (jbuono@eypae.com) has communicated with SCUP to let us know about the US chapters of this organization, DOCOMOMO US, www.docomomo-us.org. The DOCOMOMO US organization:

• comprises a national membership focused within 10 major regional chapters,
• maintains a publically-accessible online “Register” of significant modern building, sites, and neighborhoods (www.docomomo-us.org/register/browser), and
• has sponsored (for over 4 years) related graduate-student research and documentation projects, and
• continues to seek and develop additional college and university academic partnerships to expand the Register.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

Emerson College is a private coeducational university located in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of oratory," Emerson is "the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context." Offering over three dozen degree programs in the area of Arts and Communication, the college is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. Located in the Boston Theatre District, the school also maintains buildings in Los Angeles. In recent years, Emerson College has completed its move from Boston's Back Bay neighborhood to the historic Theatre District of Boston abutting the southeast corner of the Boston Common. In addition to the buildings listed below, Emerson College owns and runs the Cutler Majestic Theatre. The College also owns a castle in Holland, the base for its European programs, and is constructing a major academic center on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to house its long-standing Los Angeles programs.

In the fall of 2006, Emerson College was awarded a Getty Campus Heritage Grant to study the exterior facades of the following eight Emerson buildings and develop a prioritized maintenance and restoration plan for them:

• Cutler Majestic Theatre
• Ansin Building
• Little Building
• Union Warren Savings Bank
• Walker Buildings
• Adams House Annex
• Paramount Theatre
• Colonial Building and Colonial Theatre

Emerson College page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The Boston Preservation Alliance is a nonprofit organization that protects and improves the quality of Boston's distinct architectural heritage. Through advocacy and education, we bring people and organizations together to influence the future of Boston's historic buildings, landscapes and communities.

This organization promotes the architecture of the Boston area colleges and universities though a program on Campus Heritage.

Boston’s colleges and universities play an invaluable role in the city’s economic development, cultural vitality, and quality of life. Nearly 400,000 students enroll in Boston’s institutions of higher education each year, and Boston is world-renown as an international leader in higher education.

The Alliance has taken a leadership role in fostering a dialogue about how Boston’s colleges and universities can grow and evolve while preserving and revitalizing the historic buildings on their campuses that define their identities. In October 2007, the Boston Preservation Alliance convened one-day Symposium at the Boston Architectural College entitled Campus Heritage Planning: The Urban Challenge. The event was principally sponsored by Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority and drew over one hundred and fifty academic administrators, architects, planners, government officials, and preservation professionals.

The Alliance has used the Symposium as a launching point for an initiative to engage college and university administrators, professionals and residents of Boston in order to address some of the complex challenges in planning for and developing our historic college and university campuses.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation provides leadership, education, advocacy, and resources to save America's diverse historic places and revitalize our communities.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a private, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to saving historic places and revitalizing America's communities. Recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Trust was founded in 1949 and provides leadership, education, advocacy, and resources to protect the irreplaceable places that tell America’s story. Staff at the Washington, DC, headquarters, six regional offices and 29 historic sites work with the Trust’s 270,000 members and thousands of preservation groups in all 50 states.

The need for the National Trust for Historic Preservation has increased since its founding in 1949. When historic buildings and neighborhoods are torn down or allowed to deteriorate, a part of our past disappears forever. When that happens, we lose history that helps us know who we are, and we lose opportunities to live and work in the kinds of interesting and attractive surroundings that older buildings can provide.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

Rhodes College occupies a 100-acre wooded campus in an historic neighborhood near downtown Memphis, offering both an idyllic residential learning environment and the vitality of a growing urban center.

Rhodes College Preservation Plan is an effort to preserve the legacy of the campus historic core. In particular, the guidelines for stewardship of the 13 structures and two spaces in the National Register of Historic Places are addressed.

The goal of the Preservation Plan is to establish a method of care, maintenance, and growth for the Rhodes College campus that will align with its founding principles of genuine identity. This plan responds to the traditions of Collegiate Gothic architectural style, its beginnings at Cambridge and Oxford, and its influence on the American campus.

Rhodes College page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is the only not-for-profit (501c3) foundation in America dedicated to increasing the public's awareness and understanding of the importance and irreplaceable legacy of its cultural landscapes.

Through education, technical assistance, and outreach, we broaden awareness of and support for historic landscapes nationwide in hopes of saving this diverse and priceless heritage for future generations. While TCLF seeks donations to support its efforts, it is not a membership organization.

Founded in 1998 by Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, TCLF achieves its mission by

Collaborating with individuals and local, regional, and national groups to understand and protect our landscape heritage and to reach the broadest possible audience. For example, TCLF is one of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ “partners in education”

Training professionals, students, teachers, and the general public to recognize, document and safeguard America's cultural landscapes;

Serving as the nation’s largest and most valuable non-profit source of information about our nation’s historic landscapes and those pioneering individuals who have contributed (through design, planning and advocacy) to this legacy;

Raising awareness of and support for individual landscapes-at-risk; and

Recognizing and celebrating the efforts of owners, supporters and stewards of significant American places.

TCLF’s overall success can be measured by the millions of people who have learned about cultural landscapes through its website, publications and events—as well as through the growing national awareness of the importance of America’s cultural landscapes and the increasing efforts to document and protect this heritage.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

Since 1868, Mills College founders, and those who followed, shaped the campus with Picturesque-era exotic and native plantings and distinguished architecture. In 2006, Mills College sought guidance on how to best preserve, enhance, and further develop this unique campus setting. Funded by the Getty Foundation and Mills College, this landscape heritage study distills the values of the college founders and how these were expressed by nationally recognized landscape architects and architects over 140 years.

The project singles out iconic resources and recommends how to balance future development with historic preservation. The project included historical research, analysis, and planning, and it culminated in design solutions for two key campus precincts to address current and future needs. The study demonstrates that the use of historic resources is integral to sustainable planning and design. The public lecture series, integration of the study into college courses, and publication of a book increased awareness and excitement about this study’s findings and recommendations. The result is a campus environment that expresses the unique identity of the institution.

Mills College page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The American Planning Association is an independent, not-for-profit educational organization that provides leadership in the development of vital communities by advocating excellence in community planning, promoting education and citizen empowerment, and providing the tools and support necessary to meet the challenges of growth and change.

The American Planning Association was created in 1978 by the consolidation of two separate planning organizations, but its roots grow all the way back to 1909 and the first National Conference on City Planning in Washington, D.C.

If you are interested in the built environment and the physical roots of the planning profession, the Urban Design and Preservation Division is the organization to join. The APA Division provides a nationwide community for idea exchange and relationship building specifically for urban design and preservation. We offer great opportunities to promote these topics within the field of planning and within APA.

Urban design and design oriented planning can be utilized in almost every project, large and small. We recognize that planners are uniquely positioned to promote the benefits of design in the built environment — especially as communities are increasingly demanding higher quality. The Division also recognizes that planners play a critical role in historic preservation. Planners are well positioned to shape the public conversation about historically significant places.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

The Ohio State University campus is recognized as an urban collegiate environment with a rich variety of historic architecture, campus planning elements, and landscape features that form a coherent whole. The features, materials, design, campus plan, and human scale that are found within the historic campus are distinctive assets. This important physical legacy reinforces and promotes social interaction and provides a tangible link to the past. Understanding and reinforcing these unique characteristics is central to preservation.

A 2003 Getty Campus Heritage Grant funded the preparation of The Ohio State University Historic Building Survey and Preservation Management Program which consists of a database of archival information, historical research and context narrative, inventory data, and a visual information management system which ties together electronic maps, drawings, archival documents and photographic images, and data. The preservation management program is designed to be accessible for campus planning and maintenance of historic building materials, design features, buildings, landscapes, and cultural resources, and provides a platform for adding and managing information, work order logs, and/or cyclical maintenance schedules, keeping track of these issues over time to better manage the agents of change that impact them. This information management tool will guide stewardship and appropriate decision-making that will, in turn, help ensure the future preservation of the University’s important legacy. Guidelines and specifications for appropriate treatment of the historic resources have been prepared to accompany the database.

Ohio State University page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The Association of University Architects was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in June 1955. The organization was conceived by university architects who had for many years served as campus planners and felt a need for an organization, which could foster a professional association with people of similar responsibilities. Following the development of the organization, the first annual conference of the Association of University Architects was held at the University of Michigan, in March 1956.

The history of this society indicates that, wherever challenges are issued and where people of similar backgrounds and professional training perform their services, there is both a desire and real benefit in being able to communicate and exchange ideas with each other. To this end, the purposes of the Association of University Architects are many. Progress and better communication are the watchwords. In establishing the goals of the organization, three points were uppermost:

1. To achieve more effective planning of total physical environment in the field of higher education.
2. To improve the design and construction standards of university buildings, recognizing the growing complexity of contemporary academic projects.
3. To develop common bonds and establish standards which will insure clarity of communications and render effective the exchange of information between members.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

Founded in 1749, Washington and Lee University is named for two of the most influential men in American history: George Washington, whose generous endowment of $20,000 in 1796 helped the fledgling school (then known as Liberty Hall Academy) survive, and Robert E. Lee, whose presidency and innovative leadership brought the University into the national limelight.

The University is located in the historic city of Lexington (population 7,000) in the Great Valley of Virginia about three hours southwest of Washington, D.C. W&L’s 35 principal buildings include the picturesque Washington College group forming the Colonnade facing Lee Chapel, where Robert E. Lee is buried. The Colonnade and Lee Chapel are National Historic Landmarks. New or recently renovated buildings include the John W. Elrod University Commons, the journalism department's Reid Hall, the Doremus fitness center and Wilson Hall, the fine arts and music center.

With Getty foundation grant support, the university plans to research the cultural and architectural heritage of the campus, inventory and evaluate the buildings and landscape, and create a preservation master plan with policies, procedures, and training programs.

Washington and Lee University page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

PreserveNet is designed to provide preservationists with a comprehensive database of regularly updated internet resources and current professional opportunities. Established in 1994 by Cornell University's Michael Tomlan and Bob Pick, PreserveNet was the result of a collaborative effort by preservation students of various universities interested in providing preservation information in what was then a new and exciting arena, the internet. Continually updated and expanded since its establishment, PreserveNet utilizes the many internet resources of various preservation organizations and maintains a current listing of professional and educational opportunities. News, events, forum, and job information are instantly updated. Preservation information may be accessed or contributed by any interested party.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

The University of California, Berkeley’s magnificent setting orients the campus to the Golden Gate, forming a symbolic association with America’s heritage of westward expansion. With its nearly 150-year history, the campus exhibits a rich layering of natural and designed landscape systems. The natural backdrop of rolling hills, the sinuous character of Strawberry creek, the broad greens of the Central Glade, and the geometry of the historic core present a remarkable backdrop for an educational institution of higher learning. At the campus’s center lies the iconic beaux-arts Classical Core, the focus of the Landscape Heritage Plan. This is an excellent and well organized plan which is available on the UC Berkeley web site.

“The Landscape Heritage Plan is the third in a series of planning documents that will guide campus planning and design for generations to come. Preceded by the New Century Plan and the Landscape Master Plan, which lay out a comprehensive vision for campus buildings and open space, this plan examines the key characteristics of the historic Classical Core and provides guidance for its continued development in a manner that respects and builds upon its unique landscape legacy.” Robert M Berdahl, Chancellor.

University of California, Berkeley page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

Historic Resources Committee

The mission of the AIA Historic Resources Committee (HRC) is to identify, understand, and preserve architectural heritage, both nationally and internationally. HRC is engaged in promoting the role of the historic architect within the profession through the development of information and knowledge among members, allied professional organizations, and the public.

AIA HRC offers multiple resources useful to anyone interested in historic preservation and include a quarterly newsletter, conferences on issues related to historic preservation, books and book lists, links to other related organizations, events and awards, grant and fellowship programs, and podcasts and lecture series.

This resource as well as others is available in our list of links to related organizations.

Founded in 1926 by newspaper publisher and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, Scripps College is the women's college of The Claremont Colleges.

The mission of Scripps College is to educate women to develop their intellect and talents through active participation in a community of scholars, so that as graduates they may contribute to society through public and private lives of leadership, service, integrity, and creativity.

Scripps' scenic 37-acre campus, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is located at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains in Claremont, California, 35 miles east of Los Angeles. The original campus was designed by architect Gordon Kaufmann, one of the forerunners of "California Style." Landscaping was designed by Edward Huntsman-Trout. There are seventeen academic/administrative buildings, nine residence halls, and one senior apartment building on campus. In addition, the campus has a 24,000-square-foot recreational athletic facility completed in summer 2008. It is adjacent to the 25-meter swimming pool and contains cardio machine and weight rooms, an aerobics studio, and a yoga room. There are also several shared buildings for jointly sponsored programs of The Claremont Colleges, including Keck Science Center, libraries, a medical service center, and a bookstore.

The Scripps campus is a uniquely Southern California historic designed landscape with exterior architectural features, public spaces, and a unique spatial organization. The historic cultural landscape includes gardens, lawns, walks, allees, courtyards, and other spaces. Majestic tall trees, decorative fountains and water features, murals and other artworks, and a wide variety of plants are located across the campus.

Scripps College page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

ARTstor is a digital library of nearly one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.

A collection from the Bryn Mawr Library is now available in ARTstor. Bryn Mawr College Plans of Ancient and Medieval Buildings and Archaeological Sites Collection can be seen and studied in ARTstor.

More than 2,700 images of archaeological sites and architectural monuments from Bryn Mawr College are now available in the Digital Library. This first release for the Plans of Ancient and Medieval Buildings and Archaeological Sites (Bryn Mawr College) collection includes site plans of architectural monuments and archaeological sites in Europe and the Ancient Near East, particularly sites located in modern-day Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey.

The ARTstor Digital Library is used by educators, scholars, and students at a variety of institutions including universities, colleges, museums, public libraries, and K-12 schools. The Digital Library serves users both within the arts and in disciplines outside of the arts. This includes historians of art and architecture and others engaged in the visual arts, as well as individuals in fields as diverse as American Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Classical Studies, Literary Studies, Medieval Studies, Music, Religious Studies, and Renaissance Studies, all of whom find the images in ARTstor to be relevant to their teaching and research.

Institutions typically enter a site-wide license with ARTstor through their library. Access is granted through IP authentication. Site licenses to ARTstor allow unlimited number of simultaneous users to access the Digital Library, both on-site and remotely via username/password. In addition, institutions have access to a dedicated support team and on-line training.

Web site: http://www.artstor.org

Bryn Mawr's campus, long recognized as one of the most beautiful in the country, is set in a century-old, varied suburb that is 11 miles west of Philadelphia. The majestic stone buildings that anchor the campus were the first examples of a style of architecture that came to be known as Collegiate Gothic, and they served as templates for dozens of other campuses. Today the campus includes 40 buildings on 135 acres.

During the spring of 2002, a group of Bryn Mawr College faculty, staff and consultants met to design a project that would assist the College in preserving the historic fabric of its campus. They secured a grant from the Getty Foundation to study the processes leading to preservation and the loss of historic campus fabric. The Bryn Mawr Campus Heritage Preservation Initiative was conducted over a period of two years beginning in t he fall of 2002.

The primary goal was to document and understand mechanisms that affect how, when, and where development occurs on the campus, historically and currently. The team sought to assist the college in capitalizing on the strengths of its historic fabric, by learning lessons from the past decisions, and by ultimately making recommendations for creating valuable space in the future.

Bryn Mawr College page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

Serving two primary functions, the Historic Preservation Professional Practice Network (HP PPN) works to disseminate information to landscape architects working in historic preservation, and to enhance communication among allied professionals and others interested in historic preservation. They discuss historic landscape preservation studies and preservation issues in our newsletters, via an electronic forum, and during education sessions held in conjunction with the ASLA Annual Meeting. The group also shares membership rosters with allied organizations to provide members with maximum levels of information.

Please visit the information page to view the history of the HP PPN, and the section on the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS).

Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS)

The Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) is a permanent federal program charged with recording historic landscapes in the United States and its territories. Historic landscapes vary in size from small gardens to several thousand-acre national parks. In character they range from designed to vernacular, rural to urban, and agricultural to industrial spaces. Vegetable patches, estate gardens, cemeteries, farms, quarries, nuclear test sites, suburbs, and abandoned settlements all may be considered historic landscapes. Like its sister programs, the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), HALS produces written and graphic records of interest to educators, land managers, and preservation planners.

Historic Preservation c/o American Society of Landscape Architects 636 Eye Street, NW Washington, DC 20001-3736 Phone: 202-898-2444 E-mail: pattillo@pgadesign.com Web site: http://www.asla.org/historic

The Campus Heritage Landscape Plan focuses on the university’s open-space framework and ranges from the broad to the specific. It contains overall guidelines that develop a model for cultural landscape preservation, with suggested policies, patterns, and treatment standards. It also contains examples of detailed guidelines applied to specific landscapes, and the testing of these guidelines with proposed new development. Finally, the plan contains a comprehensive survey of the university’s landscapes and buildings.

This plan is designed to ensure that the university's cultural heritage is not lost as change and development inevitably occur to meet the university's needs. It supports the university's policy to preserve and enhance the historic open-space framework as stated in the Campus Plan.

University of Oregon page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The Philadelphia Architects and Buildings project, supported by the William Penn Foundation, includes a searchable database containing more than 263,865 projects and buildings, 23,560 architects, engineers and contractors, and over 125,693 images. This regional treasure trove can be searched by buildings, architects, and even by location. The Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project (PAB) is a regional initiative that dramatically expands free public access to information on the built environment of the five-county Philadelphia area and beyond, by providing a user-friendly, web-based, image rich resource. In an ambitious example of private, academic, and public cooperation, the PAB project brings together the collections, data, images and professional expertise of The Athenæum of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives, the Philadelphia Historical Commission, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and many other local cultural institutions.

www.philadelphiabuildings.org

Chatham University, founded in 1869 as one of the first liberal arts colleges for women, is a veritable museum of architecture of the past century and a half, and contains a diverse collection of residential and institutional building styles. Many of the buildings were part of historic estates built by early wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists. Chatham has made a conscious effort to preserve much of the integrity of the architecture and landscape. The 32-acre urban campus includes an arboretum, and comprises a resource both as an academic setting and as a means of understanding the history and significance of American architecture and landscape design. Chatham’s 2003 grant from the Getty Foundation allowed the school the means to develop a comprehensive preservation plan.

Chatham University page with links to their report to the Getty Foundation.

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the nation's historic places including our featured project and noteworthy campus, the University of Virginia. This National Park Service agency provides multiple resources, a listing process for historic designation, information about benefits and owner property rights. The National Register manages other programs, everything from lighthouses, and cultural resources diversity to various publications, books, and videos. NRHP manages a database of more than 80,000 properties since this program began in 1966. They manage historic preservation links to state offices, other agencies in NPS, and a calendar of events.

“Thomas Jefferson’s design for the University of Virginia is the seminal achievement in American campus planning. The clarity of its composition, the integration of the buildings’ designs into the whole of the Academical Village experience, the role of the landscape and the site in defining the relationship among buildings, and the utopian academic program which integrated student, faculty and academic life have rarely been equaled. The Academical Village defines the image of the University of Virginia, and the University has taken great care to ensure that these buildings and their associated grounds are well maintained and preserved in their historic uses.”

Source: Foreword, UVA Historic Preservation Plan (PDF) 4MB.

Please tell us where else you go find useful information and resources.

Photograph courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

The U-M Museum of Art has recently completed an addition of a contemporary design which gives it light and airy galleries, curatorial space, meeting rooms, and storage space.

This addition raises the vexing architectural question of how to add to a classic building prominently located on a college campus. Do you attempt to duplicate the original traditional design, or depart entirely by constructing something new?

Both the renovated museum and the new addition will open the last weekend of March 09. Visit the new museum and take a virtual walk through online.

Please let us know your thoughts on this project or other projects facing the issue of context with the surrounding campus architectural style.

Please tell us where else you go find useful information and resources.

Please tell us where else you go find useful information and resources.