Vernacular Architecture Forum Untitled page

Letter from the Editor

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 18:33:13 GMT

Welcome to the Fall Issue of VAN. Feel free to use this link if you just want to scroll through all the stories directly on the website, or take a look below for highlights of the issue with links directly to each story.

We are gearing up for the annual meeting this summer in San Antonio, May 6-9. In this issue we have the call for papers, deadlines for fellowships and awards to attend the conference, and also nominations for our awards. There is a feature article on the Miami Vernacular Project from Ridout recipient Jose Vasquez and several announcements for conferences and workshops. In addition, we have lots of member news, from profiles of board members to honors, publications, and presentations.

In publications news, the Fall Bibliography is packed with useful resources that contribute to vernacular studies. If you are thinking of contributing to the scholarly conversation, consider submitting to the VAF Journal Buildings & Landscapes. Thanks as always for the contributions to the newsletter, love to share all the wonderful work our community is doing!

Christine Henry, Newsletter Editor

VAF 2020 in San Antonio call for papers and posters--Nov 3

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:10:00 GMT

Vernacular Architecture Forum 2020 Annual Meeting

Vernacular Landscapes of San Antonio and Central Texas

May 6 to May 9, 2020 in San Antonio, Texas

The Vernacular Architecture Forum invites paper and poster proposals for its 41st Annual Conference, Vernacular Landscapes of San Antonio and Central Texas, May 6 to May 9, 2020 in San Antonio, Texas. The paper and poster sessions will be on Saturday, May 9. They may address topics relating to vernacular and everyday buildings, sites, or cultural landscapes worldwide and how people use these sites. Submissions on all relevant topics are welcome. We encourage papers and posters focusing on vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes of Texas, as well as issues of displacement, migration, acculturation, revival architecture, and African Americans in slavery and freedom in borderlands.

Students and young professionals may apply for the Pamela H. Simpson Presenter’s Fellowships offering support of up to $500 to presenting papers at VAF’s annual conference.

THE DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS IS NOVEMBER 3, 2019

For more information, please see the VAF website

Call for Applications: Access Awards, Ambassador Awards, and Simpson Presenter Fellowships

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:00:00 GMT

VAF has several opportunities to assist students and colleagues in allied professions with attending the annual VAF meeting in San Antonio. For details on the available awards, see below.

The Access Award supports first-time attendance at the VAF's annual meeting by scholars and students with limited professional exposure to the fields of architectural history and vernacular studies, as well as by practitioners and independent scholars in the field. Deadline: January 5, 2020

Ambassadors Awards provide funding for faculty-sponsored student groups (both undergraduate and graduate) from North American institutions, to attend VAF annual conferences. Deadline: January 5, 2020

The Simpson Presenter's Fellowship allocates funding to offer partial financial assistance to students and young professionals presenting papers at VAF annual conferences. November 3, 2019. Please see the Call for Papers for instructions.

Call for Nominations: Advocacy, Bishir, Buchanan, Cummings Awards

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 15:15:00 GMT

VAF has a number of awards to promote and support vernacular architectural fieldwork and scholarship, as well as the dissemination of research. There are a few awards that have upcoming deadlines for nominations:

The Award for Advocacy encourages citizen-based advocacy by recognizing exemplary efforts and achievements on behalf of our vernacular built heritage. Deadline: January 3, 2020

The Catherine W. Bishir Prize is awarded annually to the scholarly article from a juried North American publication that has made the most significant contribution to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscape. Deadline: February 1, 2020

The Paul E. Buchanan Award recognizes contributions to the study and preservation of vernacular architecture and the cultural landscape that do not take the form of books or published work. Deadline: January 5, 2020

The Abbott Lowell Cummings Award, named for the founding president of the VAF, is awarded annually to the newly-published book that has made the most significant contribution to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes of North America. Deadline: December 15, 2019

Call For Applications: Orland Ridout V Fieldwork Fellowships

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 15:10:00 GMT

To honor founding member Orlando Ridout V, who died in 2013, the Vernacular Architecture Forum has established a fieldwork fellowship in his name. Orlando, a mentor to so many of us, asked that donations in his memory be made to the VAF to support students’ and VAF members’ fieldwork training and activities. To fulfill his request, the Orlando Ridout V Fieldwork Fellowship was created, combining contributions to the Ridout memorial fund with the former Fund for Fieldwork, established by a generous gift from long-time VAF member Thomas Carter in 2012.

The Orlando Ridout V Fieldwork Fellowship will support and encourage students and VAF members in their field-based research and documentation projects, and in their efforts to learn and conduct fieldwork through apprenticeships, field schools, and continuing education and training projects.

The guidelines for the Orlando Ridout V Fieldwork Fellowship allow all VAF members, as well as students participating in field school programs, to apply to the VAF Ridout Fieldwork Fellowship Committee for monies to support their field-based projects and training opportunities.

Support is available in five categories:

1.     Field school directors (VAF members) may apply for grants of up to $1000 to support their programs and/or provide financial aid to participants;

2.     Students participating in field schools or other training opportunities may apply for stipends of up to $500 to attend such programs (prior VAF membership not required);

3.     VAF members may apply for grants of up to $500 to support continuing education and professional training activities.

4.     VAF members may apply for grants of up to $1000 for support of fieldwork activities related to the pursuit of academic degrees;

5.     VAF members may apply for grants of up to $1000 to support fieldwork activities not related to fulfillment of academic degree requirements.

*Projects that explore and document cultural diversity are especially welcome.

For more detailed information on submission process, deadlines, and procedures, please see the VAF website page on the Orlando Ridout V Fieldwork Fellowships.

Call for Syllabi for VAF Syllabus Exchange

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 15:00:00 GMT

Do you have a great syllabus for Vernacular Architecture? Would you love to share and exchange ideas? The Education Committee of the VAF is making a call for new and revised syllabi for the VAF Syllabus Exchange. Please send submissions to Sam Palfreyman for posting on the VAF web.

Editor’s note: I am not only the editor of VAN but also a junior faculty member at the University of Mary Washington’s Department of Historic Preservation. In my first four years teaching I have designed or revamped multiple classes to integrate the ideas and skills of vernacular architecture studies in the classroom and in the field, and I don’t think I could have done this without the amazing generosity of VAF members. I have used the syllabus exchange to be inspired by methods, approaches, and readings that are being used at schools around the country. This resource has felt like I have all of VAF as mentors to me and my students. So please share your syllabi so that we can continue this wonderful exchange of ideas. Thanks! Christine Henry

Ridout Awardee Fieldwork Report: Miami Vernacular Project

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:00:00 GMT

by Jose R.Vasquez, Orlando V. Ridout Fellowship Awardee 2018

The Miami Fieldwork Project funded by an Orlando Ridout V Fieldwork Fellowship facilitated reflective and hands-on learning opportunities related to the study and documentation of Miami’s vernacular. According to cultural historian Robert Z. Melnik "there are many truths in any landscape.”[1] This statement succinctly conveys the objectives of my project to find some those “truths” on the layered places that comprise Metropolitan Miami. During the project’s duration issues related to architectural heritage, memory, economic mobility, and immigration contextualized classroom discussions among students and provided an enriching intellectual background for the fieldwork project. These conversations deepened as we engaged community members and continued throughout the year as students worked on research assignments and the production of survey drawings. The project acquired a definitive cross-disciplinary and collaborative aspect by involving students from other courses I was teaching such as architecture design and history of architecture. The students’ enthusiasm was evident as the experience transformed our traditional classroom learning format. We visited communities such as Little Haiti and Coconut Grove, the latter one of South Florida’s earliest settlements established by Bahamians immigrants, to get acquainted with their history and current issues affecting historic preservation and cultural heritage. I counted with the assistance of Dade Heritage Trust, the leading preservation organization in Miami Dade county and the Greater St. Paul A.M.E. church. The congregation owns several properties, among them several historic “shotguns”, in a neighborhood known as “Village West” in Coconut Grove. Although shotguns were amongst the most common residential typologies throughout Miami’s African American neighborhoods, some of the best preserved are found in this community.

The Miami Vernacular Project features an online platform which will disseminate the project results, including the publication of drawings and other resources related to Miami’s vernacular architecture. It will operate as a digital archive to accommodate future research and documentation fieldwork projects. As an educator my overarching interest has been to nurture a new generation of activists to work on the preservation of our heritage. The VAF has encouraged me to continue researching the architectural history of marginalized communities in Miami and propelled me to redesign my curriculum to facilitate new understandings regarding our history and identity. Fieldwork assignments are ideal examples of action-based learning projects that are becoming increasingly relevant in American education. It has been a privilege to honor the memory and lifework of an outstanding educator, gifted scholar, and passionate historic preservation advocate.

1. Melnick “Are We There Yet? Travels and Tribulations in the Cultural Landscape’ Cultural Landscapes: Balancing Nature and Heritage in Preservation Practice. 197

Calling for Contributions--Do you use new media in your work?

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:00:00 GMT

by Christine Henry, VAN editor

Do you use Instagram to share buildings and landscapes? Do you have a blog or podcast about vernacular architecture? These platforms are increasingly part of our everyday lives and we would love to hear how you use them for your vernacular studies. If you use any kind of digital media to document and share your work, VAF would love to hear about your experiences for a series of articles in the 2020 VAN about how members use these new tools. Please drop me a line at VAN editor and feel free to check out the VAF instagram feed and my instagram page as well.

Architectural History at the University of Virginia: Richard Guy Wilson and Our Community of Scholars A Symposium and Celebration: November 15-16, 2019

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 10:10:00 GMT

Please join our alumni, students, and friends as we gather for a symposium featuring paper presentations in honor of Richard Guy Wilson’s scholarship, teaching, and mentorship, and as we celebrate the Department of Architectural History’s present and future.

Fri. 11.15.19
Paper Sessions presented by Architectural History alumni and students, followed by remarks by Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History. Join friends and classmates for architectural history conviviality on Friday evening.

Sat. 11.16.19
Paper Sessions presented by Architectural History alumni and students, followed by a celebratory reception honoring Richard Guy Wilson at the newly restored Rotunda.

More information about the event and registration will be coming soon - For up to date information, visit www.arch.virginia.edu/events/rgw-symposium-fall-2019

We look forward to seeing you all in Charlottesville in November!

Library Architecture in North America Workshop call for proposals--due Nov 25

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 10:05:00 GMT

Library Architecture in North America Workshop

Madison, WI

March 26-28, 2020

Department of Art History, Madison, WI, USA, March 26 - 28, 2020

Submission Deadline: 11/25/2019

Keynote speaker: Kenneth Breisch, USC

Organizer: Maxi Schreiber (Darmstadt/Madison)

Today, the United States of America has almost fourteen times as many Libraries as McDonalds restaurants. The tax supported Free Public Library is an essential part of American culture and, in the words of the architect Rem Koolhaas, "the last of the uncontested moral universes". Academic libraries and research libraries are equally important to students and scholars and remain an indispensable part of American education and campus life. As an institution, the library serves as part of the cultural memory of the nation.

At the same time, libraries today are changing. If, for a long time the hierarchy and relationship of librarian, book and reader were the driving factors of library design, today library architecture oscillates between open work and meeting spaces and utterly specialized spaces. University libraries like the James Hunt Library (2009–2013 by Snøhetta) in North Carolina show this new quality of high specification to students’ needs in the design process. Here, interactive spaces, specialized furniture, 360 degree projection, high tech screens, media and design laboratories, sound proof rooms for music recording and highly mechanized equipment are finding its way into library architecture. Spaces like these are possible due to an economization on shelving space, in the form of highly compressed stacks, where books are stored and “bookbots” (robots) are unimaginably fast in retrieving books and delivering them to the front desk. One could debate whether virtual shelf browsing is comparable to “physical” browsing, or, if this invention marks a return to the time of closed stacks. Examples like the James Hunt Library show how today’s library design can be dominated by new virtual possibilities as well as work and communication processes rather than book shelfs.

In addition to this, commercialization in the form of cafés and library shops has been introduced to public library architecture. Further, Amazon comes into the picture. In Berkeley, Ypsilanti and Madison, among many other cities, Amazon pick up stores are oftentimes located temptingly close to university libraries, housed in prominent university buildings on American campuses and benefit student members with unlimited access to streaming, free item shipping and even free audio book and e-book access.

This workshop seeks new approaches to the study of library architecture. Taking place at the Department of Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from March 26 to March 28, it welcomes contributions that address the following themes:

- the library as a building type

- frameworks for narrating the history of library architecture theoretically and architecturally

- the change of the cityscape with the architectural appearance of iconic and unique library buildings vs less appearing library buildings

- the effect of architecture on public debates when new library buildings are designed

- possibilities of historic preservation

- the role of historic preservation when it comes to building annexes to existing structures

- the involvement of community groups in library architecture and the design process

- the social function of public spaces in contrast to academic spaces

- city scape, environment and the public sphere

This workshop seeks to stimulate discussions about architectural history as well as the social, political and economic role of libraries and the public realm. While the focus of this workshop is on North American library architecture, proposals that look at international topics are encouraged. Scholars from all fields, as well as librarians, architects, journalists, teachers and volunteers are welcome to contribute. The preferred format would be a pre circulated paper. Interested participants from outside academia are welcome to contact the organizer about alternative formats such as oral presentations, PechaKucha etc.

The workshop is organized with a keynote lecture by Kenneth Breisch, discussions of pre circulated papers, a panel discussion and an open session. The cost for domestic flights and flights for participants from Canada and accommodation will be covered by the sponsor of the workshop. The funding for this workshop will be provided by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Submission Guidelines:

Deadline for submission of application with abstract (300 words max.) and short biography (100 words max.): November 25, 2019.

Deadline for submission of accepted papers (in English, 4000 words max.): February 20, 2020. Alternative contributions should not exceed 20 minutes.

Please send your proposals (as PDF file) to: mschreiber4@wisc.edu

March 26 to March 28, Department of Art History, Madison, WI

Construction History Society of America call for abstracts--due Jan 2, 2020

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 10:00:00 GMT

7th Biennial on Construction History

Quarrying History

CALL FOR ABSTRACT-DUE January 2, 2020

Indiana University, Bloomington

May 29-30, 2020

We invite researchers and practitioners from all aspects of the history of construction to submit presentation and paper abstracts on subjects relating to the Americas for the 7th Biennial Meeting on Construction History, to be held in Bloomington, IN at Indiana University. The meeting will be hosted by the Construction History Society of America and Indiana University on May 29-30, 2020and follows successful meetings of the CHSA held in College Park, MD (2018), Seattle, WA (10th Anniversary Members’ Meeting 2017), Austin, TX (2016), Minneapolis MN (2014), Cambridge MA (2012), Philadelphia PA (2010), and Atlanta GA (2008).

Some of the finest limestone in the United States can be found in the hills around Bloomington, Indiana, and stonecutters sourced the stone from massive quarries and build facades of prominent buildings such as the Washington National Cathedral, the Empire State Building, and the Pentagon. CHSA is pleased to announce a tour to explore a working mill and a historic quarry as part of the conference schedule.

Abstracts for Presentation

Abstracts for presentation imply that the author(s) intent is to present the subject within a 20-minute slideshow.

CHSA encourages authors to also submit full papers to Construction History according to their publication schedules. The acceptance of an abstract for the CHSA Meeting does not exempt papers from the Journal’s review process.

Each abstract must include:

authors’ names, contact information, institutional affiliations
an abstract of 4000 characters (maximum)
key words (selected, if possible, from the list of topics and subjects),
a one-page curriculum vitae indicating contact information, status, laboratory affiliation if relevant, and publications or other relevant work for each author.
All presentations must be in English and related to Construction in North and South America.

For more information, see the CHSA website

Sally Kress Thompkins Fellowship accepting applications through December 31

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:05:00 GMT

Spend your summer conducting research on a nationally significant U.S. building or site and preparing a history to become part of the permanent HABS collection. The HABS/SAH Sally Kress Tompkins Fellowship, a joint program of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), permits a graduate student in architectural history or a related field to work on a 12-week HABS history project during summer 2020. The Fellow’s research interests and goals will inform the building or site selected for documentation by HABS staff. HABS is a program of the National Park Service and the Fellow is usually stationed at our Washington, DC office.

The award consists of a $12,000 stipend, and SAH conference registration and travel expenses up to $1,000.

Applications accepted Sept. 1 – Dec. 31, 2019.

For more information visit:https://www.nps.gov/hdp/jobs/tompkins.htm

Job Posting: Architectural Historian

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:00:00 GMT

Architectural Historian – Parsippany, NJ

Are you ready to take the next step in your career? Do you want to do meaningful work that improves quality of life? At Tetra Tech, you will work with high-performing teams who are passionate about using their expertise to find solutions to complex problems in water, environment, infrastructure, resource management, energy, and international development.

We are currently seeking applications for an immediate Architectural Historian position. The architectural historian requires candidates who ideally have at least five (5) years of experience conducting historical research and working on regional surveys to identify aboveground cultural resources that may meet the criteria to be eligible to the National Register of Historic Places.

The ideal candidate must be familiar with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and with local guidelines and regulations in states where projects are proposed. Projects are located across the United States and will sometimes require field investigations that will require reimbursed travel.

Responsibilities:

· The architectural historian must have the capability and experience to interpret data collected in the field, including an ability to recognize and describe vernacular and formal architectural styles, style-date aboveground cultural resources, and assess a resource’s potential to be eligible to the National Register of Historic Places

· The architectural historian must have excellent skills in photography and the ability to use a GPS geotagging camera attachment and experience with GPS and GIS programs on a digital platform such as iPAD or iPhone

· Clear writing skills and use of a computer and a field iPad are essential for capturing field notes, writing reports, and communicating with co-workers, project managers, and regulatory agencies from federal and state governments

· Ability to work with and regularly communicate with colleagues and to take direction from a supervisor, and project managers

Requirements:

· MA or MS degree in historic architecture, American Studies, Historic Preservation, or other related field

· At least five years’ experience as a professional architectural historian in the US (Northeast and Middle Atlantic US preferred, but familiarity with other regions would be very helpful)

· Experience in performing work compliant with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act

· Candidate must be hard-working, good-natured, capable of working with others, capable of giving clear explanations and direction, capable of taking direction from project managers and supervisors

Other Desirable Knowledge and Experience:

· Experience with consideration of project viewsheds using standard methods such as developed by BLM, NPS, and other agencies

· Up-to-date Red Cross First-Aid and CPR training

· Interested candidates must provide at least three professional references with current email addresses and telephone numbers for each reference

About Tetra Tech:

Tetra Tech is a leading provider of high-end consulting and engineering services for projects worldwide. We combine the resources of a global, multibillion-dollar company with local, client-focused delivery in more than 400 locations around the world. We are Leading with Science^® to provide sustainable and resilient solutions for our clients.

At Tetra Tech, we provide a collaborative environment that supports individual performance, innovation, and creativity. We are proud to offer competitive compensation and benefits. Learn more by visiting http://www.tetratech.com/en/benefits.

For more information on our company, please visit our website at www.tetratech.com, follow us on Twitter (@TetraTech or like us on Facebook. To apply, please submit your resume and cover letter on the Careers portion of our website at www.tetratech.com/careers.

We thank all applicants for their interest; however only those selected for an interview will be contacted. Tetra Tech is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We invite resumes from all interested parties including women, minorities, veterans and persons with disabilities.

Tetra Tech is a VEVRAA federal contractor and we request priority referral of veterans for available positions.

EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability - No calls or agencies

Meet Board Member and VAF Treasurer Claudia Brown

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:20:00 GMT

Having spent 30 years with North Carolina’s State Historic Preservation Office (HPO), 23 of them as supervisor of the Architectural Survey and National Register Branch, I retired from state government last December. Before becoming a bureaucrat, I spent a decade as an independent consultant writing National Register nominations for properties across North Carolina and conducting architectural surveys of the city of Durham, extremely rural Hyde County on the coast, and the mountain resort of Linville, among other places. I earned a B.A. in Spanish from Wake Forest University, an M.A. in art history from the University of North Carolina, and completed my Ph.D. coursework at UNC before deciding that I wasn’t cut out for academia. As a consultant I became very interested in 19^thand early 20^thcentury industrial architecture, and Rosenwald schools were a special interest for 19 of my years at the HPO.

Upon retiring, I was looking forward to devoting much of my newly found free time to volunteer service, continuing to serve on the board of the ca. 1770 Joel Lane Museum House (a gambrel-roofed building that is the oldest extant house in Raleigh) as past president and now assistant treasurer, and this summer joining the board of Haywood Hall, a Georgian-style house built ca. 1800 also in Raleigh. In mid-October, I’ll return to the HPO on a part-time basis to help review National Register nominations and survey products. I’m also in my sixteenth year as a guardian ad litem advocating for children in foster care.

Just a few years into my career, I was introduced to the Vernacular Architecture Forum by Catherine Bishir (VAF past president and 2016 Glassie Award winner), whom I’d gotten to know as a consultant and who had become my mentor and friend. My first VAF conference was the organization’s third, held in Winston-Salem in 1982, and since then I’ve attended many of the annual meetings. For a couple of years in the 1990s I was the VAF’s preservation officer and I was co-coordinator with colleague Marvin Brown of the conference held in Durham, NC, in 2016. Despite having retired, I wanted to remain an active member of the VAF and thus was pleased to be nominated as the organization’s treasurer. Some of the position’s duties are familiar, while others, such as using QuickBooks, are new and challenging, but with immediate past treasurer Lisa Davidson’s guidance, I’m getting my sea legs under me.

Meet Board Member Maire O'Neill Conrad

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:15:00 GMT

I became excited about vernacular architecture as a field of study when I was an environmental design and graduate architecture student at U.C. Berkeley. J.B. Jackson and Joseph Esherick were important influences for me. In architectural practice the often complex vernacular context has been an ever-present awareness and influence in my design projects. As an architectural intern I had the good fortune to work for Dolf Schnebli in Switzerland, and later William Turnbull in San Francisco, both of whose work was closely tied to a direct responsiveness to locality and regional vernacular influences.

I was introduced to VAF considerably later in my career, attending the New York conference in 2006. Somehow I found myself co-chairing the 2009 conference in Butte, Montana. It was satisfying to share all the architectural richness of our region in so much detail. What I love about VAF is the complexity of the membership, with people from many inter-connected disciplines. There is always more to learn.

My own work focuses on the rural built landscape, which has had little attention from the architectural profession itself. Through VAF I have discovered colleagues with whom I can share an appreciation of the significance of these often under-valued places.

Meet Board Member Jobie Hill

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:10:00 GMT

I am a licensed preservation architect with over seventeen years of professional experience. I have graduate degrees in historic preservation (MS) and art history (MA), an Architecture Technical Teaching Certificate, a Bachelor of Architecture and a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and I am a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP).

Since 2011, my research and professional work has focused exclusively on domestic slave buildings. I am engaged in interdisciplinary research examining the architecture of slavery, the influence these dwellings had on the lives of their inhabitants, and the preservation of the history of enslaved people. In 2012 I started an independent project titled “Saving Slave Houses (SSH),” with the primary goal to ensure that slave houses, irreplaceable pieces of history, are not lost forever; but also, to change the way we think, talk, research, document, interpret, preserve, restore, teach about, and learn from slave houses. In my efforts to preserve extant slave houses and to education the public about them I have had the opportunity to partner with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, TED Talk, Trimble, Google, Historic American Buildings Survey, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, C-SPAN, Virginia Humanities, Montpelier, and Monticello.

A primary component of my research comes from fieldwork. I have completed architectural and anthropological surveys of over 700 enslaved buildings at 140 sites across 6 states. My fieldwork is the first attempt to identify the rate of disappearance of the slave house in US. Before fieldwork commences, slave house sites are identified. This is done through archival research and a ‘Suggest a Site’ link on my website (SavingSlaveHouses.org) through which the public can suggest potential sites. The three largest collections I have analyzed to identify sites with a slave house were from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the Federal Writers’ Project and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF). Four consecutive Fellowships in African and African American History and Culture from CWF gave me the opportunity to work with the Architectural Research Department to digitize and catalogue the Agricultural Buildings Project collection, which involved scanning over 5,000 measured drawings, fieldnotes, photographs, and written reports. This work was completed in 2017. Of the 700 US sites CWF surveyed, over 240 had a domestic slave building.

As I was scanning these thousands of drawings the same names kept appearing on drawings. Some I were already very familiar with because I was working with them daily for my fellowship such as: Edward Chappell, Carl Lounsbury, Willie Graham, and Jeffery Klee; and I knew Mark Wenger from working with him at Monticello and Mark Schara from working at HABS. But, I knew very little about the other names I was seeing. One person that especially caught my eye was Camille Wells. This incredible woman surveyed over sixty sites in Isle of Wight County in Virginia by herself in 1981. And when I say survey, I mean draw a detailed site plan with notes! It was people like this I was eager to meet someday in person. VAF has given me the opportunity to do so and to meet many other great people that have also done amazing and interesting work. One of the things I am interested in is how to modern technology has changed how we conduct fieldwork and how we teach students to do fieldwork. I believe documentation should include hand sketches, field sketches, measured drawings, photographs, 3D laser scans, geospatial data, fieldnotes, research notes, reports, drone footage, movies, oral histories and interviews.

Meet Board Member and 1st Vice President Christine O'Malley

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:05:00 GMT

I first became aware of the Vernacular Architecture Forum when I was a graduate student in the Department of Architectural History at the University of Virginia. Camille Wells, a VAF stalwart, told me about the organization and she really encouraged the graduate students to become members. I joined and attended my first conference in 2001 in Newport, Rhode Island, where I presented my first paper. I remember meeting Pam Simpson, who was really welcoming to new attendees. The commitment and passion of everyone for buildings and landscapes was so evident at the conference and I really felt I had found a great home for my interests. I also felt lucky to receive a student fellowship to attend and I've always appreciated VAF's efforts to make the conferences affordable for students and young professionals. The next conference I attended was in Tuscon in 2005. I've been to every conference since then and I'm looking forward to San Antonio in 2020. My research and professional work primarily focuses on North American buildings and landscapes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so participating in conferences is very valuable for my own work.

I first became involved with the VAF board through committee work. I was asked to join a few committees around 2006 when I was teaching undergraduates and then I was nominated to the board and first served from 2007-2010. I've helped out with the fellowship, development, papers, finance, and Buchanan Award committees, and through each experience I've learned something new. I'm happy to be back on the VAF board serving as the 1st Vice-President with an energetic group.

In my opinion, the conference format of two days of site visits and tours with one day for paper sessions is ideal. The conferences have been tremendously helpful for me in a number of ways. I really like to learn about and see various types of buildings and landscapes in different areas of North America (or beyond - I went to the conference in Falmouth, Jamaica) and study them with other participants, who often have great insights or specialized knowledge to share. I also enjoy meeting people working in the field and hearing how they address particular conservation problems or deal with site interpretation. The paper sessions are also very informative and it's great to hear about people's research and methodologies. I also benefit from reading the articles in Buildings and Landscapes and the old Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture series. This organization has so much to offer and I really hope I can alert more people to all that VAF does and persuade them to join us.

Two VAF Members Highlighted in the Summer 2019 Issue of Preservation Magazine

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 07:00:00 GMT

VAF Board Member Jobie Hill, was interviewed for the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Preservation Magazine about her work "Saving Slave Houses". You can read more about her fascinating work in this issue of VAN in the member profiles. This issue of Preservation Magazine also highlights the work of paint conservator and analyst Susan Buck in an article titled The Journeys and Experiences of Eight Women in Hands-On Preservation Careers.

Karla Britton serves as Keynote Speaker

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 07:00:00 GMT

Karla Britton, Prof. of Art History, Diné College, the Navajo Nation, and VAF member served as the Keynote Speaker at the 40th Anniversary of Richard Meier's Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana on Friday, October 11, 2019 with her presentation titled "New Harmony as Resource of Hope."

Matt Lasner and Marta Gutman help launch PLATFORM

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 06:30:00 GMT

Matt Lasner and Marta Gutman, along with Swati Chattopadhyay and Zeynep Kezer, have launched PLATFORM, a digital forum for conversations about buildings, spaces, and landscapes.

PLATFORM is a new open digital venue  for exchanging ideas about working with, researching, teaching, and writing about buildings, spaces, and landscapes. PLATFORM publishes timely short-form essays and digital content that engage with contemporary culture and politics. It is not a journal, it is a not a book, there is no print version. It is a moderated platform for speaking to diverse audiences, for thinking critically, and for taking a stand. PLATFORM is broad in perspective and interdisciplinary in orientation. We invite contributors from the Global North and South and from across professions and disciplines. We are not a closed or finite group. Unsolicited work is welcome. We value the diversity of opinions about how we view, read, experience, and engage with the built landscape.

Several VAF members have published in PLATFORM, including an article by Michael Allen on "Mass Housing Legacies: Former Yugoslavia Teaches the Enduring United States" an essay by Noah Allison on "Little Arabia: A Southern California Ethnoanchor" and an piece by Carla Yanni on the "From Bunk Beds to Lazy Rivers: The Rise of the Luxury College Residence Hall."

Karla Britton co-authors Essay on Paul Rudolph in JSAH

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 06:25:00 GMT

Karla Britton co-authored an essay with Daniel Ledford in the current issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural History (JSAH) on the sacred architecture of Paul Rudolph titled “Paul Rudolph and the Psychology of Space: The Tuskegee and Emory University Chapels.”

Christine Henry co-authors chapter in Key Issues in Cultural Heritage series book

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 06:15:00 GMT

Christine Rae Henry and Andréa Livi Smith co-author chapter titled "Segregation, gentrification, and heritage in Fredericksburg, Virginia: a preservation perspective" in the edited volume Urban Heritage in Divided Cities: Contested Pasts published in September 2019.

Urban Heritage in Divided Cities explores the role of contested urban heritage in mediating, subverting and overcoming sociopolitical conflict in divided cities. Investigating various examples of transformations of urban heritage around the world, the book analyses the spatial, social and political causes behind them, as well as the consequences for the division and reunification of cities during both wartime and peacetime conflicts.

Contributors to the volume define urban heritage in a broad sense, as tangible elements of the city, such as ruins, remains of border architecture, traces of violence in public space and memorials, as well as intangible elements like urban voids, everyday rituals, place names and other forms of spatial discourse. Addressing both historic and contemporary cases from a wide range of academic disciplines, contributors to the book investigate the role of urban heritage in divided cities in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. Shifting focus from the notion of urban heritage as a fixed and static legacy of the past, the volume demonstrates that the concept is a dynamic and transformable entity that plays an active role in inquiring, critiquing, subverting and transforming the present.

Timothy Kelly Co-authors Article in Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 06:10:00 GMT

Timothy Kelly co-authors article with Margaret Power in Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies titled "Norvelt: Workers’ Haven and Missed Opportunity" in vol. 86, No. 3, 2019.

Robert Mellin Completes Third Year of Workshop on Tilting, Fogo Island, Newfoundland

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 06:05:00 GMT

Robert Mellin completed the third year of a workshop with McGill University architecture students in Tilting, Fogo Island, Newfoundland, and the results can be seen on this website. This project relates to the traditional construction practices used in Tilting’s vernacular architecture, using ballast lockers of heavy stones to prevent wind uplift. The project also demonstrates an attempt to work with and celebrate the innate beauty of the irregular rocky terrain, similar to the way Tilting’s vernacular architecture often accommodated these irregular site features rather than erasing or hiding them.

Andrew Sandoval-Strausz publishes new book Barrio America

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 06:00:00 GMT

Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City

by A. K. Sandoval-Strausz

The compelling history of how Latino immigrants revitalized the nation’s cities after decades of disinvestment and white flight

Thirty years ago, most people were ready to give up on American cities. We are commonly told that it was a “creative class” of young professionals who revived a moribund urban America in the 1990s and 2000s. But this stunning reversal owes much more to another, far less visible group: Latino and Latina newcomers.

Award-winning historian A. K. Sandoval-Strausz reveals this history by focusing on two barrios: Chicago’s Little Village and Dallas’s Oak Cliff. These neighborhoods lost residents and jobs for decades before Latin American immigration turned them around beginning in the 1970s. As Sandoval-Strausz shows, Latinos made cities dynamic, stable, and safe by purchasing homes, opening businesses, and reviving street life. Barrio America uses vivid oral histories and detailed statistics to show how the great Latino migrations transformed America for the better.

Milda Richardson presents paper in Gdansk, Poland

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 05:50:00 GMT

Milda B. Richardson read a paper “Lithuanian Pilgrimage Repressed and Restored” at the 13^th Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe 2019. The Conference was held in the European Solidarity Centre, Gdansk, Poland, June 26-29, 2019. To the delight of attendees, former President Lech Walesa attended the welcome reception. Focusing on the pilgrimage aspect of sites before and after independence, this presentation built on previous research including a paper published by VAF in 2005.

Related publications:

“Iconoclasm and Resistance: Wayside Shrines in the Struggle for Lithuanian Independence,” in Architecture and Armed Conflict: The Politics of Destruction, eds. JoAnne Mancini and Keith Bresnahan (London: Routledge, 2014): 103-115. Referenced in Andrew Herscher, “In Ruins. Architecture, Memory, Countermemory,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Article DOI: 10:1525/jsah.204.73.4.464 footnote 10.

“Reverence and Resistance in Lithuanian Wayside Shrines,” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture X, Alison K. Hoagland and Kenneth A. Breisch, eds. (The University of Tennessee Press, 2005): 468-508.

Christopher Vann Presents at Interior Design Educators Council regional conference

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 05:45:00 GMT

Christopher Vann presented his research at the Interior Design Educators Council's regional conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan on October 23, 2019. The presentation titled "What can Phenomenology Do for Historic Design Research?" emerges from a recently completed thesis which examines the influence of French Enlightenment philosophy on the skylight installed by Thomas Jefferson at Poplar Forest. The research reveals a framework of analysis and interpretation other than the concrete causal relationship which tends to emerge from mechanistic theories about design. As scholars, researchers and educators we must not lose sight of the direct influence of thought on the architectural process as historic fact. Phenomenological investigation is a means of discerning the interrelationship of thought and form.

Fall Bibliography

Christine R Henry — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 05:05:00 GMT

compiled by Travis Olson

Adams, Nicholas. Gordon Bunshaft and SOM. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.

Adams, Nicholas. “William S. Brown’s ‘SOM: The Formative Years’ (1983):: A New History of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 78, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 254–58. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2019.78.3.254.

Bacon, Mardges. John McAndrew’s Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2018.

Bardt, Christopher. Material and Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2019.

Blevins, Brooks. A History of the Ozarks. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 2018.

Bollerey, Franziska, and Christoph Grafe, eds. Restaurants and Dining Rooms. Interior Architecture Series. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019.

Britton, Karla Cavarra, and Daniel Ledford. “Paul Rudolph and the Psychology of Space:: The Tuskegee and Emory University Chapels.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 78, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 327–46. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2019.78.3.327.

Busbea, Larry. The Responsive Environment: Design, Aesthetics, and the Human in the 1970s. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.

Caramellino, Gaia, and Stéphanie Dadour. The Housing Project. Discourses, Ideals, Models and Politics in 20th Century Exhibitions. Leuven: Leuven UP, 2019.

Chiang, Connie Y. Nature behind Barbed Wire: An Environmental History of the Japanese American Incarceration. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Clark, Anthony E., and Leland M. Roth. China Gothic: The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019.

Coughlan, Michael R., and Donald R. Nelson. “Geostatistical Analysis of Historical Contingency and Land Use Footprints in the Prehistoric Settlement Dynamics of the South Carolina Piedmont, North America.” Journal of Archaeological Science 107 (July 1, 2019): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2019.04.003.

Crinson, Mark, and Richard J Williams. The Architecture of Art History: A Historiography, 2019.

Dale, Emily. “Anopticism: Invisible Populations and the Power of Not Seeing.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 23, no. 3 (September 2019): 596–608. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-018-0493-y.

Davis, Charles L. Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style, 2019. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2242358.

Dufour, Jean-Yves “Horses and Stables in the Farms of Île-de-France (France) During the Seventeenth to Mid-Twentieth Centuries.” Material Culture 51, no. 1 (2019): 21–35.

Duncan, John Donald, and Sandra Lee Underwood. “The Showy Town of Savannah”: The Story of the Architect William Jay. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2019.

Esperdy, Gabrielle M. American Autopia: An Intellectual History of the American Roadside at Midcentury. Midcentury : Architecture, Landscape, Urbanism, and Design. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019.

Flowe, Douglas J. “‘Fighting and Cutting and Shooting, and Carrying On’: Saloons, Dives, and the Black ‘Tough’ in Manhattan’s Tenderloin, 1890-1917.” Journal of Urban History 45, no. 5 (June 8, 2018): 925–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144218779368.

Gosseye, Janina, Naomi Stead, and Deborah Van der Plaat, eds. Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research. First edition. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2019.

Hartman, Joseph R. “Silent Witnesses:: Modernity, Colonialism, and Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier’s Unfinished Plans for Havana.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 78, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 292–311. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2019.78.3.292.

Haskins, Victoria. “Domesticating Colonizers: Domesticity, Indigenous Domestic Labor, and the Modern Settler Colonial Nation.” The American Historical Review 124, no. 4 (October 3, 2019): 1290–1301. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz647.

Hayward, Emma, and Torsten Schmiedeknecht. “Absent Architectures: Post-War Housing in British Children’s Picture Books (1960–Present).” The Journal of Architecture 24, no. 4 (May 19, 2019): 487–511. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2019.1641736.

Heinz, Annelise. “‘Maid’s Day Off’: Leisured Domesticity in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States.” The American Historical Review 124, no. 4 (October 1, 2019): 1316–31. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz642.

Kohlrausch, Martin. Brokers of Modernity: East Central Europe and the Rise of Modernist Architects, 1910-1950. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019.

Krieger, Alex. City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019.

Kulić, Vladimir, ed. Second World Postmodernisms: Architecture and Society under Late Socialism. New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2018.

Kuma, Kengo. Architecture of Defeat. New York: Routledge, 2019.

LaFleur, Greta, and Kyla Schuller. “Introduction: Technologies of Life and Architectures of Death in Early America.” American Quarterly 71, no. 3 (2019): 603–24. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2019.0046.

Lam, Elsa, and Graham Livesey, eds. Canadian Modern Architecture, 1967/2017. First edition. New York: Princeton Architectural, 2019.

Lefa, Nora, and Pavlos Lefas. Buildings Used: Human Interactions with Architecture. Routledge Research in Architecture. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge, 2020.

Loeb, Carolyn S. Entrepreneurial Vernacular: Developers Subdivisions In The 1920s. S.L.: Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 2019.

McGlazer, Ramsey. Old Schools: Modernism, Education, And The Critique Of Progress. S.L.: Fordham University Press, 2020.

Moorhead, Gerald, James Wright Steely, Willis C. Winters, W. Mark Gunderson, Jay C. Henry, and Joel Warren Barna, eds. Buildings of Texas. East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West. Buildings of the United States. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019.

Morel, J.-M. Theory of Gardens. Ex Horto: Dumbarton Oaks Texts in Garden and Landscape Studies. Washington, D.C: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2019.

Mulcahy, Linda, and Emma Rowden. The Democratic Courthouse: A Modern History of Design, Due Process and Dignity. New York, NY: Routledge, 2019.

Nicholson, Ben, and Michelangelo Sabatino, eds. Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.

Orenstein, Dara. Out of Stock: The Warehouse in the History of Capitalism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Raitz, Karl B. Bourbon’s Backroads: A Journey through Kentucky’s Distilling Landscape. Lexington, Kentucky: South Limestone Books, 2019.

Saumarez Smith, Otto. Boom Cities: Architect-Planners and the Politics of Radical Urban Renewal in 1960s Britain. First edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Scott, Darius. “Oral History and Emplacement in ‘Nowhere at All:’ The Role of Personal and Family Narratives in Rural Black Community-Building.” Social & Cultural Geography 20, no. 8 (October 13, 2019): 1094–1113. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2017.1413205.

Singley, Paulette. How to Read Architecture: An Introduction to Interpreting the Built Environment. New York: Routledge, 2019.

Sklair, Leslie. Icon Project: Architecture, Cities, And Capitalist Globalization. S.L.: Oxford Univ Press Us, 2019.

Sklar, Kathryn Kish. “Reconsidering Domesticity through the Lens of Empire and Settler Society in North America.” The American Historical Review 124, no. 4 (October 3, 2019): 1249–66. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz646.

Stanek, Lukasz. Architecture in Global Socialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020.

Stewart, Liz. Courts and Alleys: A History of Liverpool Courtyard Housing, 2019.

Thomas Jefferson, Architect: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles, and the Conflict of Ideals. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.

Violette, Zachary J. The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.

Watson, Joseph M. “The Suburbanity of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City.” Journal of Urban History 45, no. 5 (November 9, 2018): 1006–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144218797923.

Windon, Nathaniel. “Superannuated: Old Age on the Antebellum Plantation.” American Quarterly 71, no. 3 (2019): 767–87. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2019.0053.

Yanni, Carla. Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.

Yetter, George Humphrey, and Carl Lounsbury. Restoring Williamsburg. Williamsburg, Virginia: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2019.

Zhao, Xiaoxin, and Kelly Greenop. “From ‘Neo-Vernacular’ to ‘Semi-Vernacular’: A Case Study of Vernacular Architecture Representation and Adaptation in Rural Chinese Village Revitalization.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 25, no. 11 (November 2, 2019): 1128–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2019.1570544.