Session I

Panel A: Telling and Retelling History in Public

Chair: James Michael Buckley, Architectural Historian

Brian F. Whetstone, National Park Service -- Tenants, Labor, and Public History’s Spatial Limits 

In the United States, countless tenants find themselves renting from an unconventional landlord: house museums, historical societies, heritage organizations, and preservation associations. At these and other sites, apartments situated in back rooms, former servants’ quarters, or caretakers’ residences attest to the ways that renting and the provision of housing is fundamental to the work of public history. Tenants served as these institutions’ frontline workers and their rents subsidized the operation, administration, and preservation of public history institutions across much of the twentieth century. Renting, however, was no perfect solution. This paper argues that renting presented distinctly spatial and material challenges to historic site administrators and founders that constituted the foundation upon which the modern field of public history was built. As historic sites negotiated the physical, legal, and interpretive relationship between renting and site administration, they established the labor conditions and challenges of the modern public history workplace. 

Drawing from the archival and material records of organizations such as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), Historic Deerfield, Inc., the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks (PSPL), and the New Jersey Division of Historic Sites, this paper considers the wide range of challenges facing historic site administrators and their tenants across the twentieth century. As a spatial practice, renting presented unique obstacles by precluding the use of surplus space for offices, storage, or interpretive uses. To that end, administrators attempted to maximize available interpretive space while shrinking tenants’ private living quarters by borrowing tactics from private landlords. These included wall-unit kitchens, a modular kitchen unit that saved space in older buildings retrofitted as apartments. Other administrators simply expected their tenants to forgo privacy and show their apartments to visitors. Tenants likewise challenged many historic sites’ ability to operate as nonprofits as local and state assessors often struggled to see how many sites deviated from a traditional private-market landlord subject to property taxes. By examining the resultant negotiations between tenants and site administrators, this paper reveals an alternative origin story of public history that reframes historic sites and museums as landlords. As landlords, these sites intertwined the logics of real estate with public history in ways that continue to define the spatial, financial, and interpretive limits of historic sites and museums today.

Liz Cohan, Architectural Historian and Naturalist -- Reimagining Cultural Landscapes with an Historical Ecology Approach

Historic preservation in the United States has traditionally centered on the built environment, guided by the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 and the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Although the NRHP is the United States federal list of historically significant places, documentation of historic properties often limits itself to physical human-made elements. This excludes the interconnected roles of humans and nature in shaping historic everyday places and human culture. This paper advocates for a holistic preservation approach by integrating cultural landscape and historical ecology frameworks, illustrated through an analysis of Reston, Virginia—a planned community developed from 1964 to 1978. This reimagined approach views landscape as a deeply interwoven system that connects us all. In a world facing urgent environmental challenges like biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, and climate-driven extreme weather, our understanding of historic places must extend beyond the built environment. It should embrace all aspects of place, fostering a comprehensive and holistic approach to planning and preservation.

To highlight the benefits of a cultural landscape approach, I first apply the National Park Service’s (NPS) cultural landscape framework to assess Reston’s landscape characteristics and its eligibility for the NRHP. My analysis identifies key character-defining features like natural systems, spatial organization, land use, constructed water elements, and vegetation. These elements are critical to understanding Reston’s historical significance and guiding future planning efforts. Second, to demonstrate an improved and novel method to understanding designed and vernacular cultural landscapes, I introduce historical ecology. Historical ecology enables us to understand historic landscapes through ecological clues, such as plant species and their characteristics, even in the absence of archival sources. For instance, willow oaks (Quercus phellos) in Reston’s Ivy Oak Cluster, which now appear "natural," reveal their cultural significance as intentionally planted features tied to the neighborhood's design. 

Historical ecology pushes past an environmental history lens and is a powerful tool to understand nature-society relationships and how people use and relate to places. It emphasizes integrating natural and cultural resource professionals, typically siloed into neat “nature” and “culture” categories. This method deepens our grasp of human and ecological histories and can illuminate how people understand and interact with everyday places that contribute to their place-based identity. Without the use of cultural landscape and historical ecology frameworks, there is a missing component of the story of people in place.

Wes Hiatt, Lehigh University -- Living (Again) on the Alley: Reimagining a Local Housing Type Through Spatial Storytelling and Community Coalition Building in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

This paper will detail the ongoing efforts of the Alley House Program: a research, design, and planning initiative that employs oral histories, field surveys, and spatial storytelling to directly shape urban change in the small city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The paper asks how the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes can be put to work to overcome perennial social, political, and cultural impediments to housing production and land-use reform. The Program is a collaboration between municipal, university, neighborhood, and non-profit partners to revive a historic housing type native to Bethlehem – colloquially called the “Alley House.” During the 19th-century boom years of Bethlehem Steel (formerly one of the world's largest steel manufacturers), Alley Houses were an infill housing solution for the thousands of migrants and immigrants seeking work in Bethlehem. The majority of these houses are still lived in today. Built on the alley-facing side of existing residential parcels, Alley Houses share qualities with contemporary accessory dwelling units (ADUs), but have different sizes, tenancy, and relationships to context. Like other historic types of “second units,” new Alley Houses were rendered illegal through single-family down-zoning.

The Program is building trust and consensus within Bethlehem neighborhoods, envisioning how the city’s vernacular development patterns can inform policy change. Existing conditions surveys, oral histories, walking tours, neighborhood organizing, and design exercises directly inform recommendations for zoning reform and the construction of five pilot Alley House units. Contrasting with state-led, top-down land-use preemptions, the Program partners create a channel for Bethlehem neighborhoods to imagine change while taking incremental steps towards creating more equitable communities together. Importantly, the Program has involved over 60 students from 12 majors, providing opportunities to practice oral history, field surveys, and the civic processes necessary for zoning reform and housing creation. Students surveyed 50 miles of alleyscape, documented 919 existing Alley Houses, conducted resident interviews, navigated zoning variances with city officials, and are currently building the first Alley House pilot unit. The Program emphasizes the importance of mutually-beneficial (instead of extractive) outcomes when learning within communities – constructing narratives of future change that grows out of lived experience and existing conditions. Through place-based design research, cultural landscape studies, and community coalition building, other municipalities can translate the Program’s experimental model to envision other hyper-local housing solutions.

Panel B: Re-Defining Home
Chair: Diane Shaw, Carnegie Mellon University 

Amanda R. Mushal, The Citadel -- Refinement of Shop and Home: Shopkeepers Creating Spaces of Refinement on Charleston’s King Street in the 1850s 

In 1856, perhaps just after his wife’s death, Charleston boot and shoe dealer John Daly sold most of his household furnishings. The advertisement for his sale provides a snapshot of a well-to-do southern shopkeeper’s household. In the description of several items as “fashionable . . . very handsome, and just from the manufacturers,” we can glimpse the couple’s excitement over their new acquisitions. These included “2 large-sized Tete-a-Tetes” among the new walnut parlor furnishings, a “Handsome Lady’s Work Table,” a “Rosewood French Bedstead,” a piano, and an assortment of ornamental items.

Shopkeepers were important agents in the refinement of nineteenth-century cities and homes. In Charleston, South Carolina, milliners, dry goods dealers, and purveyors of furniture, books, music, confectionary, and other specialty items were coming to define the middle blocks of King Street as a space of refinement, an area where genteel women, in particular, could and did spend significant time shopping for fashionable goods. As purveyors of the goods with which customers proclaimed their social aspirations and identities, such shopkeepers played a vital role in the processes of nineteenth-century consumerism and class formation. At the same time, they were themselves an important component of the emerging middle class and, as this paper will demonstrate, consumers of the goods they sold.

Using advertisements, probate inventories, and early credit reports from R.G. Dun & Company, this paper examines the material lives of King Street shopkeepers listed in the 1855 city directory who died before the Civil War disrupted their households and businesses. In contrast to other areas of the city, where members of the emerging middle and upper classes were beginning to separate their homes from their places of business, many of these retailers continued to live above their shops. Thus both their public and private lives helped define the character of King Street. Building on work by Dell Upton, Richard Bushman, Jon Stobart, and others, this paper will examine firstly, how shopkeepers’ businesses now defined these blocks as places of respectability; and secondly, in what ways these retailers incorporated elements of refinement into their own domestic spaces. The probate inventories, in particular, provide insight into the lives of shopkeepers of varying levels of prosperity. The study thus reveals both the level of fashionable refinement achieved by prosperous shopkeepers, and how less affluent shopkeepers incorporated small luxuries and signifiers of refinement into their otherwise modest homes. 

Octavio López-Martínez, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, From Popular Houses to Storage. The Last Wattle and Daub Buildings in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. 

At the end of the 19th century, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec played an important role as a transit route in global trade, facilitated by the construction of an interoceanic railway that enabled the transport of goods, primarily from the United States, between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Although various cultural groups had coexisted in this region since before the Spanish colonial period, at the beginning of the 20th century, it became a development hub that attracted settlers from different parts of the world.

At that time, the population inhabited two types of housing, differentiated by materiality and associated with social classes. Palm-thatched houses were common for ordinary people, while adobe and brick houses were built for the local elites. In terms of housing, abrupt socio-cultural changes led to: 1) an increase in brick construction in some urban centers, and 2) the emergence of a new type of housing that quickly spread throughout the region. This type of house features a wooden structure, wattle-and-daub walls, and a wooden and tile roof, locally known as the “casa de barro” (mud house).

Due to the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914, the region’s economic boom came to an end. Over the past century, regional development has been slow compared to the rest of the country, as has the transition to industrialized building materials. Consequently, part of the architectural heritage has been preserved to this day. Some examples of the "casa de barro," once the most common type of housing in the villages of the region, still exist—some remain inhabited, others have been altered, and some have been repurposed as household storage spaces. A detailed description of these houses and their transformations had not been documented until recently (López-Martínez & Torres Garibay, 2023) and only gained attention following the earthquake that struck the region in 2017.

The extended paper analyzes, from a complex perspective, the reasons behind the changes in the use of these constructions and why they are no longer built. The chosen methodology was qualitative, supported by quantitative techniques. Fieldwork, which included interviews and surveys with various stakeholders, was carried out during 2022 and 2023.

Wei Zhao, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -- Distant Home: The Meaning of Home for Rural Residents Living in the New Settlement at the Urban Fringe

Yanxia village, a lineage-based settlement with a written history dating back to the fourteenth century, was once situated at the foot of Fangyan Mountain in central Zhejiang Province, China. Starting in the 1850s, residents began operating family-owned hospitality business serving pilgrims who travelled from afar to worship a local deity. By the late 1940s, the thriving hospitality industry had transformed Yanxia into a linear settlement with over 40 seasonal family hotels and stores, constructed in various styles, lining both sides of the mile-long pilgrimage path. However, following the 2006 national policy of “Building a New Socialist Countryside,” the local government announced its plan in 2007 to relocate all residents of Yanxia to a new settlement miles away. Residents eventually began moving out in 2014, with most having settled in their new houses by 2019. 

This paper continues the study begun in Home Beyond the House: Transformation of Life, Place, and Tradition in Rural China (Zhao, 2022), which examined on the physical, social, and cultural constructions of home as understood by residents living in a vernacular settlement in rural China. The new project follows up with participants from the earlier study, aiming to understand their perceptions of home in the new settlement. Adopting the same method—photovoice—the new fieldwork, completed in summer 2024, invited 11 residents to photograph meaningful aspects of their home, followed by semi-structured and in-depth interviews to explore the stories behind the images. Additionally, nine more residents were interviewed to focus on their experiences living in the new settlements.

The study illustrates that although most residents had lived in the new settlements for about five years, they still maintained a strong emotional tie to the vernacular place where their houses once stood and their ancestors lived. Despite accepting their fate that they longer legally own their old houses and recognizing the many benefits of living in the new settlement, including larger living spaces and better infrastructure, many participants included images of the built environment of Yanxia in their understandings of home. Some adamantly insisted that the vernacular houses were still, and would forever be, part of their home, and many stated that they would choose to live in the old village if allowed. More importantly, most of them regularly visited Yanxia, despite it being partially collapsed and unrecognizable, either to get water, work on the vegetable gardens, check on their houses, or simply breathe the air.

Panel C: Built Environments of Diaspora and Tourism 

Chair: Alec Stewart, University of San Francisco

Feni Kurniati, University of Oregon -- Governments’ Homestays: Welcoming Tourists into the Home of ‘Batak’ Tribal Community in Samosir, Indonesia

Vernacular buildings have gained significant attention since the rise of the global tourism industry. After decentralization in 1999, Indonesia shifted the previously center-focused development to the peripheral regions. In the last decade, the government initiated 10 New Bali programs to duplicate the success of Bali in 10 different regions across the country by emphasizing incorporating vernacular architecture into the state’s tourism developments under the ‘Homestay Program.’ One of the most significant indigenous populations experiencing the impact of such a top-down program is the Batak people in Samosir Island, located in the North Sumatera Province. Through financial support, the Homestay Program arrived in Samosir villages to improve and prepare vernacular houses to host tourists in their domestic settings.

This study highlights an urgency to look at the implications of such decentralized developments from the perspective of peripheries. It aims to understand how homestay programs impact the vernacular communities in Samosir villages and how they organize their architecture. This study will use three data collection techniques to examine the physical transformations of the houses, Ruma Bolon, to investigate further the inhabitation process of spaces that occurred in the house while accommodating and integrating both domestic and economic activities. The architectural documentation will produce drawings after the homestay implementation, while interviews with the owners will help reconstruct the previous houses before the homestays. In addition, behavioral mapping will assist in understanding the inhabitation of the houses and how the presence of tourists dictates the use of spaces in the everyday and cultural lives of the locals.

This study indicates that at least four inhabitation patterns occurred in the homestay units under study. These patterns correlate with degrees of spatial and temporal portions of the houses dedicated to tourists, ranging between two extreme ends: tourists taking over most of the house and shrinking domestic spaces, domestic activities invading the homestays and limiting guest rooms. While such evidence focuses on the spatial dialogues between tourists and inhabitants, this study further investigates how they reflect the potential and threats the tourism activities brought to the vernacular communities and their architecture in Samosir.

Seung-youp Lee, Kumoh, National Institute of Technology -- Eating Authenticity: Case Studies of Ethnic Restaurants at a Small Industrial city in South Korea 

This paper explores the roles of ethnic restaurants in Sangmo Village in Gumi, South Korea. While Korean society is often regarded as a racially homogeneous nation, it has undergone gradual changes over the past three decades. Gumi is no exception. The city, home to five national industrial complexes, consistently faces labor shortages and therefore relies heavily on foreign workers to sustain its manufacturing industry. Consequently, the influx of foreign laborers has led to the formation of areas where they predominantly reside, such as Sangmo Village.

On the one hand, this ethnic concentration has negatively affected the village's reputation, stigmatizing it as a crime-ridden area—whether or not such perceptions are accurate. On the other hand, the high density of foreign residents has given rise to ethnic restaurants, most of which are Chinese or Southeast Asian.

Focusing on these ethnic shifts, I examine two key aspects: first, the role of ethnic restaurants among foreign workers, and second, the broader impact of ethnic changes on Sangmo Village itself. As Arijit Sen argues, ethnic restaurants can serve as multicultural public spaces for foreign workers. These establishments foster a sense of belonging and community, a role evidenced by the material culture within the restaurants. More importantly, the emergence and constant evolution of these ethnic restaurants have contributed to new perceptions of the village, whether positive or negative. This transformation redefines the concept of authenticity. Authenticity is often associated with a neighborhood’s intrinsic qualities, such as its appearance and atmosphere. However, it also reflects broader concerns about how places change over time.

This research utilizes multiple types of evidence, with oral histories from interviews with restaurant owners serving as the primary source for understanding the role of ethnic restaurants. Additionally, I use street views from internet-based mapping tools, such as Google Maps, to trace the transformation of these establishments. Analyzing these visual changes allows me to compare the village’s lived reality with its depiction in mainstream media. I also conducted measurements and created floor plans for three restaurants, observing how patrons engage with these spaces. Based on these analyses, I argue that ethnic restaurants play a pivotal role in shaping the authenticity of Sangmo Village by creating multiple cultural layers.

Hanyu Chen, University of California, Los Angeles -- Solidarity in Stitch: The Role of New York Chinatown’s Garment Factories in Establishing Coethnic Feminine Unity

In the summer of 1982, over 20,000 garment workers rallied at Columbus Park in Manhattan’s Chinatown, demonstrating solidarity and urging their co-ethnic employers to approve the renewed contract proposed by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), Local 23-25. Most ILGWU Local 23-25 members were immigrant Chinese women who, positioned at the intersection of gender and racial exploitation, became the industry’s predominant labor force due to the garment sector’s historical pursuit of low-cost labor for profit maximization. These garment factories thus became spaces characterized by gendered labor. In addition, most of these immigrant women had limited access to education and political awareness or solidarity knowledge, both before and after migrating to the U.S. Their careers developed around ethnicity and kinship. During work hours, personal issues were frequently discussed, but more importantly, solidarity information was fostered through their conversations in shared-ethnicity and gendered spaces. The Chinese-owned garment factories are a space of feminine solidarity incubator for these new female immigrant workers.

This paper will focus on Chinese-owned garment factories in Manhattan’s Chinatown from 1965 to 1982, examining their role as ethnic social spaces and birthplaces of feminine solidarity. It will analyze the solidarity displayed during the 1982 strike and how a pre-existing awareness of racial and gender exploitation informed this solidarity within Chinatown’s garment factories and the ILGWU: before the 1982 Strike, many of the strikers had already practiced “consciousness” in garment factories. Although most of these practices were factory-wide and “wild cat,” they laid the groundwork for the 1982 Strike, distinguishing it from other Chinatown industries. As a space often described as exploitation, this paper aims to highlight the dual role of garment factories in Manhattan Chinatown and discuss the factors that enhanced the space to become a place for immigrant Chinese women garment workers’ feminine solidarity practice.

Session II

Panel A: New Methods in Vernacular Architectural History

Chair: E.G. Daves Rossell, Savannah College of Art and Design

Joseph Godlewski, Syracuse University -- Graphic Reconstructions: Co-authored Assemblies for Decolonizing Our Knowledge of the Built Environment 

This paper examines the history of impermanent architectures of southeastern Nigeria with a focus on graphic reconstruction methods based on maps, photographs, and literary sources. Together with a team of research students and the aid of digital modeling software, diagrammatic reconstructions of vernacular compounds, Ékpè lodges, colonial buildings, and no longer extant houses like King Eyamba V’s Iron Palace were made to help illustrate the socio‐spatial environments in the region. To date, studies of Africa’s built environment have struggled with the long shadow cast by foreign observers and their preconceptions about what constitutes legitimate spatial discourse. This paper asks if something can be gleaned from a re-examination of these problematic accounts. What can we learn about these no longer extant spaces and material cultures from a critical reflection on these representations? Drawings are indispensable tools to convey information and construct worlds. The disciplinary history of drawing as a tool to communicate spatial and conceptual ideas is rich and scholarly well-traversed, though studies about African architecture and the diaspora are less documented. Much of our present understanding of the architecture is based on oral histories or written accounts, often by foreign observers. If we are to take the tasks of decolonizing our disciplinary knowledge and theorizing the Black experience with the rigor it deserves, we cannot be paralyzed by critique, complacent with global inequities, and resign other knowledges to invisibility. Drawings, as such, are provisional, co-authored assemblies which can challenge colonial oppositions, highlight indigenous creativity, and visually articulate acts of modification and adaptation. Studying this condition is not without methodological challenges and requires an expanded research repertoire on the part of the historian. As Swati Chattopadhyay has argued, an enhanced spatial imagination requires moving beyond the normative assumptions of aesthetic universals, making the entire landscape the unit of analysis, and dispersing architectural investigations over a wider terrain of material culture. This paper asks what we can learn from studying the cultural landscapes of southeastern Nigeria and speculates on the potential emerging technologies may have for broadening our understanding of these spaces and disseminating the work to the global community. 

Chris Robey, University of Georgia, Context Clues: Re-Discovering a Segregated CCC Camp using Historic Aerial Photographs and Airborne LiDAR 

The National Park Service is committed to recognizing Black people’s contributions to American history as well as addressing the role it has played in their discrimination. As a landscape expressly designed with segregation in mind, the Blue Ridge Parkway affords considerable opportunities for such work. How are resource managers to fulfill their obligations, however, where physical traces of the Parkway’s history of segregation have been all but erased?

Such is the case with Camp NP-29, a segregated Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp formerly located near Galax, Virginia. Between late 1940 and early 1942, Camp NP-29 was host to Company 362-C, a seasoned company of Black CCC enrollees. Though their tenure at NP-29 was short, these men nonetheless contributed significantly to the Parkway’s development. Most notably, they assisted with the 1942 restoration of Mabry Mill—today one of the most photographed places along the Parkway. The CCC was disbanded later that year; thereafter, NP-29 was briefly reoccupied by a Civilian Public Service (CPS) company before being dismantled in 1944.

Over the next seventy years, Camp NP-29 was gradually forgotten. In 2011, however, a team of researchers led by Rebecca Jones published a report highlighting NP-29 among a range of Black historic resources along the Parkway. Through this research, Jones and her team narrowed the camp’s former location down to one of three possible sites. Their report also included historic ground photos that supposedly depicted the camp. Given the scarce supporting documentation available at the time, however, Jones and her team could not determine which of the three possible sites was the correct one.

Earlier this year, previously unexamined historic aerial photographs retrieved from the National Archives, publicly-available airborne LiDAR data, and back issues of local newspapers made a definitive determination possible. First, the aerials and LiDAR data were overlaid in ArcGIS Pro. The resulting imagery was then cross-referenced against the ground photos and newspaper articles. This led to an unexpected realization: there had, in fact, been two CCC camps near Galax: a whites-only camp administered by the Soil Conservation Service, and the segregated Camp NP-29 administered by the National Park Service.

This paper offers resource managers a methodology for identifying and documenting landscapes of segregation even where few physical traces remain. Further, identifying the physical nexus of Company 362-C's working lives during their tenure along the Parkway denotes a concrete point of departure from which to recognize their contributions to its development.

Sujin Kim, Hampton University and Myengsoo Seo, Hankyong National University -- Developing an Analytical Framework for Koreatown's Vernacular Urbanscape 

This study delves into Koreatowns as vital vernacular urbanscapes, proposing new methodologies to explore how their everyday buildings—richly adorned with cultural and commercial messages and images—forge powerful ethnic place symbolism within American urban environments. While current scholarship has made significant strides in addressing the history of immigration, community development, and the socioeconomics of immigrant populations, it often overlooks the physical landscapes that shape Koreatown's identity. Koreatowns, especially their commercial districts, embody substantial heritage value for both their ethnic communities and the broader American society, despite their relatively recent emergence in the late 1960s and often understated appearances. A critical challenge in scholarship is the lack of a comprehensive framework to analyze the unique characteristics and significance of these ethnic commercial landscapes. Structures designed by Korean builders with ethnic-themed aesthetics are scarce, and the commercial programs housed within rentable spaces often struggle to maintain their cultural integrity amid frequent changes in occupancy. Moreover, the absence of standard historic preservation guidelines leaves Koreatowns vulnerable, jeopardizing the sustainability of this important built heritage. To confront these challenges, our research investigates Koreatowns in Los Angeles and New York in two distinct phases. Phase One consists of extensive field surveys and GIS mapping to analyze key components of the urbanscape, including the horizontal and vertical urban fabric, building facades, signage, graphics, and place branding. Drawing inspiration from Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour’s seminal work on the vernacular streetscapes of 1960s Las Vegas, Phase One findings demonstrate that ephemeral, non-architectural elements significantly contribute to Koreatown’s unique sense of place. The clustering density and visibility of ethnic programs, messages, and images play a crucial role, even as individual components evolve over time. In Phase Two, we interpret the collected data using Riegl's theory of monument values, encompassing artistic, age, historical, deliberate commemorative, use, and newness values. This study aims to explore new ways of interpreting Koreatowns by analyzing the relationship between their physical urban environments and ethnic identity alongside social and cultural dimensions. Our research also seeks to inform the development of preservation policies for Koreatowns and promote sustainable urban design that reflects ethnic identity. Ultimately, we hope to spark meaningful dialogue about the vernacular environments of ethnic enclaves at the upcoming VAF conference, emphasizing their cultural significance and the need for protective measures to ensure their enduring legacy.

Lincoln L. Lewis, University of Virginia, and Maximilian Kim, University of Virginia, The Road of Presidents: Documentation Methods for Historic Roadbeds in a Central Virginia Agricultural Landscape 

This paper presents methods analyzing historic roadbeds in a vernacular agricultural landscape. Blenheim Road stretches from near Monticello to Scottsville in southern Albemarle County, Virginia. Three U.S. Presidents used the road to travel throughout the region from Colonial times until the early 20th century. Thomas Jefferson brought his new wife, Martha, to Monticello in 1772 along Blenheim Road and he also traveled southward on the road to visit his brother’s Snowdon plantation. Blenheim Road passed through Highland Estate where James Monroe lived from 1799 to 1823. During Teddy Roosevelt’s rest and relaxation at Pine Knot, he attempted to borrow several coveted hunting dogs from a neighbor along Blenheim Road, however the owner refused to let the 26th President use his hounds. The history of Blenheim Road could describe the processes by which many Colonial American roads evolved over time with changes in land ownership and use, trade, and modes of transportation, while interweaving with Indigenous hunting paths. During the day, Blenheim Road conveyed people and goods, including rolling hogshead of tobacco. At night, the road likely guided the enslaved to travel disguised amongst a network of creeks and thickets in the plantation landscape. Over time, the importance of the various nodes in the landscape changed. When Blenheim Road was realigned by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) in the last century, the remnant roadbed was used to convey racehorses between neighboring farms. Once the horses departed, portions of the road became overgrown and forgotten by time. The uncovering of Blenheim Road began with a 1795 cadastral survey used by Thomas Jefferson to recommend William Short invest in a property which was eventually called Morven. Archival research of contemporary road orders, or ledgers of road setting out activities and maintenance costs, reveal Blenheim Road’s early evolution. Land records at the Albemarle County Circuit Court document Jefferson acting as Short’s land agent. VDOT’s hand drafted plans of road rights-of-way lay out more recent changes. Coming to modern day, LiDAR data processed in ArcGIS reveal Blenheim Road’s profiles layered over time. Site walks through thickly grown hedgerows have exposed the road along with former artifacts of the landscape, ranging from the hardware of split rail fence gates to dry laid stone walls. The paper will overview the history of Blenheim Road while advocating for an iterative process of using archival research, technology, and site walks as methods of reading vernacular landscapes through time.

Panel B: Landscape, Society, and Culture

Chair: Jessica Varner, University of Pennsylvania

Shannon Chapman, Savannah College of Art and Design, -- Bonaventure Cemetery: Nature, Memory, and the Southern Landscape 

Bonaventure Cemetery offers a unique case study in the rural cemetery movement, particularly for its integration in nature, memory, and modernity in the South. The paper examines how Bonaventure’s physical and aesthetic qualities reflect the evolving relationship between people and the land, while also shaping regional identities and mourning practices. By analyzing the cemetery through the lens of material culture, one sees how the natural environment of Bonaventure serves as a defining aspect of its identity and significance within the rural cemetery movement.

Savannah’s flora and fauna contribute to the cemetery’s unique landscape, shaping both its cultural identity and influence by regional mourning practices. In Camping Among the Tombs (1867), John Muir, co-founder of the Sierra Club, writes that “Bonaventure is called a graveyard, a town of the dead, but the few graves are powerless in such a depth of life,” stating that the “rippling of living waters, the song of birds, the joyous confidence of flowers,” and “the calm, undisturbable grandeur of oaks, marks this place of graves as one of the Lord’s most favored abodes of life and light.” Thus, the lush environment of the cemetery transforms the conventional graveyard into a contemplative space, reflecting shifting attitudes towards death and blurring the lines between nature and the human experience.

Bonaventure blends both Northern and Southern urban planning ideals, offering a solution to overcrowded churchyards while creating a narrative space reflecting broader socio-economic shifts in the South. Originally a plantation and burial ground, the cemetery distinguishes itself from other rural cemeteries with its commitment to the integration of wilderness. Live oaks, Spanish moss, and other elements draw in visitors and foster tourism and imbue the space with a sense of spirituality and sublimity. By the mid-19 century, the Romantic movement added an emotional allure to Nature, further shaping Bonaventure’s design and its prominence as a garden of reflection and reverence.

Ultimately, Bonaventure is more than a burial site- it is a cultural artifact that embodies the regional identity of Savannah and the broader shifts in Southern society. Through the material culture, Bonaventure offers a glimpse into the impact of nature, memory, and modernity that took root within the sandy bluff and defines the South’s unique approach to death and commemoration. This paper contributes to a deeper analysis of both the rural cemetery movement and the lasting impacts of Bonaventure as a model of Southern vernacular architecture and its cultural landscape.

Nathaniel Robert Walker, The Catholic University of America -- Roof Garden Girls: Female Seclusion and/or Empowerment in the Elevated Green Spaces of Victorian Cities 

In the summer of 1897, The Morning Times of Washington, DC, announced that a “Roof Garden Girl” of New York City had tired of the poor moral quality of the roof gardens that had lately risen atop the theatres and hotels of Manhattan to become the dominant social spaces of summertime privilege. “If you won’t go to the roof garden, make the roof garden come to you,” she declared. Stepping out on top of her house, she gathered plants, built a railing, hung a canvas awning, procured a huge punch bowl, and gathered “as many quaint old lanterns as could be found in a search through Chinatown.” She set up bamboo divans and threw “Bagdad rugs,” while a “Japanese matting of Oriental pattern was used to hide the tin roof.” Finding her heterotopic escape complete, she then invited her friends to “drop up” and hosted what was by all accounts a lively series of social gatherings centered on artful discussions that were elevated in every sense. While other roof gardens became famous as the hunting grounds of predatory men, culminating in leading architect Stanford White’s infamous sex and murder scandal, this “Roof Garden Girl” had created an alternative urban space where she exercised full control as both designer and curator. Newspapers, diaries, books, and magazine articles from this period reveal that roof gardens had become extremely important in American cities and were heavily invested with the politics of gender. Beyond the bawdy world of Vaudeville, sometimes powerful men constructed roof gardens for the women working in factories or offices to provide them with “safe” spaces for rest and recreation where they could be segregated and surveilled—other times, women claimed their rights to lead the design and use of roof gardens. Where were the lines between female seclusion and empowerment in the understudied roof garden culture of Victorian America? Who were these remarkable “Roof Garden Girls,” and how did they shape and inhabit the social spaces of our cities at this time of rapid and profound change?

Mary C. Fesak, University of Delaware -- The Performative Becoming With: Animals as Mediators of the Cultural Landscape 

Until relatively recently in human history, animals profoundly impacted how humans engaged with the world around them—from hunting and being hunted to shepherding flocks and traveling in animal-drawn conveyances—animals not only influenced the speed humans moved at, but also shaped human perceptions of their surroundings through multisensory engagement. Despite the centrality of animals in shaping how humans experienced landscapes, and in turn often influencing the formation of these cultural landscapes, animals’ agency has often been overlooked by scholars of the built environment.

This paper uses horseback riding and the development of late nineteenth and early twentieth century equestrian landscapes of leisure as a case study for understanding how animals mediated human engagement with landscapes. During the late 1870s, Gilded Age elites in New York City “discovered” the English style equestrian sports like foxhunting, playing polo, and steeplechase racing. Elites engaged in these sports in performances of their social status. As they became increasingly proficient as riders, elites branched out across the East Coast in search of their ideal equestrian landscapes around the turn of the century. In the process, they developed many hubs of equestrian activity that have remained central to the English style riding sports today, such as Aiken, South Carolina and Middleburg, Virginia. Elite equestrians also developed new landscape forms like jumps, showgrounds, and racetracks to engage in their idealized performances of the equestrian sports.

This paper recenters horses in the discovery and creation of these landscapes. In addition to field and archival research, the paper draws from critical animal studies theory, using Donna Haraway’s concept of “becoming with” to examine how elites became equestrians through their social performances of equestrianism with their horses. It combines this theoretical framework with the study of proprioception, or bodily awareness in space, to examine the embodied experience of riding shared between horse and rider. This embodied experience of riding was critical to the development of the American equestrian landscape. Elites designed landscape features to maximize their enjoyment of their horses—who in turn were more pleasant to ride when they felt like the footing and jumps were safe. By combining cultural landscape studies and critical animal studies approaches, this paper ultimately offers a method of recovering and recentering posthuman perspectives of the built environment for companionate animal species such as horses.

Brenda J. Brown, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg -- Manitoba Farmstead Shelterbelts: Analysis of a Garden Type

In rural southern Manitoba, farmstead shelterbelts are integral components of a constructed landscape. Personal and regional constructions, they complicate simple definitions of vernacular, for they have also been shaped by government programs dating back to 1901.

Shelterbelts are layered, parallel rows of trees. As the name implies, their purpose is to shelter – to protect soil, crops, water, livestock and people from prairie weather extremes, especially wind and snow. While North Americans may be most familiar with field shelterbelts, multi-rowed miles of trees earnestly planted in the 1930s, our focus here is farmstead shelterbelts, similarly composed tree rows that protect and define farmsteads. Over the past 120 years in Manitoba, many more trees have been planted for farmstead shelterbelts than for field shelterbelts, and today, while many field shelterbelts have been removed, farmstead shelterbelts continue to be more highly valued.

While there are various reasons for this – practical, psychological and evolutionary – I argue that this is in no small part due to their role in creating local expressions of an old, if not archetypal garden “type”. As Jackson pointed out in “Nearer than Eden”, the concept of garden is tied to its Indo-European root gher, connoting an enclosure or enclosed space.

“[T]he concept of garden was, in the early days, closely involved with the concepts of family or household, of property, of defense, and even of community layout ... The enclosure itself, the fence or hedge surrounding the area, was the most conspicuous element of the composition. ... The garden or enclosure was thus defined as a distinct family centered, family-ruled territory …” -- J.B. Jackson.

In North America’s early settlement, Jackson speculates, this concept altered, for the hedge or fence – or, we may add, shelterbelt – served more to distinguish family territory from surrounding wilderness. While Canadian prairie wilderness differs from the untamed forests Jackson evokes, in its vast and windy openness it was, and may remain, no less threatening.

Manitoba’s farmstead shelterbelts, while playing a significant role in the rural ecosystems we have constructed, may be seen too as very recent, fragile, practical and personal expressions, integral to a special sort of family-centered garden, archetypal symbols of stability and continuity even while subject to powerful external forces.

This presentation derives from visits, recorded interviews, and graphic and video documentations of 23 southern Manitoba farmsteads, their shelterbelts, and occupants, and archival research. It will include slides of drawings and photographs and a video excerpt.

Panel C: Redevelopment, the State, and the Vernacular
Chair: Brian Goldstein, Swarthmore College

Michael R. Allen, West Virginia University -- Urban Archaeology Versus Urban Renewal: Reconsidering Architectural Salvage, 1950-2000

This research reconsiders the position of architectural salvage as a form of contestation of urban renewal in the peak US urban renewal period between 1950 and 2000. Consigned by preservationists to an unseemly status of profit-driven complicity in the destruction of the historic built environment, salvagers were written out of the normative practice of historic preservation. The history architectural salvage indeed is embedded in capitalist practices, but the abundance of available material during the urban renewal era did not spawn a massive crop of profiteers. Instead, the figures who shaped architectural salvage articulated a rage against demolition, and even while operating in the private market, often used their practices to create massive collections of not-for-sale artifacts from high-style and vernacular buildings. 

Using newspapers, photographic documentation and primary documents available, this research examines the consciousness around architectural salvage among major figures whose practices produced major museum collections. These salvagers include Ivan Karp and the Anonymous Arts Recovery Society in New York City, Richard Nickel and Tim Samuelson in Chicago, Larry Giles and Bob Cassilly in St. Louis and Jerry Boscoe and Ben Milligan in Portland. Other people included in the larger project include wreckers themselves, many of whom were African-American and despite their explicit roles in demolition still demonstrated a solidarity with the cause of recovering artifacts in their work. Some figures in salvage participated explicitly in political activism against urban renewal, and others simply applied their labor and vision.

The paper argues that architectural salvage coincided with the rejection of modernism by postmodern architects such as Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, and perhaps influenced their attention to neoclassical and baroque ornament. The research examines also how architectural salvage as a sort of postmodern oppositional practice influenced artists during the urban renewal era and since, including Robert Smithson, Gordon Matta-Clark, Theaster Gates, Tyree Guyton and Abigail DeVille – some of whom use architectural deconstruction to invoke the trauma of urban renewal felt by African-Americans. There also is a reflection on how the imbrication with resale of artifacts and for-profit rehabbing of historic buildings means that the contemporary gentrification of the historic built environment is also a legacy of architectural salvage. Salvage is an inherently contradictory response to urban renewal, and its legacies remain divided – yet at its core is a willingness to undertake an alternative to total destruction.

Gregory Woolston, University of California, Santa Cruz -- Hiding on the Backstreets: Camps, Cabins, and the Atlantic City Expressway

As Atlantic City debated urban renewal in the 1960s, the rural and suburban roadside of the mainland was redeveloped by the Atlantic City Expressway. With a more direct route and increased speed limit, the highway provided a ‘spatial fix’ for the flagging resort, increasing tourism from the Philadelphia area by reducing the commute by 12 minutes. However, what were the consequences of the Atlantic City Expressway along its route? The highway not only cut through the pinelands and across the marshlands, but also had significant economic, social, and cultural impacts. Merchants along parallel routes, namely the White Horse Pike and Black Horse Pike, feared less traffic, and ninety homes were demolished in Pleasantville. Most significantly, a roadside that previously accommodated those who were policed in the resort—from horse sellers and fortune tellers to bootleggers and sex workers—gave way to ‘progress’.

In this paper, I examine the camps and cabins that existed along the backstreets down the Shore during the first half of the 20th century. In addition to lodging poor travelers who could not afford to stay on the oceanfront, these spaces were inhabited by traveling workers whose labor was simultaneously desired by but disallowed in the resort. As such, I argue that the mainland roadside opened up the Shore to those who were excluded from ‘the world’s playground’ and its mass culture. I apply a critical discourse analysis to newspaper reports on the region’s camps and cabins in order to reveal how their alleged criminality was framed by racist attitudes, moral judgements, and economic fears, and in this way, present the development of the Expressway alongside efforts by city officials, law enforcement, and resort hotelmen to settle the roadside. Nevertheless, as Atlantic City continued to struggle in later decades, officials used these now isolated accommodations to shelter the newly marginalized, including unhoused families, people with substance abuse and mental health issues, and formerly incarcerated persons.

This study from the Jersey Shore offers both empirical and theoretical contributions. Empirically, the example emphasizes connections between the coast and mainland. Despite the centrality of transportation in the region’s development, there is limited work on the routes, buildings, and inhabitants on the way down the Shore. Theoretically, the example suggests how a ‘spatial fix’ is more than economic—that is, how new infrastructure has socio-cultural impacts—and examines redevelopment efforts outside of the urban, in a rural and suburban landscape. 

Robert Franklin, Washington State University -- The Historic Built Environment of African American East Pasco, Washington 

The National Park Service (NPS) has championed understanding the civil rights history within the legacies of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR) at the Hanford Site, near the Tri-Cities of southeast Washington State. In 2018, NPS funded an oral history project documenting migration, segregation, and civil rights at Hanford, and in 2023 provided a three-year grant to create a suite of digital assets focused on the history of East Pasco: essays, a digital walking tour, short interstitial videos, and an ArcGIS StoryMap. Earlier this year, in partnership with the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) of Pasco and WSU faculty Phil Gruen, I co-taught graduate architecture and history students to study the intersection of race and infrastructure in the community of East Pasco, a community literally “the other side of the tracks” and isolated from Pasco by the largest railyard west of the Mississippi, and to help produce these digital assets for the park. These projects examine the built environment of East Pasco, not only telling a community story of East Pasco, but helping visitors understand the impact of racial exclusion and resistance to that exclusion in the atomic west and locating the Civil Rights movement in the inland Northwest. This paper contends that we must turn public attention to those who have been left out of the history of the atomic west: blacks, Latines – relegated to the “other side of the tracks” and largely forgotten, their built environment poorly funded. It is also a story of resilience: with a focus on African Americans businesses and a community-built park, this paper argues that the NPS must continue to look towards spaces of marginalization, no matter their aesthetics.

Until recently, little of the historiography and interpretation of the Manhattan Project at Hanford has focused on the impacts of the project on racial communities and everyday/ordinary life and landscape both during and after the war. East Pasco was connected to the rest of the Tri-Cities only through the dark and narrow Lewis Street Underpass, African American residents lived in dilapidated housing, used communal water taps, lacked paved streets, streetlights, and sidewalks. Resisting this segregation, East Pasco residents built churches (Morningstar Baptist Church), co-ops (the Matrix Corporation), restaurants (Virgie’s Chicken Shack), and even their own community park (Kurtzman Park) to counteract the neglect and hostility prevalent towards them in their new home. These spaces are important to the study of vernacular architecture and are a crucial part of the “Atomic Loop” tour planned for VAF 2026. 

Kathleen Conti, Florida State University -- “Gone, Baby, Gone”: Documenting Vernacular Community Spaces Threatened by Gentrification and Climate Change 

This paper first explores the history of Railroad Square as well as the recent destruction of this invaluable vernacular community space before delving into an exploration of how to involve students in documenting, analyzing, and advocating for these cultural landscapes. Many of Florida’s historic cultural landscapes, including Tallahassee’s Railroad Square, are at risk due to a combination of climate change and rapid gentrification.

Originally an industrial park, Railroad Square is now a vibrant arts district and gathering space for many marginalized communities. This site has hosted a variety of businesses since the 1880s, and in 1976, Nan Boyton transformed the warehouses into affordable studios and galleries to establish an artists’ enclave. Other tenants soon followed, including the Mickee Faust Club, a queer cabaret and theatre club; Honest Engines, a feminist auto repair shop; a gallery for the famous Black folk artist “Missionary” Mary Proctor; Fat Cat Books, a used bookstore and feline adoption center; and Halisi Afro-fusion Boutique and Café.

In the past decade, the land value of Railroad Square has skyrocketed. It is located near downtown, sandwiched between two growing universities: Florida State University (FSU) and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, the state’s HBCU. Wanting to cash in on the quirky commercial arts district, various hotels and other businesses are encroaching on the district and continue to destroy portions of the site, evicting some tenants through demolition and others through substantive rent increases. A proposed redevelopment plan in 2022 intended to destroy more than half of the historic art district by replacing it with 4-story apartment buildings and a giant parking garage. My graduate public history course at FSU began documenting the history and present moment of Railroad Square in spring 2024 to memorialize both the space and its importance to the community.

A few days after the students completed their documentation, two EF-2 tornadoes ripped through Tallahassee. These tornadoes caused more damage than Hurricanes Hermine, Michael, and Idalia combined. Railroad Square was in the direct path of both tornadoes, which destroyed multiple warehouses and flooding others. “Our home for 27 of our 37 years of existence is gone, baby, gone. We loved our performance community space. It was magical,” Mickee Faust’s artistic director Terry Galloway said. The owners of Railroad Square chose not to purchase insurance for the district, and instead asked the city to consider purchasing what remained. More than 100 artists and other tenants were affected by the tornadoes, with some losing everything. My graduate students worked with them on recovery efforts and successfully advocated for Railroad Square to be named one of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s 11 to Save for 2024. The district’s future remains uncertain, and this paper will also explore future student projects to continue documenting the site and reimagining a future that protects this important community space.

 

Session III

Panel A: Learning from the Visual

Chair: Clifton C. Ellis, Texas Tech University

Louis Nelson, University of Virginia -- The Roberts View of Charleston: Mercantilism and Townhouses in early 18th century Charleston 

In 1739, artist Bishop Roberts painted a waterfront view of the city of Charles Town, South Carolina, a view he supplemented with an extraordinarily accurate city plan. Sending them to London to be engraved as prints, both city view and plan were available for sale in Charles Town just a year later. But the view documented a city soon to be lost; most of the waterfront burned in a devastating fire in November of 1740. As a result, the surviving watercolor view, now in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, is a remarkable record of a largely lost early American port city. Standing right in the midst of this waterfront range is the Elliott Family townhouse, the residential anchor of an expanding mercantile empire of houses, warehouses, alleys, streets, and tenements. Drawing from a growing database of architectural and place-based references in the South Carolina Gazette from the 1730s to the 1750s paired with close property ownership and probate research, this paper uses the Roberts view and plan to examine the residential architecture of early eighteenth-century Charles Town. A city just emerging as the major transit port between the Caribbean and the middle and northern British colonies, and the major North American port for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Charles Town was undergoing a massive boom-town economy; as historian Emma Hart has shown the late 1730s experienced the highest imports value per capita of the entire century. Centering on the growing mercantile footprint of the Elliott family, this paper examines the highly dynamic architectural conditions in this port city, one whose domestic architectural footprints were not residential townhouses, but a range of tenements; the rental market was too precious to actually live in a waterfront townhouse one could rent for exorbitant prices. And these tenements were fronted by wharves lined with warehouses, stores, and shops, and framed to either side by dynamic shopping streets where local customers could purchase luxury imported goods, captains could restock for the next leg of the voyage, and both could join sailors indulging in beer, liquor, and prostitutes. Altogether, this paper demonstrates the ways that careful analysis of multiple visual and archival sources allow scholars to reconstruct the textures of everyday life, even in largely lost landscapes. 

Kate Wietor, Marstel-Day, LLC -- Compass Geometries: Evidence of the Intangible in Virginia’s Grist Mills 

For European American settlers seeking to establish themselves in rural Virginia, grist mills were an essential component to their lives. Although the primary roles of a mill were economic and agricultural, they were also semi-public spaces where clergy labored, where baptisms were performed, and were materially marked with folk-religious protective symbols. As regional milling declined over the 20th century, knowledge of these once-routine aspects of mills became obscured.

Based on architectural survey, participant observation, archival research, and oral history accounts, this paper argues that milling landscapes of the 19th century Shenandoah Valley were interwoven with belief and sanctity, in addition to being economically and spatially determinative. In particular, this paper will focus on the compass-drawn symbols inscribed into interior features of historic grist mills throughout in the region.

Believed to be apotropaic (protective) markings, I have documented these compass-drawn circular symbols in a sampling of Virginia mills and will discuss them within existing scholarship on English protective building strategies, German American folk-art, multi-ethnic historic sites, and emerging studies in the United States. These symbols are vital components of the built environment and especially when located in mills and agricultural buildings, are incredibly vulnerable to loss. Through careful recordation and study of these symbols, there is potential to unlock deeper understandings of the interactions between people, belief, and place.

Shaheen Alikhan, University of Virginia, -- “Elephant and Castle”: Castles, Huts, and Colonial Codependencies of the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa 

Of the four continents whose economy was dependent upon the trade in enslaved humans on a vast scale, by far the least studied is Africa itself. The west coast of Africa was dotted with European castles, forts, and factories, built to protect European interests. Adjacent to and surrounding most of these fortifications were African villages, which either pivoted from independent villages or were created to provide for the needs of the fortified complexes. Though visually and architecturally dominating the modest, impermanent structures by which they were surrounded, these castles and other fortified structures were reliant upon the locals’ village for everything from foodstuffs to craftspeople. Though the monumentality of the castles means that many still stand, there is comparatively little literature about them- and none to speak of on the architecture indigenous to the coast.

The remaining presence of the extant castles serves as a reminder not only of the interconnectedness of the trade networks, but also the depth of European, namely British, dependency upon the trade. Particularly timely in light of recent literature decrying the source of British wealth, this paper utilizes extensive archival and archaeological research to present the evidence of British determination to maintain control of the coastal forts, and therefore the global economy. A comparative analysis of plans recorded by two surveyors employed by Britain’s official Companies trading to Africa between 1727-1750 shows the material degradation of the forts and details of the surrounding villages. Pamphlets, Parliamentary Acts, and personal correspondence, much of which was produced in response to abolitionist movements, delineate specifics of England’s economic reliance upon the slave trade, and the interest of the general public in its continuance and growth.

From the mid-late seventeenth century through the first years of the nineteenth, a tremendous amount of British capital was invested in maintaining these structures, seen as integral to Britain’s economic and political power. London’s iconic “Elephant and Castle” refers directly to the heraldic crest of the British Royal African Company, whose motto in turn underscored the aforementioned codependency: “The trade flourishes due to royal patronage, and the monarchy flourishes due to the trade.” This paper thoroughly examines the structures of power, as manifested in architecture both monumental and modest, in the least-studied geography of the transatlantic slave trade. This examination is aimed at illuminating an understudied landscape and addressing both genuine and elective lacunae in the narratives surrounding systemic British wealth and power.

Isaac Cohen and Sarah Coleman, Auburn University -- Sectional Pasts: ‘Denaturalizing’ Simplified Site Histories in Cultural Landscape Preservation 

Scholars working in heritage fields have long examined public presentations of the past for insights into the ways in which culture and history are not just found, but produced and reinforced in historic landscapes. Yet official guidelines for preservation and interpretive practices in the US continue to orient toward “periods of significance,” naturalizing a particular conception of a landscape for the public, while overwriting site histories that diverge from institutional narratives. While often well-intentioned, these preservation and interpretive practices can project that time has stood still at a given site, reinforcing the impression for the public that places are perfectly unchanged since the era that their present state reflects. Any use or action that has not taken or retained material form is more easily omitted from a site’s official presentation.

Museums and institutional site managers have an ethical mandate not only to be stewards of a site but to also be transparent with the public about its present condition. Reflecting upon historic transformations to sites, even those that are morally objectionable from our contemporary perspective, demonstrate the shifting and contingent nature of institutional doctrines such as “significance.” By visualizing the ongoing processes and outcomes of landscape change, preservationists, site managers, and communities might collectively begin to reflect on their own role in the production of historic sites, and how those sites, in turn, shape conceptions of the particular past they represent. Such reflections might enable more unequivocal and perhaps more just directions for future transformations and interpretations of historic sites.

Thus, this paper expands upon representational strategies for presenting more complete cultural landscape histories. Extending beyond prescriptive “periods of significance,” this method rigorously records transformations and erasures of both “contributing” and “noncontributing” resources through precise, sequential section drawings. Compiling evidence from written, photographic, archaeological, and orthographic records, these drawings attempt to visually record any identified transformations to and around the Florence Indian Mound site, a 43-foot-tall Woodland-era mound overlooking the Tennessee River. Variably used for burial, as a cotton farm, a radio station, and a site for Indigenous artifact trading, this paper argues that a sectional study of these negotiations invites the public to read this landscape not as “mere persistence,” but as material evidence of struggles over site meanings and uses, both suppressed and ascendant.

Panel B: Modernity and the Vernacular
Chair: PJ Carlino, Sacramento State University

Dale Allen Gyure, Lawrence Technological University -- Scoring the Schools: Architectural Standardization and the Delaware School Auxiliary Association in the 1920s

American schools were dominated by a drive toward business-like efficiency in the Interwar period, and the Delaware schools became symbols of a new architectural standardization. When Pierre S. du Pont incorporated the Delaware School Auxiliary Association (DSAA) in the summer of 1919 to supervise a statewide building campaign, it called for the organization to provide for “ample, appropriate, and suitable grounds, buildings, and equipment ... remodeling of old school buildings and constructing new school buildings with appropriate fixtures and equipment.” The DSAA would supervise the construction of almost every Delaware public school before 1930.

Prior to creating the DSAA, Du Pont hired Columbia University professors George D. Strayer and Nickolaus L. Engelhardt to survey all of the state’s schoolhouses using their “Strayer-Engelhardt Score Card” system, which allocated points in five major categories: site, building, service system, classrooms, and special rooms. These five divisions included numerous subheadings, so that points were assigned in over 80 categories; the highest possible score was 1,000, and any building scoring less than 500 points was considered unusable. Out of more than 400 Delaware schoolhouses surveyed by Strayer and Engelhardt, only 8 buildings scored above 500 points and were therefore deemed worth saving. Strayer and Engelhardt then teamed with James O. Betelle, a prominent school architect from Newark, New Jersey, to write a set of standards for school building design and construction that were officially adopted by the Delaware legislature and guided the DSAA’s future work. 

While the “Du Pont Schools” have been studied as a salient attempt to move African-American schools toward equivalency with their white counterparts, the important role played by architectural standardization in the Delaware school building campaign has not been examined. And despite being nationally renowned in the Interwar period and beyond, the Strayer-Engelhardt system, which was widely publicized and applied to numerous school systems across the country, has not been the subject of any scholarly regard. This paper will investigate school standardization in general and the Strayer-Engelhardt system in particular as it was applied to Delaware, focusing on the manner in which it was used to press for improved school conditions for all of the state’s children. In this case, standardization became a means toward providing better school facilities for Delaware’s African-American students.

Ahmed Abdelazim, Independent Scholar -- Undesired “Vernacular” The Quest for Locality in Modernizing Egypt 

Hassan Fathy (1900-1989) is arguably the most award-winning Arab architect in modern history. From Dar al-Islam in Abiquiu, USA, to the historic quarters of Riyadh, KSA, his adobe architecture with its recognizable domes has gained wide global appeal. Yet, in Egypt, Fathy’s work was met with skepticism. Branded “vernacular,” his mud-brick designs conflicted with the modern image Egypt sought to project. This paper examines the contested reception of Fathy’s work, locally and globally, to explore how "vernacular" architecture has been understood and consumed in Global South contexts navigating modernization.

In 1973, the University of Chicago Press published Fathy’s book Architecture for the Poor, making it an instant success. The book was a monograph Fathy wrote about al-Gourna village, his rehabilitation experiment in Upper Egypt, which took place between 1947 and 1955. Despite the global recognition, Fathy’s project faced many obstacles, starting with skeptical state officials and ending with reluctant residents. No one believed his adobe architecture, which resembled traditional residential architecture in the area, was the solution to a pressing housing crisis. His architecture, which he traced back to the ancient Egyptians, was deemed inferior compared to the new concrete blocks, which reflected an upgrade both for the country and the displaced residents in their living standards. 

This paper interrogates the disparity in Fathy’s reception, arguing that the “vernacular” is not a fixed category but a contextual one. It demonstrates how Fathy’s architecture—rejected as regressive locally and romanticized abroad—illuminates broader tensions between modernization, cultural identity, and the politics of architectural representation.

Ashley Losco, Rincon Consultants -- Post-World War II Hotel Development: Circular Hotels

Every city or town has that one well-known building that most residents can identify. It might not be a historical landmark or a tourist destination, but it is identifiable to the people who live there. For this paper, those buildings are Post-World War II circular hotels. From Philadelphia to Los Angeles these circular hotels are part of the vernacular landscape which blend in as everyday hotels but also stand out in their unique design. The hotels share similar architectural characteristics, but also express design variations based on region. Research focuses on understanding who constructed these hotels and why the circular design was chosen. 

Initial research identified most of the recognized circular hotels were constructed by Holiday Inn in the 1960s and 1970s. The hotels were designed by architect Leonard J. Lundgren with the first circular Holiday Inn hotel constructed in Austin, Texas circa 1964 followed by fifteen additional identified circular hotels in the United States, Mexico, and Panama between 1964 and 1975. These hotels were typically built either in a downtown core, near an airport, or near a convention center.

Post-World War II hotel development was dominated by newly formed hotel chains, such as Holiday Inn or Howard Johnsons, which constructed accessible hotels and motels along highways and freeways for the modern, traveling family. Each company designed their new hotels in their own identifying architectural style with large parking lots and a dominant neon street sign. By the late 1960s and 1970s, though, these chains were interested in moving into the city and constructing “downtown” hotels or those near new resources such as airports and conference centers. 

Through extensive research, this paper will explore the hotel design trends of the Post-World War II era, focusing on the social and design theories behind circular hotels, and the history of Holiday Inn. Research included and continues to include primary sources such as newspapers and original plans from Holiday Inn, if they are publicly available, as well as secondary sources on the history of hotel design, the Holiday Inn company, state archives and libraries, and local historic property surveys of these resources, such as that conducted by the City of Los Angeles for SurveyLA. Continued research will help answer additional research questions including understanding the variations between the identified buildings and why these variations were chosen, and why the circular design did not transfer to other types of buildings other than hotels. 

Vyta Pivo, University of Miami -- Milk and Concrete: Material Purity on the US Farm, 1930-1950 

In 1930, the Borden Company introduced the world to the Rotolactor, a building and a machine that could efficiently milk “an indefinitely large number of cows.” Despite these ambitious claims, the machine could only accommodate up to 50 cows simultaneously, washing and milking them in under 13 minutes. The technology featured a metal platform 18.3 meters in diameter mounted on roller bearing steel. The floor rotated clockwise on two circular rails resting on concrete walls 1.8 meters above the floor. In a grand public opening ceremony, inventor and cement manufacturer Thomas Edison inaugurated the Rotolactor by pressing the start button. The Rotolactor eventually made its way across the globe, with a prominent exhibition at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and later adaptation in Australia, among other regions.

Concrete served as a foundational component of the Rotolactor, bearing the weight of steel machinery, cows, and workers. It also ensured the maintenance of physical purity of the cows and their product: metal tubes embedded in the concrete structure transported milk from udders to storage tanks while concrete floors allowed for the effortless cleaning of the animals. Part of a broader effort to industrialize the US farm, the Rotolactor was possible only thanks to the introduction of concrete in the late nineteenth century. The building material enabled the construction of expansive floors that enabled industrialists and farmers alike to scale their business operations. The Rotolactor in turn reconfigured the farm as a limitless business operation and farmers as managers of inputs and outputs. Both concrete and milk were also tested to conform to government-determined standards of purity, in turn producing a society that was both nutritionally and structurally superior to global competition.

In order to imagine de-industrial futures for food and building materials alike, we must consider unexpected yet historically intact material intimacies. The Rotolactor poses key questions related to the construction of rural physical, social, and nutritional modernity: how might bringing milk and concrete, seemingly unrelated substances, together help us rethink the history of building materials? And, how can scholars of architecture consider human and beyond-human agents in documenting the collaborative construction of rural environments?

Panel C: Race, Class, and the Home

Chair: Sarah Lopez, University of Pennsylvania

Willa Granger, Florida Atlantic University -- White Charity and Black Elderhood: Race, Space, and the Performance of Old Age 

In November 1893, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published a sketch of the Brooklyn Home for Aged Colored People’s oldest resident, “Aunt Jane.” A centenarian, Jane was blind yet still purportedly able to hem a towel. Writing for a majority white readership, the unnamed author lavished detail on Jane’s biography and those of her peers, many of whom had lived a life of domestic servitude. One woman, for example, “nursed two generations of a very rich New York family,” and was still visited by her “foster children” who call her “Mammy.” Within the fragmented archive of African American history in the long nineteenth century, such written and visual representations of Black seniors at old age homes are shockingly common, with life histories appearing in both annual reports and newspapers. The frequency of these portraits illustrates the unique way that age, disability, and labor inflected sentimental perceptions of race amongst white audiences. They encapsulate what Uri McMillan describes as “Mammy Memory”— how elderly, disabled African Americans operated as both objects of nostalgic attachment and as incarnations of racial otherness for white audiences, further objectified through the perception of “freakish longevity” and physical impairment. 

In this paper I argue that African American homes for the aged illustrate how the enactment of white philanthropy towards Black seniors was often galvanized through the spectacle of African American superannuation. Such institutions, as physical and symbolic expressions of Black elderhood, were at times materially dependent upon the perceptions of “mammy memory,” and served as porous spaces to stage the performance of Black aging for white audiences. While several scholars have studied the architectural relationship between white charitable activity and Black institutional life in the progressive era, the particular interest of white philanthropists towards black seniors remains undertheorized when compared to perceptions of children, youth, and mothers. Despite a robust network of Black charitable institutions throughout the north and the ideology of racial uplift, Black leaders depended by varying degrees on the assistance of white wealth to maintain their facilities, which further entrenched the practices of segregation at the intersection age, race, architecture, and urban development; as real estate histories, it is therefore essential to “follow the money.” Using the case study of the Brooklyn Home, I explore how Black old age homes, and by extension the articulation of their physical spaces and their spatial practices, elicited the sympathies of white benefactors in part because of the objectification of Black elderhood. This hypervisibility of Black superannuation suggests how African American seniors labored for their care and the maintenance of their “homes” in ways that white seniors of comparable facilities did not.

Shawnya Peterson, Clemson University -- An Architectural Case Study of Fraternity Houses at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 

While fraternities and sororities exist as an important social force associated with power, wealth, and influence, the spaces that these organizations inhabit have escaped much of the study of preservationists and architectural historians. While American Greek life is the source of much controversy, study, and discourse, the built environment that enables organizational functions remains largely unexamined through a preservationist lens. As it stands currently, there is very limited academic literature examining the many facets of Fraternity and Sorority houses (hereon referred to using a gender-neutral application of the term “Fraternity house”): the design, aesthetics, space planning, functionality, organizational use of and relationship to its built environment, as well as aspects of place attachment and user experience remain rich and unturned areas of research.

Historically, American Fraternity houses can be built in any design, and the primary functions and architectural details that characterize Fraternity houses are those on the interior: features that enable group meetings, socialization, and communal living. This paper will examine the architectural typology of Greek Fraternity houses through a case study of purpose-built and adapted Greek houses at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with 16 listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1989. This grouping of houses was built between 1907 and 1930, and by 1928, the University of Illinois U-C had the greatest concentration of Greek Letter societies in the nation. Because of their dense construction period and physical proximity, these houses act as a snapshot of the Fraternity house typology in the early 20th century. At this point, organizational functions, and therefore architectural forms, were becoming standardized and manifested through the construction of new structures and adaptation of extant ones.

This paper will begin by providing an overview of the unique socio-cultural niche occupied by the American Greek system, as well as historical context surrounding the initial founding and subsequent growth of American Greek life. This paper will go on to analyze the Colonial Revival architectural styles present in the listed houses, the layouts of the houses, and presence of specific rooms, features, and spaces to answer the question, what architecture defines a Fraternity house?

A guiding question of this research and a future area for inquiry is what lessons and positive attributes can we take from the Greek System and houses to create spaces for socializing and communal living that are equitable, responsible, respectful places to find community? 

Emelia Lehmann, National Park Service -- I have a Dreamhouse: Coretta Scott King’s Interior Design at the King Family Home, 1964-1972 

The King Family Home at 234 Sunset Avenue (part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park) is an unassuming brick-veneer structure on a quiet street in Vine City, Atlanta. Built in the 1930s, the house was purchased by Coretta Scott King in 1964 for her family – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and their four young children. Over the next decade, Coretta and local architect J.W. Robinson enlarged the house to nearly double its original footprint and embarked on several campaigns to transform the dated, Depression-era interiors with modern vernacular styles including plywood paneling, shag carpet, and groovy metallic wallpaper. These finishes reflected not only new aesthetics during a period of immense social upheaval, but a reimagining of the home for private, public, and commercial uses necessitated by the Kings’ role within the Civil Rights Movement.

While primarily a residence, the Kings’ home was visited by significant political and cultural figures and appeared in photographs and videos shared around the world. Between 1968 and 1972, the building was also the headquarters of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, founded after Dr. King’s assassination in 1968. However, the extensive interior design choices that Coretta made for this home and updated throughout her life have not been thoroughly documented or examined. In July 2024, the Historic reservation Training Center (HPTC), an office of the National Park Service, began a project to study these finishes and situate them within the context of the King family, the Civil Rights Movement, and American design trends of the mid-twentieth century.

In this presentation, I will summarize the fieldwork completed by HPTC to confirm how the home looked in the 1960s and early 1970s, during Dr. King’s lifetime and following his death. I will also propose innovative ways of researching and interpreting mid-twentieth century interior finishes that have been largely unstudied, including plywood paneling, vinyl-asbestos floor tiles, and shag carpet. As part of this project, HPTC consulted archives to locate trade catalogs, business records, and advertising materials to understand how popular finishes were manufactured, distributed, and marketed to everyday consumers (especially women with children). Through this work, HPTC aims to develop a methodology for studying post-1960 interior finishes, particularly those in underrepresented communities. While many questions about the home remain unanswered, this case study of the King Family Home highlights the design eye of female activist, wife, and mother, Coretta Scott King, and identifies future paths of discovery for these exciting vernacular finishes.

Jacob Torkelson, University of Pennsylvania -- “Good Bungalows for Good Birds”: Crafting a Cultural Landscape History of Birdhouses 

Though birdhouses are ubiquitous in the cultural landscape today, their diminutive nature and seemingly mundane function have rendered them essentially invisible in architectural and landscape histories. However, as everyday objects, birdhouses embody societal and notably human values, reflecting how individuals and communities envision both the natural world and their place within or apart from it. More pointedly, the design and construction of birdhouses offer a unique vernacular lens into underlying tensions around the built environment via race, class, and gender. This paper argues that through the act of constructing and designing bird housing, humans declare and impress their personal aspirations, values, and insecurities onto the birds with whom they are providing shelter. Birdhouse functionality, aesthetics, materiality, style, scale, and location are all direct consequences of human agendas and frequently have little to do with birds or their fundamental needs, despite good intentions or otherwise.

In the United States, birdhouse construction became a widespread reformist practice during the Progressive Era, aimed at countering the negative effects of industrialization and urbanization. Conservationists championed birdhouses as a practical response to declining bird populations, while educators and civic organizations saw their construction as a means to cultivate moral character, civic responsibility, and artistic skill. This paper draws on a range of evidence to support these assertions, including historic birdhouse plans, architectural pattern books for birdhouses, bird conservation literature, fieldwork, and educational programming.

Birdhouses, both intentionally and otherwise, reinforced societal hierarchies through exclusionary ideologies. For instance, conservation campaigns prioritized “native” or “useful” bird species over “invasive” or “evil” ones, echoing nativist sentiments of the pre-WWII era. Middle-class white children were frequently the primary targets of birdhouse education programs, positioning them as ideal stewards of natural and civic virtues. Architectural styles and birdhouse aesthetics also acted as visual signposts referencing the deep trove of architectural language that signaled and reinforced racial and class exclusion. Popular literature, such as Better Homes and Gardens magazine, asserted 20th-century middle-class suburban aspirations and prejudices onto the birds themselves. Gendered expectations further shaped birdhouse architecture: in school curricula, boys were encouraged to build birdhouses as exercises in discipline and craftsmanship, while girls were relegated to aesthetic or nurturing roles, paralleling broader societal norms that linked men to production and women to care. In summary, by positioning birdhouses as diminutive but powerful artifacts of everyday life, this paper carefully crafts a documentary record of how society grappled with its relationship to nature, morality, and social order in the cultural landscape of bird architecture.

Posters

Hope Evans, Florida State University -- Way Out of The Way: Finding Entertainment and Community at Smitty’s Club 

For over forty years, Smitty’s Club in Tallahassee, Florida, existed as a hole-in-the-wall operated by McKinley Smith, Sr. He created it in 1951 to give Black locals a safe place to hang out without fear of being harassed or harmed in the Jim Crow South. After integration, white individuals began to frequent the club more. Smitty’s Club hit peak popularity in the 1980s and hosted a wide variety of genres of bands, most often punk, rock, and disco bands. The remoteness of the Club was particularly attractive to those patronizing the establishment, as it offered protection. 

This poster examines the club’s patronage, the cultural significance of Black vernacular architecture, and how, despite being “way out of the way,” it became a safe haven for those looking for solace in community. Through oral histories and archival research, this poster engages with individuals who played at and attended shows at Smitty’s, offering a glimpse into the vibrant music scene and what it was about Smitty’s Club that still makes people beam with nostalgia when asked about their time there.

Katherine C. Hughes, Middle Tennessee State University -- Weaving Through Time: Architectural Clues to the Lives of African American Women in 19th-Century Appalachia 

Owned by the Armstrong family for nearly 250 years, Stony Point is a three-story, three-bay, center hall brick house, located in rural Hawkins County in upper East Tennessee. Used as a sort-of Armstrong family repository over the past two centuries, the last full-time resident passed in 1995 and Stony Point, with all of its accompanying material, has been mothballed — until recently, when I had the opportunity to work with the family as part of my dissertation project. 

As one detail of a much larger story, this poster will analyze the interior of the third-floor walk-in attic of the main house, a racially integrated workspace where African American and white women skillfully labored together to craft large woven carpets and other textiles before, during, and after the Civil War. The white Armstrongs were one of the largest slaveholding families in 19^th-century East Tennessee, breaking old stereotypes of Appalachia and the early frontier. Combining documentary, object, and architectural evidence, the poster will share how the vernacular architectural details of Stony Point shed light on the story of the African American women of Appalachia (both named and not-yet-identified) who labored in this space as expert craftspeople throughout the nineteenth century. 

Darius L. Johnson, Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience -- Extending The Olive Branch: Contested Heritage Narratives in Kent County’s Storied Landscape

My 5th great-grandfather, James Butler, purchased his freedom for $1 in 1812 when he was thirty-seven. Eight years later, he was listed in Kent County, Maryland land records as the owner of thirteen acres of land. Upon the execution of his will, in 1851, he owned twenty acres which he gave to his heirs. This enclave became known as Butlertown–home to one of Maryland’s earliest AME churches, schools for Black children, and community for generations of descendants. Butlertown may be considered a descendant community or freedom colony in a scholarly sense–but for me, it holds clues for my identity and sense of place, while enduring development pressure and contested heritage narratives. This poster will apply cultural landscape theory to understand how the sentiment of Butlertown can be translated into tangible, curatorial approaches to handling Butlertown's built environment and the intangible cultural resources that animate its sense of place. I will examine three layers of cultural landscape components – physical, mental and social – drawing from resident testimony, oral histories, historical maps, and other materials. This analysis is important for places like Butlertown which seek cultural and historical stewardship in the face of policies and economic forces that are insensitive to such priorities.

Shelby Kendrick, University of California, Berkeley -- Unpacking Historical Significance: Preservation and Societal Values in the Vieux Carré and Tremé

Historical significance, a concept central to historic preservation, offers a potent yet underexplored lens for examining how societies construct and contest understandings of the past. The proposed poster presentation introduces ongoing development of a new methodology for interpreting cultural and preserved landscapes. The research explores the merits and limitations of interpreting underutilized preservation documents, such as National Register of Historic Places nomination forms and their amendments, as primary sources. When situated within their own historical context, these documents can speak to that preservation-era’s societal values. This in-progress dissertation research analyzes two historic districts in New Orleans, Louisiana—the Vieux Carré and Tremé—to explore shifts in preservation ideals and outcomes. Jackson Square in the Vieux Carré, preserved beginning in the 1930s as if frozen in time, contrasts with Louis Armstrong Park in Tremé, where monuments and public art confront the erasure caused by mid-twentieth-century urban renewal. By deconstructing the rhetoric of historical significance in these sites and contextualizing preservation documents and debates, the study illuminates societal values embedded in cultural landscapes, offering a model for critically analyzing preservation practices across the United States. 

Oshanie Kumudika Rammuthupura and Himalshi Tharanga Rupasinghe, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Sri Lanka -- Katu Mati Gewal: Weaving Sri Lankan Culture, Climate, and Nature into Timeless Homes

This research explores the architectural, cultural, and environmental significance of Katu Mati Gewal (wattle and daub houses) in Sri Lankan vernacular architecture. These traditional homes are remarkable examples of sustainable design, seamlessly integrating culture, climate adaptability, and the use of natural materials. The proposal investigates how Katu Mati Gewal not only reflect the cultural heritage of rural communities but also respond to Sri Lanka's tropical climate through passive cooling strategies and natural thermal regulation. By focusing on the intersection of cultural traditions, climatic responsiveness, and environmentally sustainable building practices, this research aims to highlight the relevance of preserving such architecture. The study draws on case studies, particularly from the village of Ampara, to showcase how these homes maintain comfort using locally sourced materials and traditional construction methods that leave a minimal environmental footprint. The lessons from Katu Mati Gewal offer insights into modern sustainable architecture, demonstrating how indigenous knowledge can inform contemporary design approaches that harmonize with nature and prioritize climate resilience. This proposal seeks to contribute to the discourse on sustainable solutions derived from traditional practices, encouraging a deeper appreciation for vernacular architecture's role in shaping eco-friendly futures.