Historic Preservation

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Start date: 2003Subject: search.filters.subject.Historic preservation -- United States.

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    DIRT CHEAP: THE GARDENDALE EXPERIMENT AND RAMMED EARTH HOME CONSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES
    (2010-05) Carpenter, Jennifer; Linebaugh, Donald
    This work addresses an understudied and little appreciated construction type—rammed earth—and argues that understanding its history helps us better evaluate the relationship between our built environment and cultural values. Historically, rammed earth has expressed itself as an economical do-it-yourself project for farmers, enthusiasts, and environmentalists. It has also been understood as a way to correct social ills, minimize financial difficulties, and remedy overabundances of labor. During the Great Depression, these factors came together and pushed the federal government to experiment with the technique, erecting seven rammed earth homes as part of the Resettlement Administration’s Gardendale Homestead north of Birmingham, Alabama. They remained an experiment, as a true federal rammed earth initiative never fully developed. Gardendale thus provides an example of an alternative building technology that has not received wide cultural acceptance in the United States, despite a history that reaches back to the 19th century. This reluctance to adopt rammed earth could be attributed to the groups that have utilized the technique, who until recently, were considered marginal. Documenting and preserving Gardendale’s extant rammed earth homes is necessary because of their unique construction type and the story they tell about our nation and the way we live. Moreover, the successes and failures of Gardendale provide context for rammed earth’s latest reincarnation within the current green building movement.
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    It's Not Ugly, It's the Recent Past: Looking Beyond the Aesthetics of Modern Architecture Within Historic Preservation
    (2008-05) Tober, Joy
    Preservationists constantly face new challenges in their pursuit to preserve America’s built heritage. Among those challenges is the recent past, which has been gaining a great deal of interest over the years. The “recent past” is a term used to refer to historic resources younger than 50 years old. Although hard for many to think of as historic, these resources do give us insight into our past and are an important part of our tangible history. Unfortunately, preservation of the recent past has proven very difficult. Underage resources face many of the same obstacles as “traditional” properties, but also must contend with unique challenges. Aesthetic challenges are by far the most important. Negative perceptions of mid-century modern architecture as well as current assessment methods, which rely heavily on architectural values to narrate our past, hinder opportunities to better understand the importance of these valuable yet vulnerable resources. By recognizing these hindrances we can begin exploring new ways of determining a significance that better reflects the principles of the modern movement.
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    Preserving the Imagined Past: Reconstructions and the National Park Service
    (2008-05) Ries, Elizabeth S.
    The National Park Service (NPS) has been a consistent leader in cultural resource management and historic preservation for almost 100 years. Along with historic structures, the NPS is responsible for the management and maintenance of reconstructed structures. Reconstructions, or the “imagined” past, have been contested over the years in terms of their authenticity and interpretive value. While the question of reconstructions continues to be debated, the NPS must contend with over 200 reconstructed features within the nation’s park system. This paper provides a critical examination of the contemporary issues related to maintaining the “imagined” built environment. Working from examples at three national parks, physical factors are addressed, as well as how the age of the reconstruction affects the planning and methods of maintenance of each resource. Conclusions integrate the maintenance issues facing the NPS with the future, long term preservation implications of using reconstructions to interpret the American past.