Previous Issue Abstracts
2021 Vol. 10.2
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Editorial
Frank Matero
Preface
Kecia Fong
ESSAYS
Questions of Integrity
Jukka Jokilehto
The condition of integrity is subject to the recognition of the significance of objects and resources resulting from human creativity. Creativity has long been a subject of philosophic and historical inquiry, and these discussions have resulted in various types of outcomes. The notion of a work of art as a major achievement of human creativity reaches back to the time of the Italian Renaissance. Because nature was understood to be God's creation, observing nature as the way to perceive the original divine idea was the model for art. To fully appreciate the work of human creativity as a whole, it is necessary to understand that its significance depends on the "idea." Identifying the elements that contribute to the unity of the whole is part of the process of recognizing the significance of a work of art. This was indeed the starting point for the modern theory of conservation of works of human creativity and the condition of their integrity. In 1922, the League of Nations founded the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, chaired by the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941), a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his publication Creative Evolution (1911), Bergson argued that creative capacity endures in the universe as a "life force" (élan vital) that generates growth and diversification. Human cultural diversity is the product of such creative evolution.
Integrity as a Legal Concept
Sara C. Bronin
Integrity—the ability of a resource to communicate its historic significance—is a physical concern for heritage conservation practitioners. But it is also a legal concept, integral to binding judgments that determine whether and how certain resources are protected. Focusing on US law, this essay articulates the contours of integrity both before and after a resource is designated historic. The essay begins by exploring scholarly critiques of the designation process, which requires resources to demonstrate integrity and which, as a result, tends to bar certain types of resources from designation. It then identifies integrity issues that arise in three post-designation legal contexts: laws imposing obligations on public actors, laws imposing obligations on private actors, and laws conferring benefits on private actors. In these laws, integrity is essential to the legal obligation itself, and it is treated as formally as it is during the designation process. The essay concludes that integrity, as a legal concept, may be more complicated, and more difficult to dislodge, than current scholarship suggests.
Integrity as Process and Feature: Cultural Landscapes of Underrepresented Communities
Robert Z. Melnick, Andrea Roberts, Julie McGilvray
National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) integrity evaluation is the primary means by which historic resources are documented, designated, managed, and interpreted in the United States, measuring the degree to which a property's defining features, linked to a specific period of significance, are unchanged. Standard application of this integrity process fails to recognize more complex and layered historic places that often comprise contested spaces with underrepresented histories. The cultural landscape concept can strengthen application of the NRHP integrity evaluation, with an understanding of place and placemaking that is both process and feature based, considering these places as evolving systems with critical inherent change.
Case studies illustrate how current applications of integrity lack cultural and environmental literacy and how this practice marginalizes, erases, or ignores minoritized groups' heritage. The authors argue that resistance to change, including cultural discontinuity or normative processes of change over time, perpetuate assumptions that marginalize lived experience, local constructions of landscape dynamics, and place meaning. Inequalities, misapplication, and erasure perpetuated by the currently accepted approach to assessing "integrity" in historic places is revealed. Recommendations are presented to broaden our thinking and evaluation of integrity with application of the cultural landscape lens to a range of historic resources.
Three Aspects Of Integrity
Michael J. Mills
Integrity in differing contexts is illustrated by three short case studies.
Louis Kahn Trenton Bath House: Integrity of an Unrealized Design
The design for Kahn's Trenton Bath House was not fully constructed. A preservation project gave an opportunity to create elements that interpreted Kahn's original intentions. The renovations allow the integrity of unrealized site design to be appreciated.
Statue of Liberty Renovations: Integrity of Original Materials
Visitor facilities were replaced at the statue for fire safety and accessibility by a reimagination of the interior. The NPS defined integrity as limited to the sculptural and structural materials. The two new stairs and three elevators installed within the pedestal create a lively journey to the observation areas and highlight the integrity of the original features.
Renovation of Saarinen's Hill College House: Integrity of a Design Idea Expanded
Hill College House at the University of Pennsylvania is a Saarinen-designed dormitory of cast concrete. While the hierarchy of the building's major spaces was preserved, the integrity of its design details had been lost. The goal for the renovation was to balance the preservation of a mid-century modern design with expanded facilities for twenty-first-century students.
Integrity of the Cultural Landscape of Persepolis
Mehr Azar Soheil
This paper examines the condition of integrity of the World Heritage Site of the Royal Ensemble of Persepolis within its territorial context in the region Fars. There are still many Achaemenid elements in this territory that contribute to the significance of the site. Persepolis was built from the sixth to the fourth century BCE according to the original urban plan and architectural concept of Darius I (521–486 BCE), which formed the model followed by successive Achaemenid kings. The original concept prescribed building proportions and the use of the sacred form of square both in plan and in elevation. This system was integrated with sculpted architectural details, bas-reliefs and engraved texts that contributed to the significance of the site. Indeed, it became a new architectural language that symbolized the Achaemenid Empire. It expressed unity in architecture, based on forms and motives derived from the existing cultural context, using the workmanship and materials coming from the various lands of the empire. The new architectural language of the Persepolitan palace layout continued to influence Persian architecture through the following centuries up to modernity.
Unsettling "Historic Integrity" at Honouliuli National Heritage Site, O'ahu, Hawai'i
Desiree Valadares
This provocation unsettles "historic integrity" as defined by the US National Park Service. I argue that historic integrity remains a troublesome concept in preserving Pacific War landscapes with multiple and overlapping histories involving Indigenous populations (federally recognized or unrecognized) and minoritized, diasporic, racialized, and noncitizen groups. I consider the recent designation of Honouliuli National Historic Site in O'ahu, Hawai'i and argue for a broader study of this landscape beyond its defined boundaries and period of significance. Specifically, I argue that categories such as "location" and "setting" that are used to determine a site's historical integrity must consider how distinct legacies of militarism, carcerality, and colonialism effect land tenure. I conclude by advocating that preservation processes at Pacific War sites restore access, caretaking, and stewardship relations. In addition, I advocate for a wider preservation and interpretive mandate that is inclusive of distinct and varied experiences of civilian and non-citizen populations in these former carceral landscapes.
2021 Vol. 10.1
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Historic Preservation: An American Perspective on a Professional Discipline
Frank Matero
ESSAYS
Conservation As Shared Responsibility: Social Equity, Social Justice, and the Public Good
Ainslee Meredith, Robyn Sloggett AM, Marcelle Scott
Social inequity presents a risk to cultural heritage, but conservation has a strong contribution to make to social equity and justice goals. Exploring case studies where access to conservation, and thus the right to heritage, is disrupted by social inequities, this paper argues that conservation—as a normative discipline premised on the idea of a future in which heritage is accessible and open to interpretation, use, and enjoyment—must, like social equity and justice movements, work to create more equitable sociopolitical futures.
Theorizing that conservation is a public good, case studies of Aboriginal art centers in remote and regional Australia and conservation education in Australia establish the need to rebalance conservation in areas that have experienced past structural injustice. Drawing on ethical and political philosophy, critical evaluations of the profession that attempt to redefine conservation discourses are proposed to demonstrate the obligation of conservation to account for principles of social equity and justice. Overall, the paper reflects on the philosophical, ethical, and societal implications for the profession of understanding conservation as a public good.
A Pattern Assemblage: Art, Craft, and Conservation
Jennifer Minner
The Northland Pattern Wall: City of Past and Future Craft is an assemblage artwork created by artist and architecture professor Dennis Maher with coinstructors and students of the Society for the Advancement of Construction-Related Arts (SACRA) program. SACRA is an arts-based vocational training program providing construction skills training to individuals in need. It is based at Assembly House 150, an artist-led experiential learning center in Buffalo, New York. This article employs qualitative methods inspired by the hermeneutic spiral to examine the Northland Pattern Wall, SACRA, and Assembly House 150. This article highlights takeaways for heritage conservation, as well as allied professions, about the relevance of building trades and creative practices that help to shape and conserve the built environment. The story behind the Northland Pattern Wall is used as an opportunity to reflect on the potential to build stronger alliances between professionals, tradespersons, and artists in designing creatively out of the patterns of the past to build a more sustainable and equitable future city.
The Evolving Role of Contemporary Conservation Architects in India: Beyond Traditional Professional Practice
Ashima Krishna
India has a centuries-long history of heritage conservation in the public realm; private practice, however, mainly began in the 1980s, led primarily by architects. Contemporary professionals are also typically architects with graduate training in heritage conservation. Their training in architecture, conservation, or both, however, mainly focuses on design and the technical aspects of the field. However, an analysis of narratives collected from conservation architects shows that in the course of a project, they take on various nontraditional roles beyond their training to bring projects to fruition. These roles can be applied to a variety of professional environments involving different stakeholders. This paper examines narratives focusing on projects involving public officials because most conservation projects in India continue to be publicly funded. By framing the narratives within three types of professional environments—constrained, porous, and enabling—this paper discusses how by taking on nontraditional roles, conservation architects can shape the current profession and its future practitioners, with implications for conservation education in India and beyond.
Preservation at a Crossroads: The Need for Equity Preservation
Caroline Cheong
Historic preservation has an image problem. The field has evolved from a conversation among an elite few regarding select monumental buildings judged solely for their appearance or national significance, to a dialogue among many about collections of buildings appreciated for their pluralistic contexts and meanings. Despite these advancements, the discipline is still often accused of being elitist, exclusionary, and opposed to equity. Couched within the field's interdisciplinary expansion, preservation's supporters and critics increasingly demand greater and more comprehensive inclusion of minority and marginalized communities in the preservation process to ensure fairer distribution of its costs and benefits. Given the current climate of cause-driven social movements and vibrant social dialogue, ignoring such a clarion call threatens to stagnate the preservation field and its contributions to contemporary issues, as well as substantiate accusations that the field is incompatible with equity. There is extremely limited literature on preservation and equity. This research begins to fill that gap. It starts by tracing the discipline's conceptual evolution toward equity and diversity and emphasizes the anachronistic mismatch between the field's conceptual development and practical implementation. It then examines the scant literature directly connecting preservation and equity, contending that an equity preservation approach addresses three of the most common criticisms levied at the field—which are also among society's significant social challenges—gentrification, diversity, and social justice. The paper concludes by presenting examples of two tools, public-private partnerships and community land trusts, that are particularly well suited to an equity preservation agenda.
2019 Vol. 9.2 Special Issue: Sounding Heritage
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Listening Beyond the Visible
Pamela Jordan
Overhearing History: Sound as Historical Material
Pamela Jordan, Dr. Sabine von Fischer
ESSAYS
Lending an Ear to Architectural History: Commemorating Meyershof, ca. 1932
Florence Feiereisen, Erin Sassin
While there is an extensive body of literature on the history of Berlin's mass housing in visual terms, we approach architectural history via acoustic ecology to add a sonic layer to our understanding of the built environment. Listening to the soundscapes of Meyershof, an infamous Berlin tenement, we discuss the relationship between architectural form, sound, and the everyday experiences of the residents. Mining architectural plans, artistic representations, and earwitness accounts in newspaper articles and police reports of the time for sonic clues, our examination of the sights and sounds of Meyershof seeks to (literally) recall the sonic conditions of a time within which communities were formed, dissolved, and reformed. Against a monosensory understanding of the past through vision alone, we contend that the marginalized sense of hearing is a suitable approach to give marginalized groups a "voice."
Archaeoacoustics Fieldwork for Aural Heritage Conservation: Collaborative Distributed Sound-Sensing at Chavín de Huántar, Perú
Miriam A. Kolar, Annie Goh, Elías Gálvez-Arango, Brian Morris, Alexa Romano, Samantha Turley, Sophia Colello, William Penniman, Jack Boffa, Celine Wang, Gregory Depaul, Kevin Keene
Although sound has been featured in archaeological narratives about the UNESCO World Heritage Centre archaeological site at Chavín de Huántar, Perú since 1976, aural heritage preservation has not yet been incorporated in its conservation plan beyond the formal inclusion of archaeoacoustics in the research program since 2008. Our research framework situates sound as fundamental to human communication and the social functionality of places; sonic concerns are pertinent to heritage conservation more broadly than currently addressed. In this article, we present a theoretical framework and methodology for aural heritage research, engagement, and conservation. Our case-study discussion of 2018 fieldwork at Chavín builds on a decade of site-responsive archaeoacoustics research that has documented acoustical dynamics as well as perceptual and performance affordances of the extant architecture and site-excavated conch-shell horns (Strombus pututus) preserved since the mid-firstmillennium BCE. The aural heritage fieldwork method we introduce here, "collaborative distributed sound-sensing," employs both human observers and digital technologies to explore, document, measure, and map sound transmission and reception at Chavín, via reconstructive "performance auralizations" of archaeologically appropriate sound sources, Strombus shell replicas of the Chavín pututus.
The Ceramic Vessels of Trg: Acoustic Wall Construction in a Medieval Serbian Church
Zorana Đorđević, Dragan Novković, Filip Pantelić
This paper examines the existing acoustic conditions of the church in the village of Trg in eastern Serbia and investigates the acoustic effects of ceramic vessels originally embedded in the church walls but extracted when the church was restored to its original medieval layout in the 1980s. The impulse response of the church's interior space was measured in situ, providing the various acoustic parameters that numerically describe the acoustic field of a space, of which we particularly considered the reverberation time (T30), early decay time (EDT) and the speech transmission index (STI). We acoustically measured all of the eleven remaining intact vessels, and we built a 3D acoustic model of the vessels for the lab analysis. Our findings suggest that the vessels positioned as found during the restoration works—vertically, upside down, at a height of 3.75 meters, behind a thin stone facing—made no discernible difference in the acoustics of the Trg church. However, comparative research via similar studies of medieval churches suggest that the original builders may have misinterpreted the technology of acoustic vessels and may have installed them in a manner that disabled their possible effect on church acoustics.
Concert Hall Acoustics and the Sounding Heritage of the Interwar Period in America: The Coolidge Auditorium (Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 1925)
Mark A. Pottinger
Starting in 1895 with the work of Wallace Clement Sabine (1868–1919), the science of architectural acoustics was born. Sabine's work on the materialization of sound influenced countless architects and physicists alike, including the famous New York City–based architect Charles A. Platt (1861–1933) and MIT physics instructor Clifford Melville Swan (1877–1951), a former student of Sabine. Both Platt and Swan collaborated on the design of the Coolidge Auditorium, housed in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Built in 1925, the five-hundred-plus seat chamber hall highlights the idealized listening environment of the interwar period in America, which was still reeling from the noise-filled horrors of World War I as it embarked on a progressive agenda to build the modern urban metropolis. In spite of the increased popularity at the time for large purpose-built halls to house films, big band jazz performances, and grand spectacle entertainment, the Coolidge Auditorium presented a small, intimate space with an explicit desire to reform music in America. In this article I explore this early twentieth-century listening environment and conclude by comparing the Coolidge Auditorium to the concert hall of today, which I argue is directly connected to the built environment of the early twentieth century, with its growing fascination with radio transmission and electronically reproduced music.
Sound was an important element in residential and landscape design in ancient China. Acoustic sources of geophony, ecophony (tianlai and dilai in Chinese, meaning sound of heaven and earth), and anthrophony (renlai, man-made sound) are frequently used together with landscape, and sometimes also with scentscape, to make the living environs an ideal microcosm for cultivating minds and achieving unity with nature, a philosophical idea of Confucianism and Daoism that the elite class of society has pursued in the past. Dictated by this functional purpose, only sounds regarded as elegant or bestowed with philosophical, cultural, and religious meanings are chosen in the design. Currently, many of these designs have been preserved as soundscape heritage.
By 2019, of the forty-one Chinese cultural and mixed World Heritage properties designated by UNESCO, twenty-eight have sound as an important attribute testifying to the outstanding universal values. This paper gives an introduction to the Chinese perception of sound, followed by a detailed analysis of soundscapes of three world cultural heritage sites in terms of their philosophical and cultural meanings and design techniques, and finally a brief discussion of the challenges on the conservation and management of soundscape heritage.
Sound Archives and Online Repositories
Pamela Jordan
2019 Vol. 9.1
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A Heritage of War, Conflict, and Commemoration
William Chapman
The introduction for the present issue of Change Over Time, this lead article discusses the five selected papers, providing a précis of each, and presents definitions for different types of war and conflict memorials. It then offers an overview of the history of memorialization, emphasizing the changing character of commemoration over time. Primary emphasis is on commemoration in the United States. The paper also touches upon related kinds of monuments, as well as presenting a summary of recent controversies over Civil War memorials and other forms of commemoration. A secondary emphasis is on the numbers and types of memorials and other markers and their distribution and how memorials are perceived over time. In addition to U.S. examples, Chapman discusses the commemoration of wars in Europe and elsewhere in the world, underscoring changing meaning and approaches. He also emphasizes shifting interpretations of commemorative sites and management issues pertaining to their maintenance and preservation.
ESSAYS
Architecture and Collective Remembrance at the Tunnel D-B Memorial Site in Sarajevo
Sabina Tanović
This paper will focus on the Tunnel D-B in Sarajevo (aka Tunnel of Hope) –a rare example of war heritage that commemorates both human resilience and traumatic past. It has been 25years since its construction under gruesome circumstances during the siege of Sarajevo(1992 –1995). Today, decisions need to be made to preserve this unique heritage and continue the work of remembrance. A complex design project involving a memorial museum and an educational center is underway. This raises pertinent questions that are touching upon the very purpose of its existence and are, in fact, common to most sites commemorating difficult and traumatic histories. To address relevant topics, the paper discusses a) the notion of memorial architecture and current day design practices and approaches in commemorative projects on authentic sites, b) zooms into the specific context of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Tunnel D-B and, finally, c) explains the concept design that is planned for the site of the Tunnel D-B.
This paper focuses on the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor in 2016. War memorials are generally considered agents of national thanksgiving, but paying closer attention to more diverse perspectives makes it possible to see more complicated commemorative practices that generate alternative narratives of wars and nationalism. The paper discusses a speech Abe gave at the memorial and the coverage of his visit in major Japanese newspapers to explore the changing meaning of Pearl Harbor to the people in Japan. The speech and the coverage enabled a new Japanese narrative that re-contextualizes the meaning of the iconic "Remember Pearl Harbor" phrase from a vision of military confrontation in the past to a future political alliance between the two nations. The paper shows the malleability of the significance of war memorials while also demonstrating the powerful grip of nationalism and political agenda over them.
Bombed Churches, War Memorials, and the Changing English Urban Landscape
Peter J. Larkham
Surprisingly common in UK cities bombed during the Second World War—perhaps less so in other countries--are the ruins of bombed churches, empty sites, or markers indicating a church's former presence in the city. There are also numerous restored or rebuilt churches with signs narrating the church's history of damage. This paper explores the nature and extent of such commemorations of destruction, particularly at a time when churchgoing was in sharp decline. Churches are, in many ways, 'special buildings' in the physical and mental urban landscape: landmarks for all if not as places of worship. The investment of past societies in such special buildings, their scale, position, intricate detailing, as well as their cultural connections, all suggest why churches might become prominent and memorable memorials. But, three-quarters of a century after the Second World War, there is very limited evidence that the bombed churches remain effective or widely used as memorials. This paper uses examples from across England to explore why and how some bombed churches became war memorials, and their transition over time from memorial to mere memento.
Oradour-sur-Glane: French Identity Memorialized
Mark Helbling
This manuscript, "Oradour sur Glane: French Identity Memorialized," is a study of the commemoration of the village Oradour sur Glane that was destroyed by German forces in World War II. To this day, the ruins themselves remain evidence of the vicious attack that took place on October 8, 1944. Part of the story of the ruins includes the decision to use them for remembrance. The other part includes the considerations as to how to maintain them enough to stop them from completely disappearing over time. The preservation decisions involved both the co-operation and assistance of local, regional and state authorities. At the same time, the symbolic significance of these ruins, independent of their material condition, remains a continuing issue. From the very beginning, what the ruins meant to those who survived--and those who emphasized more national and even universal concerns--has been a source of political and now historical dispute.
Sites of Refuge in a Historically Layered Landscape: Camps in Central Greece
Kostis Kourelis
The current European migrant crisis has illustrated historic preservation's limits in incorporating sites of transience. During 2016, the Greek government managed its surge of migrants by erecting 50 dispersed camps throughout the mainland. Built out of tents, trailers, squats and other ephemeral architectures, refugee and migrant settlements leave a light footprint on the landscape and are easily erased. By design, camps perform impermanence to a double audience, to the natives who do not want their guests to settle permanently and to the migrants who wish to return home or advance to more stable accommodations. Using the region of Thessaly as a case study, we track the processes of settlement during the course of one year and examine the intersection between a single displaced Syrian group and the sites of cultural heritage in which they were temporarily housed. They include medieval monuments, abandoned industrial buildings, bankrupt markets, and decommissioned army bases. By possessing no real estate value, the ruins into which the new camps were inserted facilitated a process of adoptive reuse.