International Survey of Jewish Monuments Research Project – The International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM) is launching a new documentation initiative aimed at gathering information about the architecture, art and the condition of modern American synagogues built in the second half of the 20th century. The emphasis of the survey will be on buildings designed and erected between 1945 and 1975 as these are most at risk. Research has shown that many of these buildings – even when designed by master architects – are poorly documented, and often threatened with radical alteration or complete demolition due to specific congregational factors and larger demographics shifts. Synagogues built in the 1950s and 1960s are regularly altered, expanded, sold and demolished due to expanding congregations, new liturgical and congregational expectations, changing tastes in style, and sometime high cost of maintaining deteriorated materials. Plans call for an organizing committee of volunteers for this project, each to be responsible for collating inventories and organizing documentation based on location. At a future date ISJM may contact SAH members to help facilitate documentation of a particular building. If you are interested in participating as an organizer, documentarian, sponsor or organizational partner please contact ISJM c/o Samuel D. Gruber 123 Clarke Street Syracuse, NY 13210 Tel. 315.474.2350 Fax 309.403.1858 or samuelgruber@gmail.com

Call for Nominations to the SAH Board – The 2010 SAH Nominating Committee seeks your recommendations for new SAH Board members who would begin their terms in April 2010 and serve for three years. The final slate of nominees should represent the diversity of the field of architectural history. Self-nominations are welcome as are nominations of emerging scholars and independent and non-affiliated historians of architectural history, landscape history and their related disciplines. Nominations of practitioners in architecture, historic preservation and related fields are also encouraged, as are nominations of people who chose architectural history as their avocation. Please note that the SAH Board has adopted a policy to increase the diversity of our profession by expanding the racial and ethnic populations we represent, topics we address in our publications, programs and meetings, and promotion of these issues in the field of architectural history at large. To that end SAH would welcome the nomination of candidates who will add racial and ethnic diversity to the SAH Board. Please email nominations to Pauline Saliga, SAH Executive Director, psaliga@sah.org. Nominations will be forwarded directly to the Chair of the Nominating Committee. Nominations should include the name, affiliation (if applicable), and contact information for the candidate, particularly telephone number. Also the nominator should provide a short explanation of the nominee’s qualifications and why they feel the nominee should be considered for the SAH Board.

Art in Translation, A new e-journal Funded by the Getty Foundation, Art In Translation is the first journal publishing original Englishlanguage translations of seminal works presently available only in their source languages. Art in Translation has been shortlisted for the Best New Journal award 2009, by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. www.bergjournals.com/artintranslation and www.artintranslation.org

Without Bounds or Limits: An Online Exhibition of the Plan of Chicago, The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago The online Burnham exhibition presents a selection of original drafts, letters, meeting minutes, and images related to the Plan of Chicago, from the collections of the Ryerson & Burnham Archives at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Plan of Chicago, considered a fundamental urban planning document, presented one group’s radical vision for a more beautiful, orderly, and unified city. With its lush illustrations and rousing prose, it dared its readers to not only imagine a different Chicago, but to strive to create it themselves. The site: http://www.artic.edu/ aic/libraries/research/specialcollections/ planofchicago/index.html

The Richard H. Driehaus Museum Interactive Web Site – The Richard H. Driehaus Museum marks the oneyear anniversary of its opening with the launch of a newly-designed website,www.driehausmuseum.org. The extensive, interactive site offers visitors a rich and detailed account of the preservation of Chicago’s historic Samuel M. Nickerson House and its transformation into the Driehaus Museum, which focuses on European and American decorative and fine arts created predominantly between 1880 and 1920, the period during which the Nickerson Mansion was occupied as a private residence.

Fay Jones Collection Opened for Research at the University of Arkansas Libraries’ Special Collections Department

The papers of famed Arkansas Architect Fay Jones are now open for research at the University of Arkansas Libraries’ special collections department. The collection contains biographical information, correspondence and drawings for projects, business and academic records, slide and photographic images, books and working models. The records were donated to the University of Arkansas Libraries by Fay Jones and his wife Mary Elizabeth “Gus” Jones between 1997 and 2009. For further information on the Fay Jones Collection, visit http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/mc1373/

View the extensive project catalog at http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/manuscripts/FayJones/projects.asp

Here’s the Chapter Updates from the SAH Newsletter:

Chicago Chapter

The Chicago Chapter of SAH (SAHCC) will implement a program to provide 50 free, one-year SAHCC memberships for architectural history students enrolled at local colleges and universities as of September 15th, 2009. In this economy, it may be harder than ever to undertake an education in the humanities. SAHCC recognizes this financial burden and believes participating students will benefit from access to programs, sites and speakers. The Chapter hopes to gain from fresh perspectives and discourse. Net revenue from a recent event will underwrite costs and the scholarships will be provided on a first-come / first-served basis. The Chicago Chapter currently comprises approximately 225 members and friends. During the past year, SAHCC presented 8 programs including lectures, tours, films and discussions. For more information on SAHCC activities, please visit sahchicagochapter.blogspot.com

Landscape History Chapter

In April the Landscape History Chapter met for its fifth annual general meeting, electing Thaisa Way, University of Washington, as President and Susan Herrington, University of British Columbia, as Vice-President. Founded in 2004 by Marc Treib and Dianne Harris with significant support from Therese O’Malley, the chapter encourages research in landscape, gardening, and horticultural history, and promotes the dissemination of such research through publications, meetings, and lectures. Membership currently includes 120 scholars from around the world. The chapter hosts a pedagogy roundtable at the annual SAH meeting and will launch a preconference symposium in 2010 expanding the most recent discussions on teaching history. Members are also focused on upgrading the chapter website as a resource for scholars, teachers, and students. We welcome new members at any time. For more information contact Thaisa Way at tway@uw.edu.

Marion Dean Ross/Pacific Northwest Chapter

Registration is now open for the 2009 annual meeting of the Marion Dean Ross / Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians. Join us in Portland, Oregon, for the annual meeting of the Marion Dean Ross/Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, October 9-11, 2009. Portland is a most appropriate site for the conference theme, “From Cast-Iron to Green Design: A Closer Look at Materials and Craft in Pacific Northwest Architecture.” For program details, registration forms, and lodging information, go to www.sahmdr.org/meetings.html Question, please contact Ed Teague, 2009 Conference Chair, and Head, Architecture & Allied Arts Library University of Oregon ehteague@uoregon.edu

Southern California Chapter

The Society of Architectural Historians/Southern California Chapter (SAH/SCC) has been active this summer with a variety of tours, lectures, and film screenings. The Chapter presented two new programs in its popular Modern Patrons series: the Pier Pasinetti Residence by Haralamb Georgescu, and The Sorrells Residence by Richard Neutra. Modern Patrons programs are intimate salons with original owners who commissioned their residences from the modern masters. The SAH/SCC also premiered its most recent documentary, “Beautiful Simplicity: Arts and Crafts Architecture in Southern California” free for members and the public. In November, the SAH/SCC will hold its annual members’ celebration at the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica – the location of the former Marion Davies estate. The site combines a new, public beach club facility by Frederick Fisher and Partners and showcases the restored pool and guesthouse by Julia Morgan.

St. Louis Chapter

Thanks to the hard work and creativity of Michelle Kodner, the St. Louis Chapter has launched a website, www.stlouisarchitecture.org http://www.stlouisarchitecture.org/. In addition to publicizing the chapter’s activities, the site introduces considerable new information about St. Louis and Missouri architecture to the internet. Newsletters, which include much original research on local architects and buildings, have been posted back to 2004 and will soon go back to 1997. Another section marks the beginning of the chapter’s longprojected dictionary of Missouri architects, with new postings and links to other sites that have information about our best, but often little-known, designers. At its June 20, 2009 annual meeting, the chapter elected John Guenther, AIA, as president. He succeeds Karen Bode Baxter, who has become president of the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation.

With nearly 11,000 digital images housed in SAHARA, SAH would like to thank all who have generously shared images thus far and to encourage every SAH member to upload photographs taken during fellowships, on summer research trips, and even while on architecturally-oriented vacations.

We would like to acknowledge the three architectural historians who have contributed the most digital images since SAHARA went live on April 1, 2009. They are: Peter Clericuzio of University of Pennsylvania with nearly 500 images; Lisa Schrenk of Norwich University with nearly 300 images; and Michael Waters of the Institute of Fine Arts with nearly 100 images. Our hats are off to you for your generosity. Please continue uploading those great images.

All SAH members may upload new images to share and preserve in long-term storage. You also may view and download your colleagues’ images for teaching and research. Simply go to www.saharaonline.org. Go to the log in tab. Enter your email address and your password (your SAH membership number preceded by 00, e.g., 0012345). Then you’re all set to upload and download SAHARA images. Try it. We think you’ll like it.

On Monday, January 12, 2010, SAH will host a study day at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The focus of the day will be the groundbreaking exhibition, “Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity,” organized by Barry Bergdoll, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design. Bergdoll has sketched out a wonderful schedule, including a behind-thescenes tour of MoMA’s Mies holdings. Visit the SAH website at the end of October for additional information and registration details.

I am delighted to report that the online edition of the JSAH, which will

be launched in March 2010, will be enormously strengthened by a new

partnership between JSTOR and the University of California Press, our

publisher.  This is described in the announcement pasted below.  The

partnership will begin releasing the full line of UC Press journals in

2011, but JSAH Online will be the inaugural journal to be published

under the new partnership, appearing a year earlier.

What this means is that the JSAH will reach a much wider readership and

that all of the work that our JSAH Editors have done in the past three

years to develop a multimedia online journal will be incorporated into

the new UC Press/JSTOR publishing platform.  That platform will allow

JSAH Online — and other UC Press journals that follow suit — to

incorporate film, video, sound, 3D models, GIS, and a variety of other

multimedia images.

Congratulations to JSAH Editor David Brownlee and JSAH Online Founding

Editor Hilary Ballon for creating a journal that is truly breaking new

ground in humanities scholarship.

JSAH Online will premiere in March 2010.  In its inaugural year, it will

be distributed only to individual SAH members.

Another arts institution has been targeted for elimination. In an

attempt to cut costs during the recession, UCLA has decided to shutter

its long-standing Arts Library -permanently. Please consider signing the following petition. Please circulate it widely.  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-the-ucla-arts-library We have also created a Facebook group you may join in solidarity or

support: http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=132785048409&ref=nf

Here is the text of our petition and a short explanation of the current

situation: UCLA Library Management, behind closed doors and without consultation

with the UCLA community, has decided to close its Arts Library,

potentially as soon as January 2010.  For decades, the Arts Library has served faculty, students and the Southern California community as an essential cultural resource. In terms of research and scholarship it supports some of the nation’s best

programs in the arts, architecture, art history, film, television,

theater and the humanities. With over 270,000 volumes and unique collections, the Arts Library is a singular institution in Los Angeles, a burgeoning center for the arts.

It must be preserved. We understand that the UCLA Library must meet a nearly $2 million shortfall. However, the permanent elimination of a critical UCLA institution must not be the solution to a short term budget crisis.

UMass Amherst and Hancock Shaker Village have announced a groundbreaking partnership that will create a new two-year master’s degree program that combines the university’s strengths in architecture and public history with on-site training and courses utilizing the Village’s National Historic Landmark site.

Starting in Fall 2010, the new Master of Science in Design with a concentration in historic preservation will offer advanced study of traditional building materials, preservation theory, and building systems utilizing the architecture, archives, collections, and library at Hancock Shaker Village. Students and professionals already working in historic preservation and architectural conservation will earn the degree through the university’s Continuing and Professional Education program. Students will study and conduct fieldwork side-by-side with Hancock Shaker Village staff and visiting experts on topics such as building restoration, town planning, and historic site administration. A unique highlight will be the special focus on Shaker ideals, building methods, and historic craft and trade knowledge as they apply to modern life.

Ellen Spear, president and CEO of the non-profit historic Village, said, “We think it is important for Hancock Shaker Village to be a leader in training the next generation of preservationists. With our colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, we will offer a program unique to the region and become a regional center for preservation studies. The educational opportunity for conservation professionals is so much more vivid through the use of the Village’s historic buildings and landscapes, collections, and archives.”

Joel Martin, dean and distinguished professor, UMass Amherst College of Humanities & Fine Arts, said, “This partnership will not only enrich our understanding of the American past, but the partnership itself is entirely cutting edge and innovative. It unites the strengths of a research university’s superb scholarly programs in architecture and public history with the unique riches of one of New England’s most important historic sites to forge an exceptional learning opportunity for people who value cultural heritage and historic preservation.”

In this era when designers, builders, and architects increasingly seek sustainable and intelligent energy alternatives, Hancock Shaker Village and UMass Amherst will be rediscovering lessons from buildings handed down by “a culture whose principles and ethos were based completely on what we now call sustainability.” The new degree program should also help raise awareness of academic research and advanced restoration techniques in the traditional building community, he pointed out.

For more information about the UMass Amherst Hancock Shaker Village Graduate Degree in Historic Preservation and Design, contact Steven Bedford at 413.443.0188 ext. 239 or sbedford@hancockshakervillage.org

documentary film about the life and complex legacy of architect and city

planner, Daniel Hudson Burnham, will debut on Sept. 2 in Chicago’s Jay

Pritzker Pavilion.  The film explores how Burnham’s vision to organize

chaos of the 19th century American city shaped our nation’s future, and

how his ideas continue the debate about how and for whom cities are

planned.  This documentary was produced by SAH  member Judith Paine

McBrien and the Archimedia Workshop, a not-for-profit organization that

creates film, video and print publications about architecture, history

and urban design.  See attached postcard for launch details.  For

additional information, visit www.thearchimediaworkshop.org

<http://www.thearchimediaworkshop.org/>

]]> http://sahgradstudentblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/make-no-little-plans/feed/ 0 sahgradstudentblog DHBPostcard