94-02-10 From Skyscrapers to Small Neighborhoods, Range of U.S. Historical Resources is Increasingly Seen as Diverse FROM SKYSCRAPERS TO SMALL NEIGHBORHOODS, RANGE OF U.S. HISTORICAL RESOURCES IS INCREASINGLY SEEN AS DIVERSE, SAYS NEW DIRECTOR OF U.VA. PRESERVATION PROGRAM CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Feb. 10 -- The historic preservation field in the United States is increasingly focusing not just on fine architecture and traditional sites of national political-history but on the nation's and local communities' diverse social and cultural history, according to the new director of the University of Virginia's preservation program. As a result, preservationists are working more and more closely with such varied disciplines as urban and environmental planning, history, anthropology and law to help foster "a vital engagement" with national and local history, said Daniel Bluestone, who joined the School of Architecture faculty this semester as associate professor of architectural history and director of its well-known preservation program. Bluestone, the author of a prize-winning study of how modern-day Chicago evolved as a reflection of its local culture, has broad experience in public and private preservation projects and has just ended a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship-year writing a new book on the history and theory of preservation in the United States. He said the U.Va. preservation program will continue to work closely with the architecture school's four degree-granting disciplines: architecture, architectural history, landscape architecture, and urban planning. "And we have the potential to work well with related fields throughout the University, to help convey important information about the social and cultural life of communities." Starting next fall, the architecture school will begin offering an intensive graduate course that will produce a comprehensive historic-preservation and design study of a Virginia community each year. Involving faculty and students from all four of the school's fields, the course will serve as both a public service program for the state and a studio on preservation issues, said Bluestone, who previously taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture. Once a locality is selected for study, students in the program will conduct historical research and work with community groups to offer design ideas for future construction, overall planning strategies, and ideas for conserving and adapting existing buildings and areas that help tell the story of a community's life. The school aims to publish and inexpensively distribute the series of local preservation studies. The University's historic central Grounds, designed by Thomas Jefferson, and other nearby historic sites such as Jefferson's Monticello, will continue to be an active laboratory for students' preservation work, Bluestone noted. With landmarks of both political history and noted architecture here, "there's an unusual constellation that comes together here and a great preservation tradition." But increasingly the preservation field is also seen as a resource for preserving broad "narratives," including landscapes and townscapes, that shed light on all aspects of a community's history, he added. "Many preservationists believe that history can be conveyed more powerfully if buildings, landscapes and townscapes can help describe it. Preservation can try to provide a model to help understand history." Conservation of well-constructed buildings and maintaining open space are also increasingly tied in with preservation, he said. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of preservation as a field of study, there are no plans for the U.Va. program to become a separate department in the architecture school. Although a 1992 study commissioned by the school recommended that it establish a degree-granting department in preservation, Bluestone said, the program is more likely to continue as an interdisciplinary school-wide program with a strong community-oriented, public-service focus. The preservation program will continue to grant a certificate that qualifying students will receive in addition to a graduate degree from one of the school's four departments. Bluestone's 1991 book, "Constructing Chicago" (Yale University Press), shows how the full panorama of the city's 19th century cultural and social history unfolds today through its cityscape of skyscrapers, churches, parks, civic and other buildings. The book, which won the American Institute of Architects' International Architecture Book Award and the National Historic Preservation Book Award given by Mary Washington College, disputes traditional views that America's "second city" grew up solely out of a preoccupation with raw commerce. "Notions of aesthetics, civility and moral order deeply influenced the city that arose so dramatically on the shore of Lake Michigan," he writes in the book's introduction. "There is no understanding 19th century Chicago without taking account of them." Among courses Bluestone is teaching at U.Va. is a seminar on "Skyscrapers: Art, Technology, and Commerce." Tall office buildings, which have dramatically changed entire downtowns and ways of life, "represent one of the most important American contributions to modern architecture," he points out. "They are both an object of and a bane for preservationists." But whether they involve a rural landscape, a major urban center or a small community, "many of the issues of preservation are the same," he says. "A main question is learning to be sensitive to the richness of the historical and landscape resources around us." ### February 9, 1994 [For interviews about historic preservation, Daniel Bluestone may be reached at (804) 924- 3715.] [Submitted by: Karen A. Castle (kac@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu) Thu, 10 Feb 94 09:15:03 EST]