Category Archives: archive

archive, library

Hal Box, in memoriam

Many remember Hal Box as an architect, dean, and visionary for architectural education, but Hal was also a great champion of libraries.   He had a keen understanding that strong architecture programs are built on solid foundations.  For Hal, this foundation included an architecture library, close at hand, where students and faculty could browse and check out books.

In January 2010, we were busily preparing for the School of Architecture centennial.  As the school’s library, we were in effect preparing for our own grand anniversary, so I asked Hal if he wouldn’t mind providing an oral history.  He graciously agreed and this is how I learned about Hal’s love and respect for libraries.

Hal’s experience with libraries started in early childhood when he attended East Texas State Teacher’s College training school for his elementary education.  He lived two blocks from campus and on his walk home would stop at the college library. Hal described this building as similar to the University of Texas’ first library, Battle Hall, with a grand stairway leading to the second floor reading room.  Hal spent many hours doing his homework in this space, and received great encouragement from its librarian.

In the late 1950s, as a young professional working with James Pratt, Hal became interested in developing a firm library, explaining “There were no architecture schools in Dallas and the public library didn’t have much on architecture.”  Hal gained an early understanding of both the value and cost of an architecture library, as the firm spent a lot of money on journals.  They built this library in their conference room and he even had his son catalog it!  “That was really the first library I built.”

In 1971 Hal started the architecture school at UT Arlington in a small house off campus.  It was about a quarter mile walk from the main library to the studio and the architecture books were shelved throughout three floors, so it was very difficult for them to use. A gift from the father of faculty member Peter Woods- a collection of grand Beaux Arts folios- inspired Hal to transform a small classroom into a library for his school.  He obtained a $1,000 grant from the Texas Society of Architects and started to build the collection.  His unorthodox collection plan also consisted of each faculty member checking out the maximum number of books from the main University Library and reshelving them all in his new library.  The Head Librarian found out about it and called Hal.  Hal recalled his response:

“Why don’t you come over and we’ll talk about it.  He [the librarian] was just as angry as could be.  I told him this is what we’re going to do. Architecture was not like history or English where you check out a book and in two weeks you read it.  You want to browse through a whole lot of books, it’s mainly visual, and you had to be close to them because you want to use them while you are in studio. You’re not going to check them out for a week and take them home. You’re going to go over to the library and look up Aalto or Corbu and see how they did something and then proceed from there. Well then, he understood and we continued there.”

Hal secured a new building for the program and made sure that its design included both a library and slide collection.  It was his good fortune that the director of the Fort Worth Museum of Art was married to a librarian, so he quickly hired her to oversee the library.  “I think it was about that time we convinced the general library to establish a branch library.”  (Hal then decided to “hire a young PhD from Berkeley” to help develop the library and slide collection.  These collections were so important that despite not having money to bring him in for an interview, Hal hired Jay Henry sight unseen to conduct this work.)

In 1976, during his interview for Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas, Hal and a friend visited the Battle Hall library, which then housed a variety of subjects including architecture and planning.  Earlier in 1973, architecture’s collections were transferred to Battle Hall.  Hal and his friend compared their experiences as students using the architecture library.  Hal’s library had a dedicated librarian and was just doors away from his studio, while his frustrated friend couldn’t find (browse) any architecture books because they were mixed in with other non-architecture subjects.  Hal soon learned that there was great discussion of consolidating branch libraries into the Perry Casteñeda Library when it would open in 1977, further dispersing the services and collections from its School.

Hal Box and Harwell Hamilton Harris
Harwell Hamilton Harris, Hal Box & donor David Barrow reviewing the newly acquired Harris archive.

In preparation of his meeting with UT President Lorene Rogers, Hal made a list of what the School needed, specifying the necessity its own branch library.  Hal believe that “the library is more than just a bunch of books, it’s a place with services.”  As part of his signing agreement, Battle Hall and Sutton became part of the School of Architecture’s campus when he became Dean. Hal continued to make it a priority to keep the library close by. In 1980, Battle Hall became home to the Architecture & Planning Library branch and the architectural drawings collection, now known as the Alexander Architectural Archive.

During this time, Hal initiated the renovation of the buildings on his architecture campus.  Hal decided not to continue with the Battle Hall renovation because among other things, it would have displaced too much valuable stacks space.  Even in my last meeting with Hal, he still struggled with the renovation of the University’s first library building.

“Libraries are sources of power… that knowledge they hold is power.”  As Dean, Hal understood the constraints of a library budget and that the library did not have its own alumni from which to draw support.  Also in his experience, the school could not recruit against Harvard because it didn’t have the research collections to support scholarship.

“One of my objectives, after I realized that this needed to be more than a professional school…  [was that] it needed to involve the whole discipline of architecture- so we’re not just training professionals, we’re developing scholars… we’re developing people who will be active within the community.  So it really started when we signed our first PhD… [and began] building a collection that would be vital to scholars. It was a very distinct objective to make this happen in the school, and that, just like a scientist… he’s got to have a laboratory.  [If we could achieve this] we would be a major source for scholarship, and I think that has happened.”

As a member of the library council, Hal motioned for and pushed through a library fee for each student.  He knew that it wasn’t much, but it helped a bit.  Hal was also very hands-on with the library and archive.  He chuckled when he told me about how he and Molly Malone single handedly moved the drawings from Blake Alexander’s closet in Goldsmith to Battle Hall, in preparation for the Goldsmith renovation.  Through his many contacts, Hal was also instrumental in helping to obtain archival collections such as that of Howard Meyer, or Harwell Hamilton Harris, or finding funding for the purchase of the James Riely Gordon collection among others.  As Dean, he even funded the early curators and until his death he was serving on the University of Texas Libraries Advisory Council.

More recently, Hal was enthusiastic about new technologies for teaching and research.  He enjoyed learning about the great online resources the library offers, while at the same time found that there is still relatively very little published digitally in architecture.  As Hal was preparing to close down his office at the School of Architecture, he offered the papers and books he had amassed over the years to the Architecture & Planning Library.  We are grateful that we had the chance to thank him and to let him know how valuable many of these books will be to our collections.

Hal Box books
Hal's books awaiting to be processed

From childhood, Hal was inspired by the architecture of libraries and their librarians, as a professional, he valued a firm library, and as a scholar he built his own personal library.  For the University of Texas, he started and developed a branch library from the ground up in Arlington and in Austin secured a strong branch research library and archive close to his School. Hal understood and valued libraries from all perspectives.  One of his fondest memories was in the library as a University of Texas architecture student in 1946.  “Most students concentrated near the recent periodicals.  They went there right away when they got a design problem.  It was a good place.  It was a happy place.”

archive

Notes from the conservation bench: stabilizing a Gilbert blueprint

As the conservation technician for the Architecture & Planning Library, a normal day for me usually involves repairing monographs and serials from the library’s general collection.  Every once in a while, however, I get to work on special projects for the archive or for an exhibit.  One day in April, Nancy Sparrow, the Curatorial Assistant for the Alexander Architectural Archive, asked me to work on a 1910 blueprint from the architecture office of Cass Gilbert.  Gilbert was located in New York at the time of the drawing’s creation.  The blueprint, coming in at a hefty six by three feet, shows a side elevation of an exterior iron lamp for the UT Library Building.

Nancy needed to send the drawing to the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) to be digitized.  The drawing  was buckling in the middle, had some major tears, and was covered in three different types of tape.  It had to be stabilized enough to be carried to PCL and to undergo the scanning process.  I was excited by the opportunity to brush up on my large format repair skills, so I busily collected the essentials:  a microspatula, tweezers, freshly made wheat starch paste, an assortment of brushes, small weights, lots of blotter and Reemay, and of course, a fairly heavy and strong Japanese tissue. 

Half of the drawing, before I removed the dark brown tape

Before I began, I assessed the damages to the drawing in order to determine the level of repairs needed.  I noted where the major tears were located.  I especially focused my attention on the edges where the drawing is handled the most, and any particularly deep tears that compromised the image itself.   

Nancy was already gently humidifying the middle section of the drawing where it was most severly creased.  While we waited for that treatment to finish, I decided to tackle the tape.  With my microspatula, I tentatively lifted a piece of the dark brown tape whose glue had dried out years ago and was pulling away from the paper.  To my delight, this type of tape came off quite easily without damaging the drawing.  While I was able to remove all of the offending dark brown tape, I decided to leave the other, more adhesive tape on for now.  The humidification went beautifully, and a great deal of the wrinkling was now gone.

I then began working my way across the drawing, right to left, tearing strips of Japanese tissue (as I learned at the preservation department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s University Library, the furrier the edges of the tissue, the better!) to the exact size of the tears, brushing paste onto them, and finally applying them with tweezers.  The area is then covered, in order, with Reemay, blotter, and a weight.

Placing Reemay over a tissue mend

I worked my way across the drawing.  After the mends had dried completely, I trimmed any tissue that went past the drawing’s edge.  In all, it took me approximately 5.5 hours to repair the drawing.  The drawing has since been sent to PCL and returned to the archive.  Scanned in four sections, the entire digital image is more than 16MB!

archive, exhibition

Adventures in Curation

“When George and Gerrie Andrews climbed their first Maya pyramid in the late 1950s, they hardly could have anticipated that a life’s calling was awaiting them.” That’s how I introduced the digital exhibition, “Their Maya Story: George and Gerrie Andrews,” which just went live on the UT Libraries website.

Tikal roofcomb Kabah photo with tracing Andrews family at Tulum

What I “hardly could have anticipated” was the variety of experience I would gain by curating this exhibition. I intended the project to enhance my skills in archival arrangement and description and to allow me to work more closely with digitization, metadata standards, Internet applications, curation, and outreach. And I did all these things, but these are fairly broad terms when it comes to information work. The specifics are where it got interesting.

I learned that you can never really be completely done with processing a series—more records always materialize. I now can scan photographic slides with confidence. Adobe Bridge became a valuable resource as I automated the conversion of dimensions, format, and resolution of digital image files. As I planned the exhibition, conversation with Mayanists gave me a clearer idea of what interested them about the archives. Crafting narrative that works as a whole or in snippets was a new kind of writing challenge. To prepare sound clips, I used Audacity and made my first foray into working with audio. I discovered the ins and outs of Drupal’s exhibit module.

Tikal roofcomb Kabah photo with tracing

In short, I learned about the wide variety of work that goes into planning and executing a digital exhibition. Too often we think of the Web as a shortcut, an easy way to make information accessible to many. And the Web does offer a great resource for increasing awareness of archival collections such as the George F. and Geraldine D. Andrews papers. But presenting information online in an engaging way, one that takes advantage of the flexibility of the interactive model, is a lot of work. As exhibition curator, I can guide you gently in the direction I think you should go and tell you what I think is interesting, but your experience with the exhibit is really up to you. That’s true in a physical museum setting, but even more so online.

To learn more about the Andrews papers, read my previous post, Adventures in Mayaland—or just visit the exhibit! Explore sites ranging from Tikal to Hormiguero, learn about the Andrews’ research methods and legacy, and simply enjoy beautiful images of Maya architecture and the story of a couple that devoted their lives to documenting this history.

Images from top, left to right:
Tikal: The man in the portal helps comprehend the scale of this roofcomb at Tikal (1981)
Kabah: George Andrews often traced over his photos as he attempted to understand the different styles of decoration (undated)
Tulum: The Andrews’ son, Alan, joined them for this trip to Tulum in 1964
Hormiguero: One of the many “monster masks” seen at Hormiguero (1978)
Coba: Stelae such as this one at Coba help scholars better understand Maya hieroglyphs and mythology (1978)

By Amanda Keys, processing assistant in the Alexander Architectural Archive and School of Information student focusing on archival enterprise and special collections

archive

Adventures in Mayaland

On one 10-month trip to Mexico and Central America, they saw 70 Maya sites and put 20,000 miles on their Volkswagen bus. That figure doesn’t count the mileage they covered in trucks, Jeeps, small planes, and on foot. They encountered obstacles ranging from rocky roads to poisonous snakes to bureaucracy.

Who are these intrepid adventurers? George and Gerrie Andrews—and the Alexander Architectural Archive houses their papers. In their 40+ years of work documenting Maya architecture, the Andrews amassed about 50 linear feet in manuscript material, plus thousands upon thousands of photographic prints, slides, negatives, and drawings.

Kabah with Gerrie
One of the structures of Kabah, a Puuc region site in the Yucátan. See Gerrie (near the portal) for a sense of scale.

To make those records more accessible to researchers, I am working on arranging and describing these materials. So far I’ve arranged a series of Faculty and Professional Records, more than half of which consists of George’s correspondence with his architecture and archaeology colleagues. I also have started work on grouping his slides together by site—so far I’m up to about 6,500! (I also have learned that the Andrews visited more than 30 sites whose names begin with “X”—Xelha, Xlabpak, Xpuhil, etc.—which kind of boggles my English-oriented mind.) An enhanced finding aid to the George F. and Geraldine D. Andrews papers is part of my goal for this project.

But that won’t be all. In addition to working at the archive, I’m doing my capstone project to finish my master’s in information studies. To that end, I also am creating an online exhibition about the Andrews papers, hoping to draw attention to these important records and attract more researchers. I’m keeping up a webpage about the project, Building Mayaland, and invite anyone interested in the archival process to check it out.

By Amanda Keys, processing assistant in the Alexander Architectural Archive and School of Information student focusing on archival enterprise and special collections

archive, exhibition, library, special collections

Then and Now: The Library of the School of Architecture

Throughout its 100-year history, the Architecture & Planning Library has been an integral part of the School of Architecture, providing services and collections for information and inspiration.  In tandem with the School, the library has grown and changed to meet the needs of its users—students, faculty, scholars, and the community.

A new exhibit – Then and Now: The Library of the School of Architecture – gives an overview of the library’s history as it developed from a faculty collection, to an established library in 1912, and then how it moved along with the School to its new locations.  Featured are interesting examples of how services and collections have expanded and stories about how people have contributed to their library and archive.

Artifacts from the Alexander Architectural Archive
Photographed by Parker Doelling

The exhibition – on view in Architecture & Planning Library Reading Room in Battle Hall through March, 2011 – is being held in conjunction with the School of Architecture’s centennial celebration 100: Traces & Trajectories exhibition.

Producing a centennial exhibit is a momentous occasion.  The challenge proves that some things never change: it reflects the efforts of an expert staff, dedicated students, the tireless hours of our volunteers, including co-curator Sarah Cleary.

All items on exhibit are from the vast collections of the Architecture and Planning Library and its Alexander Architectural Archive, as well as images courtesy of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.

Visit the Flickr slideshow to enjoy more images from the exhibition.

Beth Dodd is Head Librarian for the Architecture & Planning Library at The University of Texas at Austin.

Special Collections at the Architecture & Planning Library
Photographed by Parker Doelling

archive, News Items

Eugene George Papers document historic preservation in Texas

What do the Magoffin Adobe in El Paso, the Moody Mansion in Galveston, and a Revolutionary War battlefield in Yorktown, Virginia, all have in common?

Magoffin House, El Paso Moody Mansion, Galveston Yorktown Battlefield, Virginia

They’re all historic preservation projects undertaken by noted architect and former UT faculty member Eugene George — and they’re all documented in the Walter Eugene George Collection at the Alexander Architectural Archive.

With 12,000 slides, thousands of negatives and photographic prints, hundreds of architectural drawings, and approximately nine linear feet of professional records, the Eugene George Papers are a window into the field of historic preservation in Texas and beyond.

Page from George's photo records
Page from George’s photo records

George’s approach to historic preservation is intensely scholarly, and his voluminous reference files provide a resource for students and scholars interested in all areas concerning historic preservation.  The George Collection also contain a wealth of photographic materials, which add a visual dimension to the record of his activities as a practicing architect, scholar, educator and photographer.  Beginning in 1979, George extensively documented each of his photographs, assigning each a frame number and logging the subject, date, and technical information.  In addition to providing evidence of historic preservation projects in process, the photographic materials are a rich visual resource for architecture, landscapes, and cultures around the world.

Muqarnas Dome at Generalife, Granada, Spain

Look for an updated finding aid online soon, and don’t miss a new digital exhibition in December for more details on George and his career.

alexander architectural archives, archive

Documenting vernacular architecture in Texas

Earlier this summer, I wrote about processing the Wayne Bell papers. Because of my resulting familiarity with his work, I went on to work with the records of the Winedale Historical Center, the historic preservation program in the School of Architecture that Bell directed for many years.
When we interviewed Bell, we asked about the unique challenges of preserving historical sites, especially when a property or features of it have deteriorated beyond repair. His answer? You can preserve by creating a historical record. Throughout the Winedale Historical Center records are field notes, site plans, drawings, photographs, oral histories, and other materials kept safe in the Alexander Architectural Archive, documenting important information about buildings from across central and south Texas.

Zimmerscheidt-Leyendecker House field book
Field book entry, Zimmerscheidt-Leyendecker House

You hope that, with good preservation work, the building will remain. Sometimes, however, disaster strikes. In 1981, just five years after UT historic preservation students worked on the Zimmerscheidt-Leyendecker House in Colorado County, an arsonist destroyed the property. The students’ records are now that much more valuable to maintaining the cultural memory of this home.
By Amanda Keys, processing assistant in the Alexander Architectural Archive and School of Information student focusing on archival enterprise and special collections

archive

Treatment of architectural watercolor rendering of Havana courtroom interior by James Riely Gordon, ca. 1911

For many years now the Alexander Architectural Archive and iSchool lecturer and paper conservator Karen Pavelka have collaborated on preserving works on paper from the archive collections.  Conservation students at the Kilgarlin Center for for the Preservation of the Cultural Record gain experience treating archival works as part of the Paper Laboratory taught by Pavelka. Second year Conservation student D. Jordan Berson describes his process of treating an early 20th century watercolor by Texas architect James Riely Gordon.

To see other images of this installation, visit the slide show on the Architecture & Planning Library flickr page.

Gordon watercolour before treatment
Gordon watercolour before treatment

The goal of this treatment was to stabilize the fragile drawing in order to lift access restrictions and enable safe handling by researchers. It was also desired to reduce detracting visible damage. The object had tears and surface distortion, creases and a damaged acidic mat that was adhered directly to the artwork. It was evident that large areas of additional artwork were obscured by the existing mat. In addition, there were several areas along creases where the paint had been burnished or rubbed completely away, exposing the paper substrate.

The first part of the treatment was to mechanically remove the mat and adhesive residue as much as possible. Where residue remained adhered to the object, it was scraped away as possible by introducing very light amounts of moisture to soften it, then scraped away with a microspatula or wiped away with cotton swabs. This process took many hours. Then the piece was dry cleaned on both sides using soot sponges, and white eraser shavings. Tears were mended and splayed corners were consolidated using wheat starch paste. Thick Japanese tissue mending strips were glued down on the reverse side of creases to reduce planar distortion. Detracting media loss was remedied through inpainting. First a gelatin sizing was painted into the areas of loss, followed by inpainting with color-matched watercolors. Finally, a new acid-free mat was hand-cut using a Dexter mat-cutter. Instead of adhering it to the object as the old one was, a new “T-hinge” design was used that replicated the design of the original mat while enabling viewers to see the long-hidden artwork underneath.

Gordon watercolour after treatment
Gordon watercolour after treatment

To see other images of the treatment, visit the slide show on the Architecture & Planning Library flickr page.

archive, exhibition

Curating “Maya Architecture: Selections from the George F. and Geraldine Andrews Collection”

1 Comment

Many people shy away from group projects. After all, teamwork frequently suffers when clashing personalities and working methods meet. But when it is successful, collaboration can yield a better outcome than working alone and serve as a learning experience. While much of the work that goes into planning an exhibition is not visible in the final product, the process itself is often very exciting, particularly when dealing with an archive. I wanted to take a moment to share my experience co-curating Maya Architecture.

Photograph from “Maya Architecture: Selections from the George F. and Geraldine Andrews Collection"

It was only a few months ago that I discovered the George F. and Geraldine Andrews collection tucked away in the Alexander Architectural Archive. A classmate of mine was looking for a rare photograph of a Maya structure taken before it collapsed. [He found it.] I was trying to get a sense of the Andrews’ documentation of Puuc architecture for my own research. At the time of our visit Beth Dodd and Donna Coates had already started organizing an exhibition for the Architecture and Planning Library reading room to call attention to this unprocessed collection. Aware of the importance of this resource I offered to help, and they gladly accepted.

A collection of didactic materials from an earlier exhibition on George Andrews’ work on Maya architecture acted as the framework for the show. The panels emphasized George Andrews’ photographs and final drawings, but we also wanted to reflect the depth and variety of the Andrews archive.

Donna and Meghan working on "Maya Architecture"

The three of us met on several occasions to sort through prints, photographs and drawings for the wall cases, moving and adding some, vetoing others. The large glass cases in the library also allowed us to curate objects. One of the perks of assisting on this exhibition was that I had the opportunity to search through the collection with the explicit order to pull some of the most interesting, and obscure, materials housed in the stacks.

Though it was difficult to choose from the thousands of objects, books, drawings (some in progress), negatives and photographs available, we tried to provide a representative example. The exhibition even includes photographs of the collection while it was still in George and Geraldine’s home in Oregon!

Objects from the George F. and Geraldine Andrews collection on display.
Objects from the George F. and Geraldine Andrews collection on display.

The text for the exhibit is a mix of old and new writing. Some of the text came directly from the earlier exhibition, other text was pulled from George Andrews’ publications and artist statement. A number of panels were written specifically for this display.

The organic working process provided plenty of opportunities to talk through ideas and make changes when necessary. The exhibition was truly a team effort. Donna, Beth and I worked closely together, but also had the help of staff members from the Architecture and Planning Library and the Alexander Architectural Archive. Many people assisted in compiling information, hanging and arranging work, editing, printing labels and posters, and building on the concept of the show.

It was a great opportunity for me to get to know the collection and work closely with the staff in the Alexander Architectural Archive…and a chance to promote a significant Maya resource at UT!

Donna Coates, Beth Dodd and Meghan Rubenstein

By Meghan Rubenstein, art history Ph.D. student