Tag Archives: Architecture & Planning Library

library

Feature Friday: A Guide to Dallas Architecture

Happy Feature Friday! Only a few more posts until the fall semester – time sure flies when you’re sweating uncontrollably in the Austin summer heat. (Or is that just me?)

This Friday, we’re once again shedding light on a unique subset of books at the Architecture & Planning Library: city guides. These range from self-guided architecture tours to city overviews that delve into historic facts and figures. Though many of these titles may come up in research, they’re also great to turn to when planning a visit to a new city.

Sure, Google and travel-assisting websites like Yelp and Foursquare may have overtaken print as the modern technological “guidebooks,” but there’s something both comforting and convenient about having a complete tour guide in written word. Personally, nothing will top being able to easily flip through a few pages, scour various custom maps, and decide on my next destination – all without worrying about draining my phone’s battery!

The Architecture & Planning Library holds an extensive amount of titles for both present-day tours and ones that reveal the past. I absolutely love finding guidebooks from a decade ago or older for cities that I’ve been to many times and comparing my internal map to what was there before. For example, when I added provenance notes to the Karl Kamrath Collection in late 2013, I came across an architectural walking tour of Chicago from 1969, complete with illustrations and maps. I was enthralled with photographs that depicted ornate skyscrapers that had been sacrificed over the years for towering glass symbols of prestige, the very symbols that define Chicago’s skyline today. By studying the tour book intently, I feel like I now have a greater depth and understanding of the city’s timeline and urban development, and now picture the ghosts of former buildings when passing their replacements. There’s something both beautiful and haunting about reading a first-hand account of a tour through a city so many years ago – only to realize how vastly different our present-day experience of the same city is.

Historical treasures stud our stacks, but so do more modern titles of guidebooks, which may surprise some readers. For example, The American Institute of Architects Guide to Dallas Architecture from 1999 is a great example of more recent efforts to present an American city clearly, cohesively, and comprehensively in one book.

This differs from the tour books you may find on a bookstore’s shelf in that its primary focus is architectural – in its descriptions, tour arrangements, photography, and significant features. Where most off-the-shelf guidebooks might direct you towards the latest restaurants or nightlife, this book details parks, key structures, historic neighborhoods and districts, as well as sculptures and gardens. The maps are tailored to custom walking tours and guide you through one of Texas’ and America’s great cities to places even Dallas natives may have overlooked. And although this publication is much more modern than the 1969 Chicago tour, 1999 is still well over a decade ago – and the comparisons to the present city are likely staggering!

The next time you plan a visit to a new city, I highly recommend searching for a tour or guidebook in our catalog beforehand to see if you have the opportunity to check out one of the myriad architecturally-centric ones in our stacks. If coupled with a bookstore guidebook, your trip will likely be full of surprises – ranging from off-the-beaten-path monuments or neighborhoods to ghosts of city’s past.

Happy exploring!

library

Feature Friday: Perusing the Past

Happy August, everyone! Where does the time go?! Aptly, for this week’s Feature Friday, we’re getting a bit nostalgic.

Almost a year ago, I wrote a post revealing how a library is actually so much more than just a place to rent books for research. It’s often a place of communal solitude, where the focus of those surrounding you miraculously rubs off on you during a study crunch; a place of calmness, predictability, and ease, where methodical sounds of footsteps pacing the stacks, the beeping of barcodes, and the flipping of pages enfolds you and makes you feel truly comfortable in the space you’re in; and, most importantly, a place for inspiration, a place where you’re completely surrounded by thousands of books that you know you’ll never even touch, but could if you had the chance. I mean truly, what is more beautiful than a place that habors an endless amount of knowledge?

That’s why this particular Feature Friday focuses on something that’s not a unique feature to this specific day, week, month, or even year; it’s a feature that is present each and every hour, minute, second that we’re open: our stacks.

More specifically, here at the Architecture & Planning Library, our second floor harbors hundreds of solid-color, stately-looking hardcover books that are actually a few issues of journals bound together to form one convenient package. Those of you that have done research in our library likely know exactly what I’m talking about: the rows and rows of navy blue, evergreen, and maroon shells that make you feel like you gain intelligence simply by walking through (“contact intelligence” if you will – can I trademark that term?). Most researchers, however (including myself!), tend to start by looking up a specific topic in the catalog, jotting down a call number, journal name, issue number, and page range, and beeline straight to that specific journal.

There’s nothing wrong with that by any means, and I love when I have the opportunity to utilize sources other than the internet. However, today I’d like to encourage you to consider exploring these journal archives without a particular goal in mind, just to see what you find – especially if you’re studying an architecture or design-related major!

…Why, you may ask? The idea of blindly pulling a plain-covered book and flipping through its pages seems a little counter-productive versus the typical strategy of spine shopping in a library or bookstore. However, I’ve come to realize that discoveries found without a clear-cut end product in mind are often the most fruitful. Here’s an example:

Above is a photo of a two-page leaflet found in the July 1964 issue of Architectural Forum. (Yes, you read that right – 1964 – and we have issues dating back to 1917!) Aside from staring wide-eyed at the advertisements that made me immediately want to rewatch seasons one through six of Mad Men, this article caught my eye due to its detailed plans, sections, and sketches that were 100% created by hand. The spread depicts the plan to bring Pennsylvania Avenue – Washington D.C.’s most prominent thoroughfare – back to its original grandeur. The White House is located in the top left corner, and the avenue runs to the Capitol at the bottom left. Immediately, I went to the ever-useful Google Maps to compare what was so beautifully illustrated in 1964 to what the exact area looks like today.

So. Awesome.

It’s discoveries like these that continually drive my insatiable curiosity to explore beyond what I’m required to. I’ve only been to Washington D.C. once – when I was in elementary school – and can assuredly tell you that I was not particularly fixated on assessing the quality or design of the public spaces around some of our nation’s most prominent and vital monuments at the time. I am now, however, fascinated by comparing elaborate plans conceived decades ago to how they were ultimately implemented into city fabric. Additionally, I was flooded with questions: how was this space adapted over the years? What concepts of the 1964 plan were removed from the final product? Were they actually there originally, but replaced over time by something else? How does this comprehensive scheme work today? Is the social experience as lively as intended? Did it ever function as intended?

By simply paging through a journal from decades ago, I have stumbled upon a topic that I could potentially develop a research paper on – or even a thesis or dissertation that expands its sample into a broader inclusion of major city plans over the years. How rewarding is that?! This is why I encourage you – or any user of any library across the globe – to peruse the past without a purpose. You’ll learn what interests you without an assignment looming over your head – which is a peril of many students!

Summer is as good of a time as ever to explore, and we’ve but a mere month of it left. What better way to beat the heat than jumping into a visual time machine and uncovering traces of the past that you had no idea existed?

Sounds like a great bucklist item to me.

Friday Find!, library

Feature Friday: Rural Studio at Twenty

Here at the Architecture & Planning Library, we’ve decided to implement a fun new tradition: #FeatureFriday. Starting today, every Friday we’ll feature an object (or objects) of interest – whether it be a book, journal, archival piece, or otherwise – that has been brought to our attention by one of our many staff members. We hope our selected features not only give a glimpse into the many items we have here at the library and in the archive, but also inspire you to explore what’s available on your own! These features will also shed light on the interests, various job titles, and personal profiles of our staff – many of which work behind the scenes to make the library what it is every day.

This week, we’re starting off strong with a recent publication: Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County, Alabama. From the publisher:

“For two decades, the students of Auburn University’s Rural Studio have designed and built remarkable houses and community buildings for impoverished residents of Alabama’s Hale County, one of the poorest in the nation. This book describes the complex mix of attributes that has made the Rural Studio unique: its teaching methods, the design and construction processes of its student teams, the relationship it has forged with its West Alabama community, and much more.”

Hale County is located about a 45 minute drive south of Tuscaloosa, the home of the University of Alabama, and three hours west of Auburn. This publication marks the 20th anniversity of the Rural Studio program, and features a detailed history of its roots, commentary from many of those involved, and a comprehensive portfolio of their projects.

Over the years, Rural Studio’s projects have dabbled in both the public and private spheres, all while striving to be a “good neighbor and friend” to the Hale County community. The depth of this book is incredible – detailed accounts of experiences, project schedules, finances, community outreach, client relationships, construction methods, and more are candidly recounted and shared.

I personally had been first introduced to Rural Studio in Cisco Gomes‘ Construction II course this past semester. We had explored the Hale County Animal Shelter, pictured above, as a case study while learing about wood as a material and in terms of its assemblies. The Animal Shelter utilized a lamella system, or diagonal grid structure, of 2×10 wood members cut gently to achive a stunning half-cylindrical form. This method of construction, despite its percieved complexity, was actually fairly low-tech and incredibly cost-effective. The Animal Shelter is just one of several community projects that are explored in detail, complete with drawings and in-progress photographs, within this book.

What fascinates me most, however, out of Rural Studio’s projects is their line of 20K Houses. Launched in 2005, Rural Studio set out a goal to design a market-rate model that could be built by contractors, considering both materials and labor, for $20,000. So far, twelve models have been designed and built by Rural Studio, each for a low-income client in the community. Rural Studio worked extensively with each client, addressing their needs while continuously learning from each prototype. This book, like the aforementioned community projects, recounts each house in detail, providing plans, sections, before-and-after photographs, and more to guide the reader through not only the building phase, but the design thinking that took place both before and after each house’s completetion. My favorite part of each spread are the images of the clients within their respective 20K homes – putting a face to the home they live in.

This book is perfect for readers who have any interest in community architecture, design-build projects, or truly design in general. I couldn’t help but notice the timing of this feature, as the School of Architecture’s annual Public Interest Design program’s studios are getting into the thick of things with their community-centric designs within Austin. What an incredibly inspirational #FeatureFriday – showcasing the tangible positive impact that design can have on a community!

Call Number: NA 2300 A9 F74 2014

This week’s #FeatureFriday was selected by Martha Gonzalez Palacios, the Architecture & Planning Librarian. She is  responsible for collection development, reference, instruction and digital projects at the Architecture & Planning Library – and is the ultimate student resource during busy semesters! Thanks, Martha!

archive, event, exhibition

Semester Recap: “Inside Modern Texas: the Case for Preserving Interiors”

The Spring 2014 semester was an incredibly exciting one at the Architecture & Planning Library – especially for events! My personal favorite brought together multiple facets of the library and beyond: Emily Ardoin’s curation of the exhibition “Inside Modern Texas: the Case for Preserving Interiors.”

Beginning as a Graduate Research Assistant appointment in the Fall 2013 semester, Emily, a recent May 2014 Master of Science in Historic Preservation graduate, was tasked with the goal of pulling together an exhibition for the Architecture & Planning Library’s Reading Room that would be on display from early April through September 2014. This was no easy task, as she started completely from scratch! For inspiration on finding a topic, she sifted through myriad issues of Interiors magazine, Texas Architect, and more journals from the Architecture and Planning Library. Ultimately, Emily utilized her Interior Design background and Historic Preservation studies to create an exhibition topic that was specific enough to pin down a clear focus, yet broad enough to include a wide array of archival materials from the library and Alexander Architectural Archive.

The end result was “Inside Modern Texas: the Case for Preserving Interiors,” which aligned perfectly with the Society of Architectural Historian’s Annual Conference, held in Austin in April. We were lucky enough to go behind the scenes with Emily in the final weeks of her curation process. The exhibit’s opening reception on April 10th brought together conference visitors, library and archive employees, UT professors, students of myraid majors, and more.

Emily’s exhibition is a visual testiment to the incredible depth of resources available for researchers at the Architecture & Planning Library and the Alexander Architectural Archive, as well as the vital research endeavors that are created from endowments and scholarships. Says head librarian Beth Dodd:

“We are always looking for ways to enhance the student experience, and curating an exhibit is an incredibly rigorous process that demands thorough research, careful selection and interpretation of materials, and exhibit design,” says Dodd.  “The endowment created by the late Professor Blake Alexander now enables us to offer our students this funded internship.”

Now, as we approach the official first day of summer, we want to remind you that “Inside Modern Texas” is on display in the Reading Room until September! We can’t think of a better way to beat the heat than to go on the beautiful visual journey that Emily has curated for us.

archive, event, library, special collections

Society of Architectural Historians Conference in Austin: Then and Now

It’s official: The Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference is underway in our beloved Austin! Please visit here for a full listing of the conference’s events.

Because of the conference’s focus on architectural history, along with the opening of Emily Ardoin’s exhibit “Inside Modern Texas: A Case for Preserving Interiors,” we decided to delve into our archive’s bountiful resources to see if we could uncover material that was especially pertinent to the conference’s visit. The Alexander Architectural Archive holds the namesake of Drury Blakeley Alexander, architectural historian and Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, who was an active member of the Society of Architectural Historians and believed wholly in the value of archival materials and research.

This fact was proven when Donna Coates, our Curatorial Assistant for Technical Services, informed me that Alexander’s collection included folders upon folders of saved Society of Architectural Historians conference materials. These folders contain invitations, programs, general correspondence, and more! I couldn’t believe that such a treasure is held within our very own Archive walls, provided by the namesake of the Archive itself. I also gained respect for low-grade hoarders; if I could high five Alexander for ensuring he retained nearly ALL of the materials of the conferences he attended, I totally would.

One of the many postcards addressed to Alexander inviting him to SAH Conferences. This one is dated 1953 from New York City.

As I began sifting through the boxes that contained these folders, I became overwhelmed with the material. I also found myself simultaneously wishing that I could round up every interested individual in the Austin area and show them all of these wonderful treasures that Alexander had left for Archive users to potentially uncover and explore. As I grappled with the best way to present this material – ranging from the conference held 50 years ago, to showing snippets of material from every recent decade – I finally stumbled upon the folder I was looking for: the SAH Conference of 1978, which was held in nearby San Antonio.

The official brochure of the 31st Annual Society of Architectural Historians Conference amidst additional documents and correspondence.

This folder was so much fun to sift through, as it was full of correspondence between Alexander and professors from neighboring Texas universities. Alexander, for the 31st annual conference, wanted to bring together architectural history professors from across Texas and set up a collaborative session on Texas architecture – very similar to this year’s Austin Seminar. His dedicated effort to weaving a special Texas flair into the 31st Annual Conference was apparent, and, as evidenced by the official conference material from that year, certainly was not a fruitless effort. The conference featured several speakers presenting on topics relating to architecture in Texas, and he helped plan a day tour to Austin to unfurl the treasures that serve as some of the cornerstones of our great city.

A tour map of Austin for the conference. I want to go on this today!

Looking through these folders not only made me excited for this year’s Society of Architectural Historians Conference, but also reaffirmed how lucky we are to have such an incredible Architectural Archive as a resource for research and beyond. It is truly fitting that the namesake of the Archive contributed so greatly to the field of architectural history. Cheers to you, Blake Alexander!

Here’s the text tour associated with the above map. In addition to this week’s conference events, this may be a fun addition to your lineup – comparing Austin’s urban fabric to what was in 1978!
archive, event, exhibition, library

“Inside Modern Texas” Opens This Thursday!

A new exhibit, “Inside Modern Texas: The Case for Preserving Interiors,” opens April 10th at 6 pm at The University of Texas at Austin’s Architecture & Planning Library.

“Inside Modern Texas” offers insight on interior design during the period 1945 to 1975, touching upon the development of the profession and the issues faced today in historic preservation. Texas interiors from this period serve as case studies to illustrate emerging ideas in design and practice.

The exhibit includes photographs, original drawings and printed materials from the Alexander Architectural Archive and the Architecture and Planning Library. Featured architects and interior designers include George L. Dahl, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Karl Kamrath, Howard R. Meyer and John Astin Perkins.

Emily Ardoin, a graduate student in the School of Architecture’s Historic Preservation program, curated the exhibit through a new program developed with the School of Architecture.  Head Librarian Beth Dodd hopes that collaborations such as this will provide graduate students with more opportunities to use the archives to produce new scholarship.

“We are always looking for ways to enhance the student experience, and curating an exhibit is an incredibly rigorous process that demands thorough research, careful selection and interpretation of materials, and exhibit design,” says Dodd.  “The endowment created by the late Professor Blake Alexander now enables us to offer our students this funded internship.”

Mid-twentieth-century buildings are gaining widespread acceptance as candidates for historic preservation, but few retain their original modern interiors. Because they are so closely connected to human activity, interiors can be especially important conveyors of historic significance, but they are highly vulnerable to changing tastes and functional requirements. The perceived impermanent nature of interior design components, and historic preservation legislation which often focuses on building exteriors, further complicates preservation efforts.

Repositories such as the Alexander Architectural Archive provide opportunities to study the history of design. “Because interiors are so vulnerable to change, teaching and research rely on libraries and archives for historic documentation,” notes Dodd.  “In this first exhibit, Emily had to dig deep to discover material in the collections of architects who were only starting to recognize interior design as a distinct profession.”

The exhibition will be on display in the Architecture and Planning Library reading room in Battle Hall through September, and is free and open to the public. The opening reception will be held April 10 at 6:00 p.m. in conjunction with the Society of Architectural Historians 2014 Annual Conference.

archive, event, exhibition, library

Inside Modern Texas: Behind the Scenes with Emily Ardoin

Last semester, Graduate Research Assistant Emily Ardoin, a Masters candidate in Historic Preservation within the School of Architecture, introduced us to her process behind developing a curated exhibit – from scratch! Very few have this incredibly unique and rewarding opportunity, and, needless to say, those of us in the library were beyond thrilled for her. As the Society of Architectural Historians Conference swiftly approaches, which coincides with the official opening reception of the exhibition, we decided to check in with Emily and get more details from the curator herself.

To recap, Emily was tasked with developing a display for the Reading Room in Battle Hall for the Spring 2014 semester. During her brainstorming phase, she sifted through myriad issues of Interiors magazine, Texas Architect, and more journals from the Architecture and Planning Library as not only a source for inspiration, but as a gauge for what materials were available to her within the walls of Battle Hall. As most of our library users can attest to, the Architecture and Planning Library is full of information (we’re lucky to say that!), so Emily utilized her Interior Design background, current Historic Preservation studies, and a time range from World War II to approximately 1975 to help narrow her foci and eventually land on a exhibition topic that was specific enough to pin down a clear focus, yet broad enough to encapsulate a spectrum of available archival materials.

Emily also noted that The Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference, held this year in Austin from April 9th-13th, could also serve as a source of inspiration for unearthing an exhibition focus. While perusing the paper topics for the upcoming conference, Emily noticed one in particular: Placing the Profession: Early Contexts for Interior Design Practice in the US. This, in conjunction with her educational studies, helped Emily land on her topic of “Inside Modern Texas: The Case For Preserving Interiors.” Says Emily of the topic:

“The idea behind it is that, as much as modern architecture is gaining momentum in historic preservation [nowadays], interiors aren’t always considered. This is also true of buildings of other periods, but with modern interiors, significant characteristics like spatial relationships or lack of ornament can be especially difficult to recognize.  And commercial interiors are a challenge. There can be more pressure to update constantly when a forward-thinking image is considered important for the success of a business.”

To articulate her thought process visually, Emily divided her exhibition into three main parts, the first being a brief overview of modern interior design and its principles. As interior designers or architectural history buffs may know, interior design was still in the process of growing into its own profession during the mid twentieth century. Emily, in the first third of her exhibition, lays out the several factors that contributed to the profession of interior design in Texas, focusing on major influences, including the contributions of the Dallas Market Center. Harwell Hamilton Harris created the drawings for the Trade Mart within the Center, which the Alexander Archive possesses – a key example of the types of resources available!

The second part of the exhibition transitions to a chronological overview of interiors, sourced from the Archive and images from the library’s journals. These sections serve as an excellent primer for the final third of Emily’s exhibition: the challenges behind preserving modern historic interiors. To articulate her thought process, emily utilizes three case study examples in Texas: The Wilson House in Temple, former home and showroom of the founder of Wilsonart Laminate Company and current house museum for the same company; the famous Inwood Theatre in Dallas, which features a 1980’s bar addition to its 1947 lobby interior; and the Austin National Bank Building, now McGarrah Jessee Advertising on East 6th Street, a key feature in Austin’s adaptive reuse scene.

By doing exhaustive research and spending her working days fawning over the Archive’s incredible depth of modern architectural drawings, photographs, prints, and more (it was one of her favorite parts!), Emily has created a beautiful and thoughtful exhibition that draws attention to a highly relevant topic in preservation: the retention of historic interiors. Says Emily:

The interior of a building is what its users interact with directly, so it can serve as an especially informative historic record. That same direct interaction can be a challenge for continued use of the building. Adaptive reuse can be a very useful and practical preservation strategy, but it can result in quite a bit of change particularly to the interior. At the same time, not every historic building can be a house museum. You have to balance those priorities. It’s an interesting problem that historic preservation principles do address already, but whether the focus should be stronger is worth considering.

Emily, in the process of her curation, has uncovered so many provocative topics that could benefit researchers in the future. She has made sure to note when specific interior designers are referenced in projects she comes across, providing them to the archive staff to help with future collection. Interior design as it is today is a relatively young profession, so archival material can be more difficult to find. Though it may not seem like it for her now, Emily’s exhibition will go far beyond its display dates of late March to September 2014 – at least in terms of its research!

We are so excited for her work to be displayed concurrently with the Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference. Please join us on April 10th for the opening reception!

library

Green Building Illustrated: Now Available!

A new design graphics book by Frances D. K. Ching is now available online for UT students, staff, and faculty!

Green Building Illustrated, authored with esteemed engineer and researcher Ian M. Shapiro, delves into the complexities of sustainable design through graphic representation and methodical presentation. Just as its predecessor Building Construction Illustrated addresses buildings both inside and out, Green Building Illustrated provides standards and specifications for constructing sustainable structures, hitting on topics such as site selection, water conservation, air quality, ventilation, materials, and much, more more.

As sustainability continues to be a key factor in both new construction and preservation projects alike, this book will be an extremely useful source for students, practitioners, and faculty alike.

Check out the text here!

library, special collections

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Posthumous Contribution: An Icon of a City

While searching for all of the items in Karl Kamrath’s Collection last semester, I was directly exposed to the vast depth and diversity of a successful architect’s personal library. From Alden Dow to Katherine Morrow to Richard Neutra, Kamrath’s collection spanned decades and encompassed elements of major movements and achievements in the 20th century.

While his collection contains some quintessential readings that were quite prolific (such as Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings, Hassan Fathy’s Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s The Future of Architecture), there are also some limited publications of several design projects that Kamrath and his firm were associated with. As I sifted through special collections to find these professional reports, one caught my eye before I even noticed the Kamrath Collection stamp on the cover: The Monona Basin Project.

My interest directly stems from the report’s subject: a schematic master plan for the city of Madison, Wisconsin. As a University of Wisconsin graduate who spent five years in Madison, I was immediately intrigued by the possibility of being able to compare my visual of Madison with a plan dating back to 1967.

For anyone that’s either been a resident of the greater Wisconsin-Illinois area or happens to be a Frank Lloyd Wright buff, you know that Wright’s career began in Madison as a student at the University of Wisconsin. Though he never completed his engineering degree, he went on to realize many significant projects in Madison and the surrounding area, including the Robert M. Lamp House, Unitarian Meeting House, and Taliesin in nearby Spring Green, one of his most famous projects. However, Monona Terrace likely possesses one of the most interesting timelines of all of Wright’s works – and I’m here to share that story with you all!

Wright originally envisioned a “dream civic center” for the city of Madison as early as 1938. Situated along the shores of Lake Monona – one of Madison’s largest lakes – and within walking distance from the state’s Capitol building, his initial plan called for a rail depot, marina, courthouse, city hall, and auditorium. However, the County Board turned down his proposal with a single vote.

In 1941, approval for a municipal auditorium was passed, and Wright presented a modified version of his Monona Terrace plan to the board yet again. However, instead of another rejection, a different conflict intervened – World War II. That very same inhibitor proved to be a catalyst for Wright’s project after the end of the war, as the economy boomed; Wright was ultimately selected as the architect for the project in 1954. He was quoted as saying his appointment of project architect for the Monona Terrace by the voters of Madison meant more to him than any other award at the time.

In 1959, Wright completed his last rendering for the project. Later that year, he passed away in August – followed by the opening of the iconic Guggenheim Museum in New York City in October. Scholars have noted the striking curvilinear similarities in form and intent between the Guggenheim and Wright’s plans for the Monona Terrace – similarities tat would not be realized until decades later.

In 1966, the site of the Monona Terrace project was revisited, and Taliesin Architects were recruited to develop a master plan for the site and the city. This schematic proposal, which became known as The Monona Basin Project, is outlined in Kamrath’s copy of the same name.

The renderings and drawings within the pages of this proposal are absolutely stunning. Full of both organic and geometric shapes and careful, sinuous line work, the pages seem tinged with the memory of Frank Lloyd Wright.

For those of you that have never visited Madison or studied the Monona Terrace, you may think this is the end of the story, right?

False. This elaborately documented proposal – which included three miles of shoreline; the redevelopment of Olin Park, located across the lake from the Monona Terrace; and the beginning phases of a 2,500-seat performing arts center – was excessively over budget and subsequently halted by the mayor! I know, I know – the rate at which I’m curating this story makes it seem like it was a imaginative project and never completed. But I promise, it’s real.

Throughout the 1980s, several proposals for a new civic center in Madison were submitted by developers – but all of them failed. In the early 1990s, the then-mayor heavily lobbied for the support of reviving Wright’s original 1959 proposal and turning his vision into a reality.

Finally, between 1992-1994, funds were allocated from a number of sources, and the construction on Wright’s civic center began. Its interiors were redesigned by the Taliesen architect Tony Puttnam, and in 1997, the Monona Terrace was opened to the public – 59 years after the original inception of the project and 38 years after Wright’s death.

Today, the Monona Terrace is a hub for cultural events, weddings, professional conferences, and more. As a frequent visitor during my Madison days, I can confirm that Frank Lloyd Wright’s contributions to the project are highly celebrated and integrated into nearly every facet of the user experience; for example, the grand hallway from the main entrance functions almost as a gallery of Wright’s work, lined with photographs of projects spanning his entire lifespan. This posthumously-built icon of a city, full of a tumultuous and contested history, is one of my favorite Wright-influenced works, and gives a glimpse into the incredible complexity behind the ideation and completion of an architectural project.

Searching for all of the books in Karl Kamrath’s collection has proven to be one of my most educational experiences. I have learned more about the cities I love – Madison, Chicago, Austin, and more – and delved into the sources of inspiration of a successful architect. Stay tuned for another blog post on a similar proposal involving Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., also from Kamrath’s collection. These behind-the-scenes stories are so fun to tell!

Interested in exploring the Monona Basin Project in detail? The title discussed above is housed in our Special Collections under the call number -F- NA 9127 M33 T35 1967.

archive, exhibition

Inside Modern Texas: Developing an Exhibit

I’ve been working all semester on a new GRA assignment in the Architecture and Planning Library/Alexander Architectural Archive, and I’m finally ready to let the word out. My task is to develop an exhibit for display in the Battle Hall Reading Room during the spring 2014 semester. See previous examples of Reading Room exhibits here and here. I’ve never worked in a museum or archive before, so the curating process was completely new to me. Here is how it’s happened so far.

After weeks of thinking about it, I chose to combine my interior design background and current focus in historic preservation and look at interiors of the modern movement as a consideration for preservation. First I set a few limits (modern nonresidential interiors, located in Texas only, between 1945 and around 1980). The next step was browsing hundreds of the Alexander Architectural Archive‘s holdings to find images that fit the theme. I also looked for background information on specific projects in the project files for various architects. This was my favorite part of the process. What could be more enjoyable than looking through beautiful drawings all day?

Browsing the Archive with Nancy Sparrow, Curatorial Assistant for Public Services
Browsing the archive with Nancy Sparrow, Curatorial Assistant for Public Services

Meanwhile, I completed preliminary research to inform the structure of the exhibit.  For this I discovered the reference collection located in the Reading Room. This area houses building code books and general reference volumes like encyclopedias, but it also includes great specific subject reference books related to architecture and design. Books such as A Century of Interior Design, 1900-2000 and Dallas Architecture, 1936-1986 helped me to establish a framework of development of the interior design industry and overall architectural development of Texas during the chosen time period.

I also decided to do outside research on recent historic preservation projects in Texas that gave some consideration to the original interior design. Several of these projects will be featured in the exhibit.

The next step was to outline the structure of the exhibit and select final images to display. Then came the title. The title needed to convey the subject (interior design), design era (modernism), time period (post-WWII), place (Texas), and the intent (consideration for historic preservation) in a concise and catchy package. After brainstorming and rearranging words what must have been hundreds of times, Inside Modern Texas: The Case for Preserving Post-War Interiors rose to the top.

Lots of behind-the-scenes tasks are still ahead to get this exhibit up and on display. Look for Inside Modern Texas some time in March.  Meanwhile, don’t forget to go beyond the stacks to the reference collection, Alexander Architectural Archive, and even special collections for your own research needs.