Progressive Preservation Talks with Randy Mason

750 5th Street,Columbus IN 47201

20 March, 2023

Description

2023 Progressive Preservation Talkwith Randy Mason from The University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of DesignMonday, 20 MarchCSA Lincoln Elementary School This talk is sponsored by the Cornelius O'Brien Lecture Series.Join us for this special conversation about how Progressive Preservation efforts can help build communities.This second event in this series will take place in the CSA Lincoln Elementary School Gymnateria, and will feature Randy Mason from the University of Pennsylvania. The evening will begin with a reception at 5:15 pm with a brief reception before the talk. The talk is sponsored by the Cornelius O'Brien Lectures Series.There will be a special tour of Lincoln Elementary before the start of the talk. Randy was on a team to create a Conservation Management Plan for the Miller House and Garden which was completed with funding from the Getty Foundation; he has written extensively on community-based preservation approaches.Joining rand for a brief conversation will be Theodore Prudon, FAIA, FAPT, a leading expert on the preservation of modern architecture and a practicing architect in New York City. Dr. Prudon teaches preservation at Columbia University and Pratt Institute. He is the recipient of a Graham Foundation Individual grant for his book “Preservation of Modern Architecture”. He is the founding President of Docomomo US and a board member of Docomomo International.Randy Mason teaches in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and is a Professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning at the Weizman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. His courses focus on historic preservation planning, urban conservation, history, and cultural landscape studies. Mason's research interests include history and theory of preservation, preservation planning, the economics of preservation, historic site management, and the history and design of memorials. He served as Program Chair from 2009-2017 and Executive Director of PennPraxis from 2014-2017. Mason leads two research groups: the PennPraxis’ Urban Heritage Project, which undertakes planning, preservation and cultural landscape projects for the National Park Service and other clients; and the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites, which conducts research, teaching and fieldwork related to Black heritage places marking civil rights histories. His publications include several books: The Once and Future New York: Historic Preservation and the Modern City (University of Minnesota Press, 2009, winner of SAH’s Antoinette Forrester Downing award) and Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States (edited with Max Page; Routledge, second edition, 2019); Values in Heritage Management (edited by Erica Avrami, Susan Macdonald, Randall Mason, and David Myers; Getty Publications, 2019). Before joining the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design faculty in 2004, Mason worked as Senior Project Specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute, researching economic and social issues relating to heritage conservation. He contributed to several Getty publications including Economics and Heritage Conservation, Values and Benefits of Cultural Heritage Conservation, and Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage. Previous positions included Assistant Professor and Director of Historic Preservation at the University of Maryland, and adjunct faculty in landscape architecture at RISD. His professional experience includes several years of consulting practice and co-founding the nonprofit research group Minerva Partners (which developed projects to strengthen the connections between heritage conservation and social development). He serves on the Board of Directors of Eastern State Penitentiary Inc. and was on the board of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia from 2006-2013. Mason was awarded the 2012-2013 National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize, and during his residency at the American Academy in Rome researched the Roman architect, planner, and conservationist Gustavo Giovannoni. Earlier in 2012, Mason was granted an Honorary Doctorate, Honoris Causa, from Gothenburg University in Sweden. Photos of the school by Hadley Fruits About Lincoln Elementary, Gunnar Birkerts (1967) from the Columbus Area Visitor Center. The AIA (American Institute of Architects) gave this building an Honor award in 1970, one of five recognized in Columbus by the AIA. Designing Lincoln gave Birkerts the challenge of building a school for elementary children that was very close to downtown along a busy traffic street. The school board wanted a building with a playground area protected from traffic along with green space all on a rather small single square block site. They also expressed the desire to keep the scale small out of respect to the mostly residential area that was there at the time. It was also important to be a good neighbor to the adjacent Irwin House and Gardens. Birkerts solution was what he termed an “introverted schoolhouse with a simple brick facade.” He designed it to fit into its surroundings without drawing undue attention to itself. The building is actually lowered half a level underground with a sunken court around the exterior. From the street, it visually appears as a one-story building with direct access to both levels. Birkerts always liked to design with concepts of opposites and of geometry. An aerial view of Lincoln shows it as a square within a circle within a square. The square building is surrounded by a circular concrete retaining wall and a circular ring of little leaf linden trees to give it a park-like quality. It is surrounded again by the square of the city block on which it sits. Some say a “bird's eye” view of the building shows it as a “square peg in a round hole.” The area between the school walls and the retaining ring was reserved as a protected area for the youngest students. Beyond the ring of trees are larger play spaces for the bigger kids. The playground area is enclosed within a 3-foot earth berm. This was the first school building in the country to provide handicapped access to both levels via ramps and an elevator. Years before ADA requirements, this building featured extra wide doors, an elevator, and self-contained classrooms. This building won the Bartlett Award in 1970 which recognizes buildings designed for full-time use by the physically challenged.