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Present: Bill Barry, Matthew Bronski, Michael DeLacey, Claire Dempsey, Taya Dixon, Marilyn Fenollosa, David Hart, Lisa Howe, Jack Glassman, Richard Jarvis, David Kelman, Doug Manley, Henry Moss, Deborah Robinson, Brian Roche, Susan Schur, Eric Ward, Sara Wermiel 1. Plunkett Hospital, Adams, Massachusetts: The Town of Adams is struggling to find a favorable economic solution for their handsome, but long vacant, Plunkett Hospital. The 10,700 sf structure is a brick Colonial Revival design from the office of Parker, Thomas, and Rice. The hospital was a donation to the town in 1917. A study commissioned by Mass Development concluded that there is no viable new use. A hopeful and energetic local advocacy group (Save Plunkett Hospital) is searching for support. Our committee wrote to the Massachusetts Historical Commission encouraging their staff to contact the Adams Board of Selectmen to discuss alternatives to demolition. 2. Vernacular Architecture Forum: Claire Dempsey, who teaches in Boston University's Preservation Studies Program, is also a mainstay of the regional chapter of the Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF). Claire introduced our committee to the organization, which began in 1980 germinating in the academic topsoils disturbed by revisionist approaches to the history of material culture. The 1966 Historic Preservation Act created a new demand for field studies by architectural historians, and many young people found themselves unprepared academically for their encounters with vernacular buildings. The organization helped to create a new emphasis on material culture as evidence for lives undocumented in much of preceding American historical writing. These were the heady days of Claude Levi-Strauss and Noam Chomsky, and one break with orthodox architectural history was to concentrate upon attributes of buildings more basic than style. Therefore an emphasis on plan and general arrangement dominated the developmental analyses of their study. Claire presented a quick example as she traced the development of common New England house types from the two-room Cape Cod houses with center chimneys to 1 1/2 story versions with stoves and attic kneewalls/End House variants with their gables facing the street in Athenian Temple-Front versions, Italianate versions, Mansard versions, and their ultimate transformation into Three Deckers. Claire cited indicative publications such as, Building Portsmouth by Richard Candee, Jonathan Poston's Guide to Charleston, South Carolina, and Thomas Hubka's Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: the connected farm buildings of New England. VAF field trips always have informed guides and examine buildings that pose interesting interpretive problems. Ann Forbes, Larry Sorley, and Ellen Weiss have taken groups through a number of buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries. The next annual meeting will be in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard. Winter meetings usually take place at Old Sturbridge Village and are organized around the presentation of scholarly papers. The local chapter of the Vernacular Architecture Forum organizes annual meetings, tours, and publications. The VAF website <http:www.vernaculararchitecture.org/> provides current information about upcoming meetings and other items of interest to VAF members. Membership dues range from $15 for Students and $25 for Active members to $100 per year for Patrons. Send your application letter and check to: Vernacular Architecture Forum, C/o Gabrielle Lanier, P. O. Box 1511, Harrisonburg, VA 22803-1511. E-mail Gabrielle Lanier at laniergm@jmu.edu if you have questions. 3. Chestnut Hill Waterworks: Henry reported that he had testified before the BRA Board on behalf of the committee in favor of the BPA/HMI proposal for a zoning change for the Pipe Yard from Open Space to allow for multi-story housing and commercial uses portion of the Chestnut Hill Waterworks site. The proposed change was approved. The Society of Architectural Historians, the Boston Landmarks Commission, and the National Trust also supported the change in zoning. David Kelman described the continuing local opposition. 4. Chapter 34 Code Revisions: Sara and Henry described a very constructive meeting with the BSA Codes Committee, where Chapter 34 and its weird descriptors ("Totally Preserved Building," and "Partially Preserved Building") were debated. People noted the latitude afforded different building officials by ambiguity inherent in the word "substantial." Sara noted that there are few serious criticisms of Chapter 34 in its present form. Henry and others were concerned by the delays caused when local building officials send most proposed compliance alternatives to the State Board for their endorsement as variances. 5. Harleston Parker Award, McKim Building: The committee applauded Bill Barry as the nearest living representative of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbot for receiving the Harleston Parker Award for their alterations and restoration of the McKim building of the Boston Public Library. Henry noted that the same work had been nominated almost ten years previously, and the jurors had been troubled by the concept that such work could be awarded recognition as significant "design." The recent award seemed to represent an expansion of consciousness and a refreshing new tolerance for ambiguity in the authorship of evolving architectural masterworks. 6. HRC Party at the Old State House: On June 19 at 6:00 p.m., the committee threw a party to recognize the accomplishments of one of its founders, Bob Neiley. Underreported in the nation's gossip columns, Ada Louise Huxtable, Donald Trump, Lee Michael Kennedy, Senator Hilary Clinton, Jennifer Lopez, Acting Governor Jane Swift, Whitey Bulger, Mo Finegold, and Dame Joan Sutherland were among the standing-room-only turnout. In an impassioned plea to conserve the Modern Theater on Washington Street, Bob established "incongruity" as a new, positive criterion for local landmark designation. 8: 00 a.m., Thursday, July 11, 2002 The Architects' Building, 52 Broad Street, Boston, Fifth Floor |