Present: Jonathan Ambrosino, Fred Atherton, Eric Breitkreutz, David Coe, Taya Dixon, Leslie Donovan, Marilyn Fenollosa, David Fixler, David M. Hart, John Hecker, Lisa Howe, Wendall Kalsow, David Kelman, Michael Lynch, Doug Manley, Henry Moss, Ivan Myjer, Maia Brindley Nilsson, Chris Patzke, Elizabeth Randall, Ophelia Richter, Susan Schur, Malcolm Smiley, Charlie Smith, Jay Stanbury, Robert Thomas, Eric Ward, John Wathne, Sara Wermiel, and Gary Wolf 1. BSA Preservation Award: Eric Ward and David Hart presented a special award from our Committee to Stanley Smith, who is retiring as the Executive Director of Historic Boston, at a farewell reception at the Old State House in the second week of April. 2. Guastavino Tour: Sara Wermiel announced a tour that she and John Ochsendorf organized for May 14 to see Guastavino installations at the Forsyth Institute, Church of Christ, Scientist, and Horticultural Hall. [This well organized tour was also well attended. Sara Chase, Susan Schur, Jonathan Smith, John Hecker, Fred Atherton, Henry Moss, and John’s MIT students, one of whom wrote a prize-winning thesis on Guastavino, were there. The Forsyth Institute’s collection of art tile murals was a spectacular addition to the structural tile discussions.] 3. The Modern House in New England: David Fixler presented an illustrated chronology of the development of modern houses in New England. Research by DOCOMOMO/US_New England members Fixler, Gary Wolf, Helene Lipstadt, and Jonathan Smith have revealed a wealth of pre-Gropius Modernism in the region around Boston. Uncovering this history has been difficult because the Depression so interrupted the careers of architects and engineers that some of the most interesting designers produced only a single house. David’s list of Modernists began with an unbuilt house design by Peter Vermulen Smith from the 1920’s, passed through the Wells House in Southbridge by Paul Wood in 1933, and found some depth in the contemporaneous work of Ned Goodell and Henry Hoover, who went on to develop substantial Post-WWII practices. Hoover built at least 60 houses locally- many in Lincoln and Weston. David compared local examples to such icons as Schindler’s Case-Schindler House of 1922, Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 Gruben House (in natural brick), and Aalto’s Villa Mariea. Eventually, Gropius and Breuer built their own homes in Lincoln, and most of the architectural history books begin with these. David’s research has been particularly revealing in the area of Post-WWII developments that adapted Modern house ideas for the suburban market, especially the regional variants of Carl Koch and subdivisions where house sites were distributed among several architects. Examples are Kendall Common, a development in Weston, where Koch, Robert Wood Kennedy, Walter Bogner, Carlton Richmond, Hugh Stubbins, and TAC collaborated to transform a disused golf course into a wooded environment for free-standing houses, as well as Peacock Farm, Five Fields, Conantum, and the better known Six Moon Hill. Gary Wolf used Ned Goodell’s 1933 Field House in Weston as an example of the difficulty of protecting these modest but significant buildings. Pam Fox’s local inventory picked up two striking Modern houses by Goodell. When the Weston Building Inspector received an application to demolish the Field House, the date of construction was unknown. The Weston Historic Commission’s resistance to the proposed demolition gained backbone from DOCOMOMO’s research. As he helped to develop the preservation case for the Field House, Gary discovered that there was no history of the Modern House in New England. Worse yet, there was a false history suggesting that it began with Gropius and Breuer at Wood’s End in Lincoln. Most of these homes are small by today’s standards and easy targets for “tear down” replacements. The vigilance of local historic commissions (and especially their part-time professional advisors) has frustrated some recent attempts to demolish these houses and sell cleared sites, but the discussion remains difficult. This is especially the case where the original building was considered semi-permanent and where maintenance has fallen behind the rate of deterioration in building envelopes. DOCOMOMO has proposed a series of oral histories with people who can help document the development of the Modern House and hopes to produce an annotated guide to the Modern House in New England to consolidate some of the history that has already begun to take form around this subject. John Ellis of Wentworth’s Architecture Department has supported these investigations by organizing studios where students research particular houses, record changes in scale drawings, and construct models for comparison. [BSA exhibit in 5th floor meeting room early in 2004.] 4. Granite and Marble Conference: Susan Schur and Ivan Myjer produced a stellar conference on granite and marble at MIT on May 8 & 9. Their technical conferences have attained a national reputation for the quality of their speakers and the new information they present to practicing professionals in the preservation community, and this event reached a new level of thoughtful discussion. The BSA is a co-sponsor along with the MIT Department of Architecture, Technology & Conservation Magazine, and Building & Monument Conservation. Please suggest ideas for future symposia organized around technical aspects of building conservation. 5. APT Northeast: Michael Lynch reported on APT’s tour of the new Simpson, Gumpertz & Hager labs in Waltham. Eighteen people attended, worked their way through slides illustrating petrographic analysis and showed true enthusiasm for machinery that breaks things. 6. Restoration & Renovation: Many people visited the trade show and noted that the suppliers’ main market is to the owners of historic homes. Workshops dealing with advanced planning and technical topics may not be suitable for this audience, unless the information has bearing on residential projects. featuring Orchard House, the Alcott Home and House Museum, Concord, Massachusetts by David Hart, Ernie Conrad 8: 00 a.m., Thursday, June 10, 2004 The Architects' Building, 52 Broad Street, 5th floor, Boston
Henry Moss AIA, Matthew Bronski, and Sara Wermiel, co-leaders and scribes
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