I’ve completed the first draft of one of the four buildings I am studying – the Kauke Hall pages. They are uploaded on my website, but since the website hasn’t been officially launched yet, I have linked them to this post via Google docs (where I uploaded them to back them up).
Old Main Fire – http://goo.gl/bazq0
Birth of Kauke Hall – http://goo.gl/fNGwC
1961 Renovation – Delmar Archway – http://goo.gl/PXg9P
Kauke Hall Today – http://goo.gl/6r7sa
Earlier this week, the College of Wooster hosted Lawrence Biemiller, a senior writer with the Chronicle of Higher Education. Lawrence had just embarked on a November tour of college campuses (you can follow his whole tour here), and one of his first stops was in Wooster. I have been following Lawrence Biemiller’s blog, “Buildings & Grounds,” on the Chronicle’s website for several weeks now to keep up with national trends in campus planning and architecture as I create my senior independent study. When I heard of Lawrence’s trip, I immediately invited him to Wooster to talk campus architecture and to find out what makes Wooster, Wooster.
Lawrence accepted my invitation and we meet this past Monday afternoon (November 1st) on the steps of Severance Gymnasium, now Ebert Art Center, to begin our tour. We toured Severance Gymnasium with its running track and Senior I.S. art studios, then we headed over to Kauke Hall, and the campus mall. From there we toured McGaw, Morgan, Severance Chemistry, Frick Hall (now know as Timken Science Library) and Andrews and Gault libraries. After showing him the Lowry pit and grabbing a quick cup of coffee, we finished the tour by looking at the new Scot Center, Gault Manor, and Bornhuetter Hall. We talked extensively about the Old Main Fire (which features prominently in my I.S.) and how that has more than anything else, shaped the campus of the College. Lawrence remarked that this was a first for him, as he has in thirty years of doing this, never had an architectural tour of a college campus with a (former) football player. To see Lawrence’s write up of the tour, click here.
Overall, it was a great experience to talk to a professional who has been studying campus architecture and campus planning on a national level for many years. It has helped me with my project just to walk and talk about the campus and discuss what I have been studying for the past several months. Speaking with Lawrence, an outsider, who hasn’t been involved in my project at all, but still has an obvious interest and education in the subject helped me work through some troubles I have been having with my project. His suggestions, offers of help, and questioning as we strolled around campus helped me make some new connections that, before, I had not considered. I really enjoyed the tour, and it seemed liked he did as well.
To read of Lawrence’s other activities while in Wooster, click here.
The College of Wooster recently had a “beam signing” for Wooster students, faculty, staff, and trustees as part of the construction process for the new athletic facility on campus, known as the Scot Center 
(Click here for a short video of the event). The purpose was to give many the chance to “leave their mark” as the new Scot Center is for every student, every day. The beam will now be placed prominently near the entrance of the building when completed.
Your probably wondering by now how this relates to historic preservation, and of course my blog. Well, during the event, President Cornwell said a few remarks concerning the beam and what it mean for the campus community. He used the phrase, “Rise like a phoenix,” to describe the beam’s path as it moved towards the patio where the event was being held.
This isn’t the first time that the phrase “like a phoenix” has be used to describe building construction at the College of Wooster. The first time the phoenix was mentioned at the college was 110 years ago after the fire of Old Main, the principle academic building at the time, which resulted in the building being a total loss. For a while, it seemed as if all hope was lost, and that the University of Wooster (as it was known at the time) was destine to fail. However, that was not to be, as Wooster embarked on a massive fund-raising campaign, enlisting the help of Andrew Carnegie to build five new buildings on campus. Four of the five are still around today: Kauke, Scovel, Severance Chemistry, and Taylor (the fifth, a power plant, once stood near where Kenarden Lodge is today). Local newspaper coverage of the tragedy and subsequent building project summed it up best: “Tested by fire, Wooster’s phoenix rose again.”
The question is did President Cornwell realize what he was hearkening back to in his speech during the beam signing? Was he paying homage to a previous building campaign, in light of the fact that Wooster, a 1o0 years later, has embarked on another great building campaign? Bornhuetter Hall, Gault Manor, the Kauke renovation, and now the Scot Center have changed the way the campus looks dramatically. Although a fire didn’t spark (pun intended) this building campaign, might it still be apt to say, with the major transformations the college has experienced in the past decade, that Wooster’s Phoenix has risen once again?
So November is here and the semester is coming to a close way to fast. Only five more weeks left. I don’t really have a chapter draft right now, but the good news is the website is up and running – and actually has some content on it. In the next couple of days I am going to try and hammer out the first building – Kauke. Unfortunately, I probably won’t be able to launch that part of the site till later, on account of the images and other media that will be included not being processed in time. I’ll post some of the content later as soon as its fleshed out a bit.
That’s all for now.
My advisers and I had a very productive meeting with the folks over at Instructional Technology about my project and where it’s headed. We hammered out a lot of details, such as what platform I was going to use to construct my website (WordPress) and the various things I am going to need to do to create my I.S. website. Other things we discussed were how to make it mobile device friendly and using Goggle Maps and VoiceThread as part of my project. We talked website layout with the attached handout – as you can see, I have gone a little Bubble.us crazy recently.
Going along with my prospectus that was due last week, I am still in the planning stages for most of my project. While I am reading, researching the several tours stops that I am going to create, I am also starting to plan out the first one I will be making, the one on Kauke Hall. Kauke Hall is a such a central part of the campus, and with its two distinct renovations it would be hard to ignore when discussing historic preservation at the College. Below is the framework/storyboard that I have created to guide me in developing the tour stop. I used an internet site, bubble.us to construct it.
Although historic preservation is still largely defining itself as a field of study and as a profession, the debate that has ranged over several key issues has defined what historic preservation is today. All three of the subsequent debates are critical to understanding historic preservation theory and practice in the United States, and how the decisions are made that affect historic preservation work.
The first debate is how to do historic preservation, namely the idea of Restoration versus Preservation – should Historic Preservation restore old buildings, actively improving them with newer technology and better construction methods, while still invoking the past history of the building as argued by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc? Or, should historic preservation preserve buildings by retaining the status quo, as favored by John Ruskin, maintaining the structure as it was found? And then where does David Lowenthal fit in, who injects the idea of collective memory and how that influences our conception of the past and history?
The second debate is why do historic preservation? Do people engage in it for purely economic reasons – as a part of urban planning and revitalization, as Nathan Weinberg and the National Trust for Historic Preservation champion? Some historians argue though that there is a greater, more loftier goal and that there is a moral prerogative in historic preservation. Historic preservation has goals other than just monetary ones namely in creating cultural identity and promoting cultural diversity as Diana Barthel points out in Historic Preservation: Collective Memory and Historical Identity. It is a way of people using history in their everyday lives, a way of democratizing history. How is collective memory and national identity affected by historic preservation?
The third debate is who does historic preservation and who should do historic preservation. Is it a solely a government function, a job for the government to preserve and protect significant historical and cultural sites important to the history of the county? Or, should it be grass-roots, by letting the people decide what they want to save or destroy. Who wins when the two forces of the government and the people collide, how do you work out the problems of actually doing historic preservation within the laws and regulations of the United States? Just because something is not eligible to be protected within the government’s regulations of historic preservation, should it still not be preserved if there are communities or groups that deem it important to save? What happens when the government doesn’t wish to save something and the people do. What are the roles of government and the people in historic preservation?
My prospectus which outlines my project is finished. I have attached it to this post for all who care to read.
Check out Loyd Wollstadt’s photo set of Old Wooster on Flickr – there are some great photos of the campus, circa 1959-63, as well as homecoming traditions. I would love to get permission to use some of these for my project.
Here are some of the sources I am going to use for my project. The first is an edited book that discusses landscape archaeology and cultural landscapes. The second is a photographic history of Wooster by Wooster’s noted town historian, Harry McClarran.
Alanen, Arnold R, and Robert Melnick. Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
This work is an edited volume concerning cultural landscape. Of particular interest is chapter 8 “Integrity as a Value in Cultural Landscape Preservation” by Catherine Howett. Howett argues that the key componet in preserving lanscapes is integrity. She distinguishes between true history and false history False history is practiced at museum sites such as Colonial Williamsburg and in many historic preservation projects such as the Medina, OH downtown district project. This type of history gives people the wrong interpretation of the past. The integrity of historic preservation practice is called into question, because of what preservationists have done to the landscape, as a means of restoring it. She concludes that only through integrity can the real essence of historic preservation become apparent, otherwise, professionals are merely creating fantasylands based loosely on history. Howett agrees with the definition of integrity defined by the section 106 process, which is based upon the significance of the building. For the building to be eligible there must be integrity, a connection between the past and present for the criteria to apply. The integrity of the past significance of the building with the present structure must be intact. If the importance of the building is not apparent in present state, then the preservation process of that building has failed from a viewpoint of historical integrity
McClarran, Harry S. A Glimpse from the Front Porch and a Bridge to the Past: A Photographic History of Wooster Ohio 1808-2008. Wooster, Ohio: Wooster Book, 2007.
Compiled by the city of Wooster’s self-appointed Historian, Harry McClarran, this book is an excellent source of photographs of the Wooster area, including the College of Wooster. Several photographs detail the various changes done to campus in the many years of its existence.
