Academics in Tennis Shoes: Historic Preservation and the Academy

Introduction and Overview

Shared Ground: Architectural historians and historic preservationists share common interests in architecture and urbanism.
- Preservation inspires and expands historical research and teaching.
- American historic preservationists adopted interpretive and conceptual categories from academic architectural historians in the twentieth century, moving beyond links to filiopietism and patriotic narratives.
- Sites valued for architectural style and beauty have sometimes overshadowed those associated with national and local history in preservation efforts.
Distinct Paths and Fault Lines: Despite complementarity, the two fields have different discursive and methodological approaches.
- Preservation: Involves political purposes and the applied use of history.
- Architectural History: Strives for disinterested, discerning, and authoritative knowledge.
- Disengagement: Most architectural historians in the academy have largely disengaged from preservation work.
- Alan Gowans (1965): Noted architectural historians played a "surprisingly small and rather ignominious part" in historic preservation.
Essay's Purpose: To explore both the alliances and estrangement between architectural history and historic preservation, and to outline future possibilities for preservation to enrich architectural history beyond merely keeping buildings as objects of desire for historians.

Historical Tensions and Skepticism

Reyner Banham's Critiques (1965):
- Expressed critical skepticism about preservation, stating, "I am not a preservationist, in spite of the fact that I am a historian."
- Focused on the future and practice of architecture, not dwelling on the past.
- Dismissed "preservationist panics over insignificant buildings," preferring reasonable and humane reasons for demolition over preserving every building.
- Typified a common perspective among certain architectural historians.
Origins of Preservation: Associational Power vs. Architectural Standards:
- Historic Preservation: Originated from the associational power of particular sites, often linked to nationalism and nostalgia in the nineteenth century.
- Leadership (19th Century): Predominantly driven by women's amateur culture.
- Ann Pamela Cunningham: Led the national crusade in 1853 to save George Washington's home and tomb at Mount Vernon (Figure 1), embodying the "cult of the Union" based on sentiment.
- Women's Patriotic and Civic Organizations: Preservation projects often initiated by groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution, Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
- Architectural History: As a scholarly discipline, architectural history articulated standards of architectural quality and character.
Professionalization and Marginalization of Women:
- Twentieth Century Shift: Professionalization of historic preservation led to the marginalization of women.
- Basis for Preservation: Shifted from patriotism to aesthetics.
- William Sumner Appleton (1910): Founded the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, symbolizing the move towards aesthetics and formalism, though still utilizing female and patriotic support.
- Persistence of Female Involvement: Women continued to organize campaigns and challenge destructive market forces, maintaining the stereotype of preservationists as "blue-haired ladies in tennis shoes."
- Alice Winchester (1956): Noted that despite increased professional involvement, the majority of projects remained "in the hands of small local groups."
- Critique of Development: Women used their position, somewhat outside market imperatives, to critique urban renewal and highway building.
- Cunningham's 1874 Farewell Address: Warned against "vandal hands desecrating with the fingers of progress" at Mount Vernon.
- Mid-1960s Example: "Save Our Landmarks!" (Save the Plaza Square) committee, formed by prominent New York women, attempted to halt the demolition of the Savoy-Plaza Hotel for a General Motors building.
Architectural Historians Redefine Preservation:
- Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Founders (1940): Initially viewed preservationists as central and included a roundtable on "historic architectural monuments" in their 1941 annual meeting.
- Redefinition: Sought to reshape preservation in their own image, focusing on "monuments of architecture" rather than "monuments of history."
- Turpin Bannister (First SAH President): Lamented the "emotional focus" that obscured "true architectural value," criticizing the "cult of the Colonial" for venerating all pre-Revolutionary structures and even fabricating "historic shrines."
- Henry-Russell Hitchcock (Later SAH President): Objected to the "all-too-prevalent regional myopia" of local preservation, calling for "criteria" and curbing "excessive preservation of seventeenth and eighteenth century houses… without regard to essential architectural merit."
- John Coolidge (SAH Founder, late 1950s): Argued that the "romantic dream of the past" led preservationists to "save the wrong things," appealing for an "international standard" of quality (e.g., valuing H.H. Richardson's railroad stations over attempts to recreate Clarke Street in Newport).
- Distancing: Bannister, Hitchcock, and Coolidge distanced themselves from the methods and priorities of patriotic women and amateur preservationists.
Academic Rift on American Architecture:
- Provincial View: Many architectural historians considered American architecture, even its "monuments," provincially insignificant compared to European architecture.
- European Superiority: The pervasive view of formal European architectural superiority meant American historic preservation carried the additional burden of being seen as insignificant.
- Modernist Interpretation: Even when American architects were canonized, they were often treated as modernists rather than Americans.
Architects' Relationship with Preservation:
- Apathy to Active Dislike: While architectural historians sometimes showed apathy, architects often expressed active dislike.
- Post-WWII Modernism: In architecture schools, Modernist pedagogy deemed preservation "irrelevant" and an "obstructionist" threat to creativity.
- Walter Gropius: Expressed impatience with efforts to preserve "particularly insignificant period" structures (e.g., McKim, Mead & White's Pennsylvania Station), seeing them as "pseudo-tradition" and an evasion of the architect's responsibility to invent modern forms.
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