PRESERVATION ALUMNI M E M O of Summer 2008

“GREEN DESIGN:” The New Term for Old-Fashioned Preservation

BY JAMIE GIBBS I grew up in the 60s when recycle was not a word yet. Air pollution was only a recognized problem in major cities. Green was only a color and we had one waste basket in the kitchen. At the same time, I was raised by my grandparents. They had lived through two World Wars, the Great Depression, several recessions and rationing, and they were cautious! In other words, without the government or consumer groups telling us to be thrifty and conscientious, we cashed in Coke bottles, gave the milkman back empties, reused aluminum foil, balled string, wrapped garbage in old newspapers and never left the lights on. The house was a comfortable 65 degrees in the winter and 75 degrees in the summer. Meridian Street House - Indianapolis, Indiana Today’s greening mandates on residential and commercial - Photo courtesy of Jamie Gibbs design are not a big mystery. They are a logical progression

(see GREEN DESIGN, p. 3)

PRESERVATION ALUMNI NEWS Letter From the President in organizing the party. PA also held This summer has brought both our first ever stand-alone Career Day great happiness and great sorrow in Avery Hall and by all accounts the to the Columbia University Historic turnout was great. Thanks should

Preservation Program community: go to PA board member Amy Diehl- INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Happiness (and relief) for the Crader ’03 for putting it all together. recently graduated Class of 2008 PA also held our third members- Green Design...... Page 1 but also sorrow at the loss of two of only tour in January, organized by our most influential faculty members, Gina Crevello ‘98. PA members got President’s Letter...... Page 1 Jan Hird Pokorny and . treated to a behind-the-scenes look PA Book Donation...... Page 2 A memorial service, attended by at Grand Central Terminal. many alumni, was held for Jan in There have been a few changes In Memoriam: June. One is planned for Paul in over the past few months on the Professors Pokorny September. Our thoughts are with PA board, including the addition of and Byard...... Page 4 the families of both men. several members. Please welcome Spring Party...... Page 6 Preservation Alumni has been very our newest members: Christine active the first half of the year. I Djuric ’01, Sabine van Riel ’06, would like to thank everyone who Richard Handler ’08, and Cristiana braved the stormy weather to attend Peña ‘08. Please also welcome our spring party at the Merchant’s our first-year (soon to be second- House Museum. I would especially year) student representative, like to thank PA board member Lindsay McCook ’09. We also have Blaire Walsh ’07 for all her hard work (see LETTER, p. 2) Preservation Alumni, Inc. is an LETTER (continued from p. 1) PA Makes Annual Book independent, non-profit organiza- Donation to Avery tion founded and run by alumni of a change in board leadership, with the Historic Preservation Program Amy Diehl-Crader ‘03 taking on the Library’s Rare Books at the School of Architecture, Plan- role of Vice President and Jennifer Collection ning and Preservation at Columbia Most ’05 stepping up to serve as University. The mission of PA is the new Secretary. I would like to In the fall, the PA Board once again to support and enrich the Historic extend a special thanks to outgoing Preservation program by advising board members Dan Lane ‘00, Mike gathered in Avery’s rare books and assisting the students, faculty Caratzas ’02, Jacqui Hogans ’05, room to review options for PA’s an- and George Jaramillo ’05, who have and alumni, and to advance pres- nual donation to the library’s grow- ervation as a diverse field of public each provided years of hard work to ing collection. This year we were and professional endeavor. PA. pleased to be able to contribute two I also want to thank the editors of items: an 1890 chromolithographic PA Board of Directors the PA Memo, Sybil Young ‘04 and President Britton Baine ‘04, for putting together two-fold brochure advertising The Kevin Seymour another great issue. Please contact New Combination Folding Bath- Vice President them if you have an article that you tub manufactured by the Marshall would like to submit. You can e-mail Amy Diehl-Crader Furnace Co.; and the 1876 W.S. them at info@preservationalumni. Secretary org. Blunt’s Report on Jennings Clos- Jennifer Most ets [to Colo. Goe. E. Waring Jr.] I would like to invite you all to come Treasurer along with a Description of Blunt’s to our annual fall party to be held Serianne Worden on September 4 at the Scandinavia Massage Apparatus from 1893. House on Park Avenue. Join us in Britton Baine welcoming the new class of 2010, Blunt was a manufacturer of force Joselito Corpus welcoming back the class of 2009, and suction pumps, and Waring Gina Crevello and congratulating was a drainage engineer for Central Christine Djuric ’77 in taking over as Director of the Park in the mid 19th century. The Richard Handler Historic Preservation Program. Stay report makes recommendations Alvin Ho tuned for other upcoming events, Jacqui Hogans including a reception for the GSAPP for improvements to the first toilet, Cleary Larkin Alumni Weekend, a volunteer work while Marshall Furnace promotes Lindsay McCook day and a winter members-only a new folding bathtub with the event. Check our website, www. Cristiana Peña slogan, “No need for a bathroom. Lindsay Smith preservationalumni.org, for the latest Every family should have one.” Sabine van Riel events and of course keep an eye out for our e-mail announcements. Blaire Walsh If you’re interested in contribut- Sybil Young Please keep your membership ing to PA’s annual donation to and contact information current so the library, please visit our web- we can keep you in the loop. If you have events or job openings site, www.preservationalumni.org. The Memo welcomes submissions that you would like posted on the from alumni, students, faculty and website, send them to friends. Please contact us at: [email protected].

Preservation Alumni I hope you all enjoy the rest of P.O. Box 669 your summer and I look forward to Peck Slip Station seeing you all in the fall. New York, NY 10272 [email protected] Best Wishes,

Editors: Sybil Young Kevin Seymour, Class of 2002 Britton Baine

2 GREEN DESIGN (continued from p. 1) architects, designers and restoration renovation that will include the specialists have received green restoration of original tile, limestone for a preservationist. They are common certification for their fabrication, and custom brick. More importantly, sense and thriftiness combined with design or construction activities. There we have received approvals to use new products and services that finally are Continuing Education courses energy efficient interior windows address the need to conserve our and industry-sponsored certification in combination with the restoration energy and protect our environment. programs readily available. Having a of original single-strength leaded As a design professional specializing collegiate education in preservation in the preservation, restoration has taken on new meaning in the and habitability of residential and current job market. Our skills are commercial spaces for thirty years, honed and now required on many I have found the transition towards development projects. specifying and designing to the standards of LEED and the U.S. Green There are new agencies and websites Building Council easier in recent years. useful to the preservationist. The US After pushing the preservation of not Green Building Council, AIA, ASID and LEED all have excellent materials Solarium Fountain - Meridian St. only the environment but existing - Photo courtesy of Jamie Gibbs materials, original architecture, and the available for download from their windows; solar-collecting tile for a reclamation or recycling of architectural websites. Most local municipalities replacement carriage house roof that materials for many years, I am pleased also have links or tabs on their “dot- will duplicate the original structure but that this is now actually a mainstream gov” websites that explain local have many additional benefits; new philosophy. Those of us with requirements, tax incentives, energy devices to collect gray water for use preservation backgrounds certainly rebates and loan programs for green in the landscape irrigation system; have an experiential advantage over design. Even local utility companies and reduced turf areas and increased those of the “tear it down and start have green programs useful to the preservationist. We have not seen this landscape plantings that are drought volume of incentive programs since and disease resistant. These are just the energy crisis of the late 1970s. a few of the many preservationist Anyone who reads the descriptions activities on this job that qualify will recognize that green design is as green design. Our background preservation. in preservation made the historic research on the property much easier. To exemplify this unique symbiotic With period photography, testimonials relationship between preservation and Stained-Glass - Meridian St. the green movement, I’d like to cite a from previous owners, newspaper - Photo courtesy of Jamie Gibbs recent example from my own practice. and magazine articles, and collections over” school. In numerous land-use In Indianapolis, Indiana I am restoring in local, state and federal archives, fields, we are seeing a surge in the a 1922 “Gatsby-era” mansion in the we were able to justify every design need for our services. Meridian Street Historic District. We proposal, including materials, usage are using energy credits from the local and the impact on the historic district. We also have many more materials- utilities to cover some mechanical Without further conversation, our sourcing options and contractors upgrade costs. We are using new applications were approved at the first than in the recent past. First, there materials for the restoration of historic are new products that emphasize hearing. Preservation is green…..and detail that will qualify for a silver LEED preservation doctrines in order to be always has been! certification. We have also received called green. Certifications, logos Certificates of Appropriateness from and specification documents quickly the local and federal landmarks identify these materials. Second, Jamie Gibbs is an interior designer agencies for the sensitive restoration many manufacturers, contractors, and landscape architect in New York. of the property back to a 1927

3 IN MEMORIAM

JAN HIRD POKORNY PAUL SPENCER BYARD 1914-2008 1939-2008 On May 20th, 2008 Professor Emeritus at Columbia Paul Spencer Byard, a land-use lawyer who returned to University, Jan Hird Pokorny, died at his home on East 51st school in his late 30s to study architecture and who became Street in Manhattan. He was 93. an important figure in the renovation of some of New York’s During his long career in New York, Mr. Pokorny influenced most prominent landmarks, died on July 15 at his home in the growth and shape of the built fabric of the city Prospect Heights, . He was 68. The cause was through many of his design projects and in his ten-year cancer, said Charles A. Platt, a partner of Mr. Byard’s in turn as a commissioner on the Landmarks Preservation Platt Byard Dovell White Architects of Manhattan. Commission. In addition to his active professional life in Mr. Byard was one of very few people — perhaps the , Mr. Pokorny retained strong ties to his native only one — whose résumé included both the elite law firm Czechoslovakia and his personal identity was inextricably Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts and the high-profile linked to old-world Europe. In manner, dress, speech, architectural firm James Stewart Polshek & Partners. As an and in his respectful, diplomatic treatment of others, Mr. architect, he worked on the renovations of , Pokorny embodied the idea of a European gentleman. His the Foundation Building, the State Supreme mastery of design, studied professionalism and genteel, Court’s Appellate Division Courthouse on Madison Square soft-spoken manner as well as his dedication to educating and the old Custom House on Bowling Green. the younger generation garnered him the respect of his In person, Mr. Byard was the embodiment of a preservation- colleagues and the love of his students and staff. minded professional: a graduate of three Ivy League Born in 1914 in Brno, Moravia, then part of the Austro- schools and of Cambridge University, and a vestryman Hungarian Empire, he was educated and raised primarily of Trinity Church. But he did not view preservation as a in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In 1932 he entered the matter of casting the past in amber, unaltered. School of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the Czech “Every act of preservation is inescapably an act of renewal Technical University in Prague and graduated in 1937 with by the light of a later time, a set of decisions both about a degree in architecture. He practiced architecture briefly what we think something was and about what we want it to in Czechoslovakia, designing the Sykovec Hotel in the (see POKORNY, p. 5) (see BYARD, p. 5) 4 POKORNY (continued from p. 4) BYARD (continued from p. 4) Czech-Moravian Highlands. In August of 1939, however, be and to say about ourselves today,” he wrote in his book shortly after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia and “The Architecture of Additions: Design and Regulation” the outbreak of World War II, he fled Europe for the United (W.W. Norton, 1998). States. He arrived at the Port of New York on February Mr. Byard was born August 30, 1939, in New York. He 6th, 1940, on a student visa. graduated from Yale College in 1961, and he received Although he had already received full training in Europe, degrees from Clare College, Cambridge, and from Harvard Mr. Pokorny enrolled at Columbia University’s School of Law School. His legal career included a three-year stint Architecture where the Dean, Leopold Arnauld, placed him at Winthrop, Stimson, positions as general counsel to the in the second year class, primarily to allow him to learn Roosevelt Island Development Corporation and associate English, a language which was completely unfamiliar counsel to the New York State Urban Development to him. Within two years he had earned a Masters in Corporation. He was also a private practitioner. Architecture from Columbia. In 1945 he acquired full In 1977, The Graduate School of Architecture and American citizenship. In 1946 he returned to Columbia Planning at Columbia awarded Mr. Byard an architectural University to participate as a design critic, re-establishing a degree, and he joined the firm of James Stewart Polshek vigorous relationship with the institution that had sheltered & Associates (later James Stewart Polshek & Partners), him as a war émigré. He would continue uninterrupted on becoming a partner in 1981, and working on the renovations the faculty until just a few years before his death. of Carnegie Hall, the former United States Custom House After a brief stint with the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and the Villard Houses on Madison Avenue. in the mid 1940s, Pokorny opened a firm with his then Peg Breen, the president of the New York Landmarks wife, Elizabeth Hird. A major commission in 1949 to Conservancy, credited Mr. Byard with devising a novel design a student union and library at Centenary College preservation-financing method that involved a revolving in Hackettstown, New Jersey, gained the firm notice and loan fund using proceeds from the residential conversion of began a string of successful commissions designing the Federal Archives Building in Greenwich Village. “That institutional buildings and interiors, including The School of was his vision because of his unique skills as a lawyer and General Studies at Lewisohn Hall, Columbia University, in architect,” she said. the early 60s. This commission brought out Mr. Pokorny’s latent preservation instincts and laid the groundwork for Mr. Byard joined Charles A. Platt Partners in 1989, at which his later shift into preservation architecture. While many time the firm became Platt & Byard, Architects. architects would have lobbied for wholesale changes, In addition to maintaining his architectural practice, Mr. exterior alterations, or the construction of a new building Byard directed the historic preservation program at altogether, Pokorny left Lewisohn’s exterior intact, Columbia from 1998 until this year. He created a joint third- reworking the interior to accommodate new programmatic year studio and workshop for architecture and preservation requirements. The result was a beautiful, functional interior students. Mr. Byard was also working on another book, and an exterior that continued to contribute to the visual tentatively titled, “Why Save This Building? The Public continuity of the campus as a whole. The project came Interest in Architectural Meaning.” to the attention of James Marston Fitch, the father of Mr. Platt said, “I think it disappointed him the most — at the the discipline of architectural preservation, who admired end — that he couldn’t finish it.” the project for its restraint and fine interior plan. Fitch characterized it as a successful “adaptive use,” the first Mr. Byard is survived by his wife of 43 years, as well as his of many that Pokorny would perform in the coming years. sister, his daughter, his son and two granddaughters. He subsequently joined Fitch’s faculty at the program A public memorial service will be held on September 15, for Historic Preservation in the Columbia School of 2008, at 4:00 PM at St. Paul’s Chapel on the campus of Architecture, leaving his post as the director of the Evening Columbia University. Division of Architecture at Columbia, which he had held for thirteen years. - adapted from The New York Times He is survived by his second wife, Marise Angelucci- Pokorny, and their son Stefan.

- Daniel Lane

5 PRESERVATION ALUMNI SPRING PARTY

PA held its annual Spring Party this year in the garden of the historic 1832 Merchant’s House Museum. Members were also treated to tours of the house during the party. PA Treasurer Seri Worden presented this year’s Fitch Thesis Grant to John Gomez for his thesis work Church of the Sacred Heart: A History and Analysis of Ralph Adams Cram’s Seminal Spanish Gothic Masterwork. - Photo courtesy of Sybil Young PA PRESERVATION ALUMNI OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY POST OFFICE BOX 669 PA GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE GENEROSITY OF OUR PECK SLIP STATION CORPORATE SPONSORS: NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10272-0669

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