Toward a New Approach to Evaluating Significance in Recent-Past Preservation Planning with a Case Study of 1960S Properties in Philadelphia County Kristin M
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Theses (Historic Preservation) Graduate Program in Historic Preservation 2011 Toward a New Approach to Evaluating Significance in Recent-Past Preservation Planning with a Case Study of 1960s Properties in Philadelphia County Kristin M. Hagar University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses Part of the Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons Hagar, Kristin M., "Toward a New Approach to Evaluating Significance in Recent-Past Preservation Planning with a Case Study of 1960s Properties in Philadelphia County" (2011). Theses (Historic Preservation). 171. http://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/171 Suggested Citation: Hagar, Kristin M. (2011). Toward a New Approach to Evaluating Significance in Recent-Past Preservation Planning with a Case Study of 1960s Properties in Philadelphia County. (Masters Thesis). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/171 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Toward a New Approach to Evaluating Significance in Recent-Past Preservation Planning with a Case Study of 1960s Properties in Philadelphia County Abstract In evaluating a stock of recent-past buildings, it is important to stay alert to the ways in which recent-past heritage is more difficult to assess, and what we might be prone to do to make it easier to assess. It is not enough to involve numerous people in the process and to articulate our method of analysis. We as preservation professionals must also consciously strive to avoid cognitive shortcuts. We must set evaluative standards and choose priorities, without simply dismissing a great portion of the built environment as “crap” or accepting self-evidence as a measure of significance. Complexity should not be a cause for despair. We must lead the public in a more self-reflexive view of built heritage, without getting stuck in never-ending philosophizing and debating. The field would benefit from a more systematic, methodical approach to championing pluralism in heritage and recognizing the polysemy in cultural objects, which nonetheless helps to uncover priorities of highest significance. In sum, prior to, and in addition to, preservation advocacy efforts to publicize and popularize buildings of the recent-past, preservation planning efforts must establish better methods for identifying resources and assessing their significance. In light of the issues and caveats just introduced, this study asks: what is an optimal inventory method for a municipal/county-level commission or nonprofit organization to identify priorities for preservation planning for the recent-past? Disciplines Historic Preservation and Conservation Comments Suggested Citation: Hagar, Kristin M. (2011). Toward a New Approach to Evaluating Significance in Recent-Past Preservation Planning with a Case Study of 1960s Properties in Philadelphia County. (Masters Thesis). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/171 TOWARD A NEW APPROACH TO EVALUATING SIGNIFICANCE IN RECENT-PAST PRESERVATION PLANNING WITH A CASE STUDY OF 1960s PROPERTIES IN PHILADELPHIA COUNTY KRISTIN MARGARET HAGAR A THESIS in Historic Preservation Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE IN HISTORIC PRESERVATION 2011 Advisor Aaron Wunsch Lecturer in Historic Preservation Program Chair Randall F. Mason Associate Professor For SMH & JZS ii Acknowledgements Thank you, Aaron Wunsch David B. Brownlee Joseph C. Forte David Hollenberg Benjamin Leech Randall F. Mason Frank G. Matero for your encouragement, as well as for the freedom that you gave me to pursue my thoughts. iii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS...........................................................................................................vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................1 1.1 Recent-Past Advocacy Initiatives........................................................................................................2 1.2 The Concept of Significance and Its Expansion..................................................................................9 1.3 Statement of the Problem..................................................................................................................15 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND DISCUSSION OF ISSUES................................17 2.1 What Entails an “Optimal” Methodology for Determining Significance?..........................................18 2.1.1 Local Surveys and Historical Context Statements.....................................................................18 2.1.2 “The Epistemology of the Significance Concept”......................................................................22 2.1.3 The Social Construction of Significance....................................................................................27 2.1.4 The Privileging of Architectural Significance.............................................................................32 2.1.5 Section Summary......................................................................................................................43 2.2 How Is the Process of Determining the Significance of Recent-Past Resources Distinct?...................45 2.2.1 Review of Literature on Recent-Past Preservation Planning.......................................................45 2.2.2 Four Factors Affecting the Assessment of Significance in Recent-Past Resources........................51 2.2.3 Recent-Past Preservation Planning is a Challenge: So, Why Bother?..........................................60 2.2.4 Section Summary......................................................................................................................67 CHAPTER 3 MODERNISM IN THE 1960s.............................................................................69 3.1 Enabling Forces behind New Buildings Types and Development Patterns..........................................72 3.1.1 Federal and Municipal Programs...............................................................................................72 3.1.2 Corporate and Institutional Development................................................................................75 3.2 Modernism as an Architectural Movement........................................................................................77 3.2.1 Modernism as Discourse...........................................................................................................77 3.2.2 Major Points in Modernist Discourse in the 1960s...................................................................80 iv Table of Contents CHAPTER 3 MODERNISM IN THE 1960s (continued) 3.3 Consumerism in Architecture...........................................................................................................86 3.3.1 What is Consumerist Architecture?..........................................................................................86 3.3.2 Examples of Key Types of Consumerist Architecture of the 1960s...........................................88 3.3.3 Relationship between Modernist and Consumerist Architecture of the 1960s..........................90 CHAPTER 4 PHILADELPHIA MODERNISM INITIATIVE, SUMMER 2010...................93 4.1 A Great Project.................................................................................................................................94 4.1.1 Philadelphia Modernism Thematic Context Statement............................................................95 4.1.2 Creating the Inventory, and Evaluating for Priorities................................................................99 4.2 Reflections on the Initiative›s First Phase..........................................................................................108 CHAPTER 5 A DIFFERENT APPROACH.............................................................................117 5.1 The Criterion of Multiplicity............................................................................................................118 5.2 Sketching a Methodology.................................................................................................................122 5.3 Conclusions from the Test................................................................................................................129 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................138 BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................143 APPENDICES...............................................................................................................................154 A Buildings Inventory: Philadelphia County, 1959-70, Chronological Order....................................154 B Buildings Inventory: Philadelphia County, 1959-70, Alphabetical Order.......................................161 C Buildings Inventory: Selection of Inventory Processed in GIS Attributes Table..............................168 INDEX..........................................................................................................................................171