COMMENTS ON 'HE PISTOIA WORKING PAPER Note: These remarks are meant to be read in con- The quickest intf:rnational profits may well corne junction with the " Working Paper " SHC/CS/159/6 frorn (1) a sharin~: of experience in teaching rnethod- dated Paris, 9 July 1968. The various subjects are ology and (2) cornparison of procedures used by various discussed in the same order. governrnents in staffing their projects and adrninistering thern. INTRODUCTION LACK OF PERSONNEL 1. UNESCO's timely concem for the world-wide deficit of profession al talent is deeply appreciated. An oppor- 4. The unfortunate shortage of qualified personnel is tunity to talk with colleagues from other countries on shared by the Unilted States, even though restoration these pressing issues is something I have for years been work began here weIl over a century ago and is now hoping for. underway almost everywhere. More serious yet, there 2. The need for discussion, agreement and early action seems to be little appreciation of quality in results seems almost desperate. among the laymen who need to know. And the situ- ation may even be getting worse. rNESCO'S PROGRAMME Within the last two years our Federal Govemment esta- blished under the National Park Service an Office of 3. The steps outlined in the Working Paper un der the Archaeology and Historic Preservation. In theory, that headings " Legislation " and " Mission of experts, etc. " agency now seems to have an ideal set-up. Although and " Ex change of Information " seem quite logical. the construction budget for non-military Federal pro- When it gets down to preparing aids to practitioners, grammes has been shrinking in the last two years the however, difficult problems are posed. The value of future promises wl~ll. The Service, a bureau of the so-called " how to " manuals may weil break down Interior Department, has the largest responsibility in when exported because of the differences of national historical work of any of the Federal agencies. The and regional technologies and the variations and con- functions prescribed under the organic act of 1935 tradictions of word meanings, a large part of which were enlarged and strengthened in 1966. are not explained by dictionaries or g!ossaries. Build- It must be rememlbered, however, that our National ders' vocabularies in the past were never -to my know- Govemment does a relatively small per cent, dollar- ledge -standardized. When one considers the Ameri- wise, of alI the restoration work underway in the coun- can colonies in the Eighteenth century one finds almost try. Some is done by State govemment bureaus, but completely different terms used by builders working as far as my personal observation goes, those organi- only a hundred miles apart. The technical terms used zations are alI, or 11early alI, architecturally inadequate by the colonial French along the St. Lawrence would to perform compet,;:nt restorations. have been un intelligible further south; their framing methods would have astonished a Yankee carpenter. This is likewise true of the early Dutch along the MONEY FOR PRESERV ATION : Hudson River and the Germans in the valleys of Penn- NEED FOR PRE~,ERVING BUILDING GROUPS sylvania and North Carolina. Even in comparatively modern times the builders' terms used on our Pacific 5. In the United States the danger of having too much Coast were foreign to mechanics on the Atlantic. money is often a !:reater threat than having too little. The pathological problems of old structures are different As pointed out in the Working Paper the" heroes " too. In Europe " stone disease " is a major preoccu- in a community of buildings often require a supporting pation; here we worry about forms of wood decay and cast of ordinary buildings to provide a setting appro- sometimes " brick disease ". priate in scale and quiet in demeanour. CONSERVATION ; tion -of excavating, irlterpreting and drawing up early AN INTERDISCIPLINARY EFFORT American building remains would seem a valu able 6. The concept of " teams " is a very stylish one here experience. So would work on a carefully supervised English dig, for our struLctures are closely related. And, but should be used with care. Many teams are made because of our commorl language, documentary back- op with an excess of persons who have little to offer . ground would be more readily accessible to Americans. These can only await the group concensus to hide in Annually two of our Columbia students have been -hoping their lack of any real contribution will escape awarded a travelling fellowship to the American Aca- notice. It is an expensive but common fault to be found demy in Rome where they have worked in excavations particularly in the bureaus of democratic governments. at Cosa (sp?) Italy, under Professor Frank Edward ln the end, everything hinges on the ability of a rela- Brown. tively few individuals. Teams, where actually needed, should be small in size to facilitate speeci and efficiency and they should be structured to favour the individual HISTORICAL SOURCE MA TERIALS talents of members. 7. " Architects and other specialist ", starting with their 8b-ii. AlI our Columbia students during their course work get experience in working with historical source early education, should be given some broad vistas of material and using it ta solve specific problems. We the world we live in. But, in the end, the native breadth consider experience in such research very important. of the individual win be what counts. Both printed (books, p(~riodicals and newspapers) and Ba. In the United States, only the Columbia University manuscript sources are examined in depth. School of Architecture offers a degree in Restoration 8b-iii. " Principles " afl~ continually invoked but these and Preservation. The programme was initiated in 1964 vary in interpretation from one " authority " to another . and has developed steadily, though adequate funds are ln truth, I know of little that has been published on the DOt yet available by which to expand the programme subject that I can quote: with much relevance or assu- to its real potential. Our graduates have been offered rance. This is particularly true of European doctrine responsible positions in the field and have already been when one tried to apply it to American problems. This instaned in a variety of important programmes over a is mainly due to the differences in the problem types wide area. This year we could have placed many more involved, but semantics are a major deterrent, too. graduates -had they been available. The University of Pennsylvania several years ago ap- proved a similar profession al degree but no one could TOWN-PLANNING PltOGRAMMES be found to initiate the programme at the time. Sc. The assistance of architect-restorers should be uti- lized in town-planning programmes whenever historic ARCHAEOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES buildings are involved. AND EVIDENCE Most of our town or city planners at the project level know little of historic l',roblems and their solutions - 8b-i. The word " archaeology", according to my dic- and care less. At the higher levels in our Federal tionary, means " the scientific study of the material bureaus there is now sorne lip-service to historic values. remains of past human life and human activities. ..". But at the local level veIy little light seems to penetrate. If that definition be accepted, every investigation of Through general ignorance and clumsiness our urban an early American building, includihg aIl of its archi- renewal programmes in the past have caused the loss tectural features, is archaeology. of untold thousands of worthy buildings that could - and should -have been saved for continued use. In this country most people think the word is syno- The CoIlege of Architf:cture at CorneIl University is nomous with the excavation and study of buried objects -and, more recently, those under water. This notion considering some promi:;ing course work in city plann- has unfortunately admitted considerable numbers of ing as related to historil;al preservation. aboriginal anthropologists to the excavation of the remains of white men's structures -with just about IN-SERVICE TRAINIJ~G the results one might expect. If the Working Paper meant (a) the underground search gd. Except for some li~cture work for National Park for the location and conformation of substructions and Service summer studenlt teams at Philadelphia (when (b) analytical stratigraphy then, we must admit that our the writer was Supervising Architect, Historic Struc- Columbia students get relatively little experience with tures, 1962 and earlier), I know of no in-service training the subject. Last year we were fortunate to have lec- programmes by the Federal government. The Park tures by Jean C. Harrington of Richmond and Ivon Noël Service does, however, have certain architectural per- Hume of Williamsburg, two outstanding men. A whole sonnel who could give excellent instruction in many summer of field experience -under competent direc- phases of restoration \\'ork. 74 LICENSING The restorationist must understand a number of tech- nologies and period. styles as they evolved through the Se. In this country anyonc who has, or can borrow, centuries. He win need to have rouch knowledge of the necessary money is legally entitled to start banging minor structures which have never before been studied away on an old building, with or without an architect by architects. at hand. It seems to me that to protect what unspoiled buildings we have left, some kind of prequalification Among the specific products that the restorationist for achitectural restoration practice is necessary -even must provide with understanding and skill are : to the extent of licensing restorationists. I have never Architectural drawings. Both structural problems and heard licensing proposed for this one speciality, but design effects must be studied on paper because it is the articulation of architectural registration into cate- not feasible to exec:ute them first in building materials gories is currently being discussed.