Month: August 2015

Amber Anderson and Sarah Sanders, both members of the MSHP class of 2015, garnered an Honorable Mention award for their entry in the 2015 Holland Prize, an annual competition open to both students and professionals that  recognizes the best single-sheet measured drawing of an historic site, structure, or landscape prepared to the standards and guidelines of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), or Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). The prize is intended to increase awareness, knowledge, and appreciation of historic resources throughout the United States while adding to the permanent HABS, HAER, and HALS collection at the Library of Congress, and to encourage the submission of drawings among professionals and students.  By requiring only a single sheet, the competition challenges the delineator to capture the essence of the site through the presentation of key features that reflect its significance.

Anderson and Sanders submitted documentation drawings of the ruins of Pon Pon Chapel, an eighteenth-century chapel of ease located in Colleton County near Jacksonboro, South Carolina.  This chapel and its graveyard provide a link to early eighteenth-century Anglican activity and the proliferation of chapels of ease through the South Carolina Lowcountry that served the religions needs of the inhabitants of the region’s plantation hinterlands. This project grew out of a documentation assignment in Professor Amalia Leifeste’s Preservation Studio course.

http://www.nps.gov/hdp/competitions/holland_winners.htm

Documentation drawings that the MSHP class of 2015 started during their first semester have won recognition in the Peterson Prize competition.  A student competition of measured drawings, the Charles E. Peterson Prize is presented jointly by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) of the National Park Service, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, and the American Institute of Architects. The annual competition, currently in its 33rd year, honors Charles E. Peterson, FAIA (1906-2004), a founder of the HABS program, and is intended to heighten awareness about historic buildings in the United States and to augment the HABS collection of measured drawings at the Library of Congress.

The MSHP entry for 2015 was the Charles Augustus Magwood House at 61-63 Smith Street in Harleston Village, one of Charleston’s historic boroughs.  Recently purchased by a conservation-minded owner, the house is part of an important group constructed in this neighborhood in the first decades of the nineteenth century.  The documentation drawings from which this winning entry were compiled are helping guide the restoration of the house.

Laural Bartlett, MSHP class of 2013 now working as an architectural historian for the CRM firm SEARCH, Inc., presented a paper that summarizes the results of an independent research project at the annual meeting and conference of the Vernacular Architecture Forum in Chicago.

Florida Prison Road Camps: The Architecture of Necessity, Segregation, and Settlement
Laurel Bartlett, MSHP

ABSTRACT:At the turn of the twentieth century most of the Florida interior was still impassable swamp and marshland. The decline of rail transportation, the evolution of the automobile, and the desire for accessibility precipitated the creation of the Florida State Road Department in 1917. Convict labor was used to clear the path for the majority of the roads still in use today, but little is known of the institutional architecture associated with the road construction. This paper examines the Florida Road Camp system and the transition from impermanent to permanent architecture while exploring the understated, and often overlooked, role of imprisoned workers on the transportation infrastructure of Florida.
Known as Road Camps, these moveable penitentiaries were constructed not for rehabilitation but for the benefit of the State of Florida. Many of these camps were built adjacent to the road projects and a large number of these structures fell to demolition because of the impermanency of their construction. Historical records show that the Florida State Road Department used a combination of moveable camps and permanent camps, the architecture of which evolved over time with the changing need of the Road Department. Early camps were a combination of moveable metal cages and tents. As construction progressed the road camps transitioned to more permanent maintenance facilities consisting of frame and masonry vernacular structures. By 1954, there were approximately 30 road camps, including 11 permanent camps. The camps developed into fenced complexes that included guard towers, an infirmary, a mess hall, officer’s quarters, prisoner’s quarters, a sweatbox, and various storage buildings. By the 1950s and 1960s as projects became more complex, construction contracts were given to engineering firms and the convict labor force transitioned into a maintenance role.
Florida Prison Road Camps are a vernacular form of institutional architecture and represent not only the legacy of segregation, but also the role that impermanent institutional architecture played in developing Florida. Today, the remaining road camps are beginning to require more intensive documentation to ensure their long-term preservation. The purpose of this research was to examine historical records to pinpoint the locations of permanent camps, identify the remaining extant structures and their conditions, identify how and where each type of construction was used, and track the progression in the change of architecture. As these resources continue to deteriorate and face demolition, a more comprehensive understanding of the construction of the camps and their historical significance will help transportation engineers develop more appropriate preservation strategies.