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Historic Preservation Home > Syllabi > 400 Level Courses > HISP 468S Recording Vernacular Structures

MARY WASHINGTON COLLEGE
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION

HISP 468-01 RECORDING VERNACULAR STRUCTURES

Mr. Stanton
MTWRFS 800-1700
Trinkle Hall, B-39

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Recording Vernacular Architecture is an intensive two-week course in the methods of recordation, documentation, and interpretation of vernacular buildings through field drawings and photography. The class has three goals. First to give students practical experience with a spread of vernacular construction traditions and building systems, both in range of dates and function of structures. Second, to give students an opportunity to work with recognized experts of field documentation within their areas of specialty. Third, to give students experience in evaluating sequences of changes to buildings and recording periodization of subsequent changes.

Field documentation, one of the most effective methods for learning to Aread@ buildings, is also becoming increasingly important as a form of preservation on paper. Although the goal of historic preservation is to prevent excessive loss of historic resources, circumstances ranging from rehabilitation, imminent destruction, development pressure, or abandonment and neglect often prevent the preservation of actual structures. Sometimes field documentation--scaled architectural field drawings, photography, and architectural descriptions--provide the next best solution and may amount to the only permanent record of historic resources. Good architectural description identifies sequences of historical change and raises questions about social values that motivated these changes. Careful architectural documentation constitutes a lasting record of ideas as well as buildings and provides future generations with important information about historic structures that may have been altered or demolished.

This course expects that you possess some prior knowledge of documentation techniques. As we work on recording buildings we will review specific drawing conventions to make them easier to understand. We will also review basic documentation skills and objectives to insure we are all beginning at the same place. Almost all of our class sessions will take place on site. There are no required readings for this course, although we will be discussing some short articles as they relate to technologies or cultural values as we see them in these buildings. Instead of reading books, you will be expected to learn to Aread@ buildings as text.

CLASS REQUIREMENTS

All students are expected to attend and actively participate in all class meetings. All students are also required to complete all field notes and photographs undertaken during the course of daily site visits. Work will be conducted in a team, generally three students to a team, and assignments will be made to team. Individuals are expected to rotate in the assignments within the team, and the documentation specialist, so everyone will have experience measuring, drawing, describing, photographing, reading the laser distance measuring device, writing field notes. We will review the site and critique the documentation effort done at the end of each day before returning to Fredericksburg.


Each student will complete the following:

1. Field drawing portfolio: your best (in your judgment) floor plan, elevation, section, and site plan drawingsB2 drawings minimum. Each student will turn in a drawing portfolio.

2. A brief written description: In HABS architectural data sheet format, of one of the sites that we have covered, combining the research of all the team members for that day.

3. Photographic portfolio of the site that you have written the description, including a data sheet for each roll of black and white and color slide set taken. Include a list of which five or less photographs best document the site (and why) and also the single photograph that best documents the site.

4. A journal entry for each site that we visit. You can make notes about the site while we are there, but be sure to write summary notes after we have finished on that day.

FINAL GRADES

Final grades for this course will be determined on class participation in field work activities and critiques (30%), written descriptions (20%), photographic portfolio (10%), and field drawing portfolio (40%). Each student will be given a grade of G at the end of the course. You will have until 27 August to complete the written work and turn in the project to me. Projects later than the 27th of August will be graded down a letter grade.

EQUIPMENT

Each student should bring their own architect's scale, mechanical pencil, eraser, and other drawing equipment they feel comfortable using. A gridded notebook for your own notes would be useful. Mary Washington College will provide all film, cameras, tape measures, drawing boards, and paper for this class. Most important is that each student should bring clothing appropriate for fieldwork. Loose fitting, comfortable outfits that allow you to bend and stretch easily, comfortable shoes, a hat, and cotton gloves for working around foliage or dusty areas. If you wish to have pictures of your experience in the class please bring your own camera and film for that purpose.


OFFICE HOURS

Trinkle B-47
Phone: 654-1313
email: gstanton@mwc.edu

During the class there will be no office hours, I will be in constant attendance, even when we have guest faculty, and will be working with you directly over the entire time. Once the intensive fieldwork portion has ended and you are completing your written assignment, feel free to contact me at the phone number above. I will be in my office virtually weekday except when I am doing my own fieldwork. If for some reason I have to be away during one of those periods, please contact Judy Brushwood at 654-1041, and she will convey your needs to me.

SCHEDULE OF CLASS MEETINGS, TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Monday 24 May 1999
8:30am Welcome Bessentials (donuts and coffee provided)
9am Orientation to the course, review objectives, discuss student expectations
10am How to Draw a Box
11:30am Representing periods of construction in field drawings
1pm Travel to Office Hall, corner Hwys 301 and 3. Draw meat house and kitchen.
4:30pm Leave for Fredericksburg

Tuesday 25 May 1999
8am De La Brooke Tobacco Barn. St. Mary's County, Maryland. This is an early nineteenth century tobacco barn with wrought nails. Kirk Ranzetta will direct our documentation. Kirk is a graduate of MWC and the University of Delaware programs. He has been documenting historic buildings in St. Mary's County for two years and is now beginning to compile a book on St. Mary's County architecture.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg

Wednesday 26 May 1999
8am Leave for Farmington. A late 1850s granary-stable combination on an extensive plantation of the Ryland family. The main house was built in the 1790s but remodeled by the son in 1859. The granary is an interesting combination building. Agricultural buildings have exposed framing allowing us to document the entire structural system. Mark R. Wenger, architectural historian with the Architectural Research Department of Colonial Williamsburg, will be our guest instructor.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg

Thursday 27 May 1999
7:45am Dinwiddie County
9:45am Arrive at the Harper Farm. An early nineteenth century property with three periods of construction all wrought nails. The earliest? portion has a roof kick, then a single cell is added across a passage and then a side passage portion is added. William Graham, architect and architectural historian at Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is the guest instructor. He is also a recognized expert in documentary photography. He will demonstrate large format photography if time allows.
4:30pm Leave for Fredericksburg

Friday 28 May 1999
7:45am Dinwiddie County
9:15am Arrive in Petersburg. Today's assignment is to piece together the information for an early to mid-nineteenth century store in downtown Petersburg. The Mitchell store has been highly modified, but evidence survives to give evidence of the original wall and even shelving locations. This is classic reconstructive investigation of a historic resource. William Graham is with us again today.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg

Saturday 29 May 1999
7:45am While others are on vacation, we'll do a little sightseeing ourselves. Visit Williamsburg and the DeWitt Gallery to see A1699, When Virginia Was the Wild West.@ Examine the Matthew Jones house at Fort Eustis.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg

Sunday 30 May 1999
Rest and Laundry

Monday 31 May 1999
7:45am. Back to Southside. Cross over the James River to Bacon's Castle, Surry County. The earliest standing dwelling in Virginia presents many of the features that we saw at the exhibit in Williamsburg. Leave for Chippokes to draw the cider barn at this state park. This is a late-eighteenth to early nineteenth century barn and part of a larger agricultural landscape.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg


Tuesday 1 June 1999
8am Ellis Grist Mill, St. Mary's County, Maryland. This is an early nineteenth century mill with stone walls and wrought? nails. Kirk Ranzetta will direct our documentation. As vernacular sites, mills are often built of local stone and then heavy framing to compensate for the vibrations of the water powered equipment.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg

Wednesday 2 June 1999
9am leave for St. Paul's Episcopal Church, King George County. This eighteenth century church has been rehabilitated several times, but the core brick structure was begun in the mid-1760s as one of a handful of Greek Cross, two-story Anglican churches in Virginia. Dr. Carl Lounsbury of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation will be our guest instructor.

Thursday 3 June 1999
8am Shenandoah Valley architecture. The site to be announced. Dr. Gabrielle Lanier will be our guest instructor. Dr. Lanier is the author of Everyday Architecture in the Mid-Atlantic, and currently teaches public history and building analysis at James Madison University.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg.

Friday 4 June 1999
9am Falmouth, Virginia. Draw the Basil Gordon House. This house has seen additions and removals, floods and other insults.
4pm Leave for Fredericksburg