PRESERVATION AUTHENTICITY VS. BUILDING FUNCTION

  WHAT ARE WE TO DO WHEN PRESERVATION OBJECTIVES ARE AT ODDS?

Samuel Y. Harris

with Jennifer Holman

As the historic preservation movement has grown over the past several decades, a whole new vocabulary has evolved as well. Authenticity. Integrity. Period of significance. Purity of interpretation. Rule of reversibility. The respectable intent, of course, is to guide our actions in a thoughtful and appropriate manner. However, there are times when the buzzwords we cling to create a semantic trap that is sometimes impossible to escape despite our efforts to responsibly preserve a historic building. 

Part of this has to do with the industry's tendency to view the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines on preservation and the associated language we've adopted as black letter law. That is, rules with no flexibility for reasonable interpretation. The cases presented in this article are examples of how that extremist way of applying them simply does not work in every situation. This is not because we want to twist and contort certain rules to make things convenient or to suit an individual whimsy. Rather, there are situations encountered in the preservation field that do not fit neatly into the small logic box we've created for ourselves. This leaves the preservation professional in a quandary about how to approach certain problems in a correct and acceptable manner. If a black letter law application of our industry guidelines and vocabulary leaves the preservationist with the options of either doing nothing to address a problem or replicating a building design feature that is doomed to repeat failure, what is the proper approach? 

Unfortunately, the Secretary's standards and guidelines do not offer any clear answers to this oft encountered problem. And our insistency on relying on labels and buzzwords to identify the right answer rather than a basic narrative discussion sometimes does not work in the practical field either. But where do we draw the lines?

EASTERN STATE PENITENTIARY: CHANGES YOU CAN'T SEE AND CHANGES YOU CAN

Opened in Philadelphia in 1829, Eastern State Penitentiary was the first penitentiary ever built. This architectural wonder, designed by British-born architect John Haviland and replicated worldwide in subsequent years, first consisted of seven cell blocks radiating from a central surveillance rotunda. Each cell was fashioned with central heating, running water, and vaulted skylights. Eight additional cell blocks were added to the original structure in a somewhat hodgepodge fashion between the 1870s and mid-1950s. After the prison closed in 1971 due to overcrowding and extensive decay, the City of Philadelphia purchased the complex in the1980s and subsequently handed it over to a non-profit management company charged with preserving the site. The complex now offers limited site tours, and ongoing restoration is in progress.

In 2001, our preservation team was commissioned to address some of the complex's deteriorating roofs. Three major changes were made to remedy the leaking and damage situation. 

The first addressed the original roof which comprised sheet metal atop a wood substrate from which water drained to outboard-slung gutters. The problem here was that the roof and gutters were too shallow and the downspouts too far apart to adequately move and drain the water. The selected intervention was to insert a new rubber layer between a reconstructed wood substrate and new sheet metal roof. The effect? The roof looks the same, but we have added an invisible layer of new material. Have we thus broken the cardinal rule of authenticity? Does the fact that the change is not visible make it an acceptable part of an overall preservation strategy for the prison? Who do we rely on to decide? And, for whom are we preserving historic buildings? The lay public? The preservation professional? The historian examining fabric with a microscope? 

The second alteration to the roof involved raising the skylights in this area, providing a consistently greater flashing height to promote better water resistance. 

The third and most significant alteration was made to a knuckle created where three cell blocks-each built at a different time-converged with the main rotunda. The resulting confluence of the three roofs combined with a skylight resulted in a serious flaw whereby a low-point was created from which water could not drain. This low-point was also situated adjacent to the skylight, dooming it to premature failure. The selected intervention was to create a new pop-up design for the area and to add steel to better support the skylight's weight. 

This alteration is visible. If one is to rely on an extremely strict interpretation of industry vocabulary and guidelines, there is no intellectual justification for the move. The changes, although properly documented, abide by neither the rule of reversibility nor that of authenticity. The main justification was that the original design did not work. This begs an important question: To properly abide by the rules of preservation, are we obligated to restore an original dysfunction like this? Even with better materials and workmanship, restoring the roof's original flawed design would again condemn it to premature demise. In other words, we might have obeyed all the rules except the rule of common sense. Should common sense be left out of the equation, or is good preservation strategy better pursued by balancing the various objectives we seek to achieve?

THE CURATORIAL MUSEUM APPROACH TO PRESERVING BUILDINGS: A MISMATCH IN THINKING 

It is worth noting with regard to the Eastern State case that the redesign of the defective aspects of its original roof have extended its life from about 50 years to perhaps 150 years. This is an important concept in two respects. 

First, like Eastern State, many historically significant buildings are managed by fairly destitute nonprofit organizations. This raises the issue about the degree to which we restore a particular design feature of a building when in reality the owner can not maintain it. 

Practical financial considerations often render it difficult to suggest a client spend considerably more money to restore an inferior system or design feature simply because it suits a "pure" definition of authenticity. Down the road, such an act may fly in the face of other objectives we are obligated to focus upon, such as preservation of original fabric. However, if we don't precisely duplicate or restore something, when is the line crossed and the building's integrity offended? What should authentic mean exactly? These are difficult questions we have yet to sort out in any logical and pragmatic way. And again, I think this is largely because any creative discourse has been severely limited by trying to apply buzzwords we have not adequately defined. 

Preservationists tend to be extremely adamant at times about purity. Yet, there is considerable hypocrisy as well. We may not think twice about punching holes throughout a building and adding ductwork to accommodate central air conditioning, for instance. (As James Fitch notes "most middle-class American tourists travel in the summertime: and just as they would refuse to eat in a non-air-conditioned restaurant or stay at a non-air conditioned hotel, so would they be reluctant to spend much time in a non-air-conditioned house museum."*) Air conditioning is a major addition, yet we often pretend it is not. Nonetheless, we will jump up and down screaming about a paint color change. There is clearly an inconsistency in our definition of authenticity. Sometimes it means replicating an original exactly, in precise detail. Sometimes, it doesn't? Clearly, we shy away from acknowledging that there really is no theoretical basis for some of our decisions about what constitutes proper adherence to this dictate. In reality, it is often simply a matter of what suits the individual tastes of whomever is in charge of or currently occupying a historic building. 

The second important point relevant to Eastern State and to historic house museums, like Glen Foerd discussed later in this article, is that their very designation as "historic" has typically changed their use as well as raised the bar in terms of the care they warrant. These sites have now been elevated to historic relic status and thus expected to remain in their original condition in perpetuity - a thought not likely in the minds of their original builders or tenants. When Eastern State was a prison, for example, it may have been no big deal to have cell walls dampened by roof leaks. In addition, a captive labor pool was available to address the prison's maintenance needs for little cost. With regard to the Glen Foerd mansion, the use and traffic flow of the house was dramatically different, weather and environmental variables were different, the cost to maintain it was a lesser concern, and the skill and materials for repairing or restoring particular details were more accessible. 

This underscores a fundamental problem with the current philosophy underlying preservation today, that of curation. Our museum mentality includes how we address the objective of authenticity, and we are moved to use thinking that would be applied to fine art. (e.g., Is this the real paint?) Buildings are fundamentally different from paintings, however. The variables are more complex and much different. As such, it is a mismatch to apply museum thinking to buildings.

GLEN FOERD: A HISTORIC HOME TURNED EVENT SITE 

Glen Foerd on the Delaware, a fine example of Italianate architecture and Victorian lavishness, is one of the last surviving summer mansions built along the Delaware River during the middle and late 1800s by Philadelphia's wealthy industrial magnates of that era. After the final residents vacated in the 1980s, the estate was turned over to the city's Fairmount Park Commission and is now managed by a nonprofit preservation group. 

Recently, we were commissioned to restore the lower roof of the house, atop the portico that surrounds it. Again, a serious technical flaw encountered here was that water, including about 50% run-off from the upper roof, was not being removed adequately or quickly enough. The downspouts were too small and too few and the gutter pitches too shallow. More importantly, because the gutters were a built-in design, meaning they were recessed into the roof, significant water leakage as well as overflow had damaged the soffits, fascias, cornices, and other decorative trims on the exterior. Unfortunately, although built-in gutters are more esthetically pleasing than slung gutters, they also conceal water leaks until visible and fairly significant damage has occurred.

Here again, we faced the authenticity quandary. Do we keep this design feature real and authentic even if it will overflow, leak, and create damage? If not, what is the "right" thing to do? And what rules guide us to deciding what "right" should be?

One possibility might have been to restore the original, then to run hoses down the pump, connecting them to a pump. If the gutter overflowed, it would trigger a sensor, activate the pump, pull the water back out of the malfunctioning gutter, and then pump it off the building by circumventing the original system altogether. In the classroom, this may sound like a good idea. It's a clear add-on, cleverly disguised, and can be removed. Voila! All those good preservation rules satisfied. However, this type of system would also be inefficient, incredibly costly, and downright unreliable. Does that matter? I suggest it should. Common sense must be given some priority as well. If I advocated deliberately installing this cob-job system in any other building scenario, the client would belly-laugh me out the door. The point is that the heavy emphasis on narrowly defined industry buzzwords like "authentic" seems to have pushed preservationists beyond the boundaries of reasonableness. Should we do what would otherwise be considered senseless in our desire to be "authentic?"

The solution we adopted for Glen Foerd was to increase water velocity, deter overflow, and reduce hydrostatic pressure (by about 85%) by adding better-pitched gutters and intermediary downspouts and by enlarging the "foyer" areas where water collects before draining through the exterior downspouts. The most visible changes were the creation of "bump outs" along the lower roof line to accommodate the additional downspouts needed. Every effort was made to keep their design in harmony with the original architecture. To accommodate the current use of the house as a catering facility for weddings and such, the downspouts are positioned on the exterior of the columns, concealing them from an interior view. The only exception was at the front entrance, where the downspouts are positioned behind the columns. Backing all of the downspouts into the building was not considered an acceptable option as it would have required cutting holes through some of the decorative details at the roofline and running the pipes through the inside of an enclosed porch area. As such, we were able to adhere to the principles of integrity and preservation of original fabric. Strictly adhering to the rules of authenticity and reversibility would have required doing either nothing or doing something foolish. In the future, should the use of the house change, someone may criticize this design. Again, this goes back to the needs and tastes of whomever is occupying or managing a historic site. It also illustrates the need for discussion about when reasonable compensations are appropriate.

HOW DO WE FILL THE LOGIC HOLES?

Unfortunately, I can not proffer any easy solutions to these sorts of dilemmas. The intellectual basis for them will not exist until the preservation community comes together to address these quagmires with thoughtful, narrative discussion that omits the use of tightly defined labels which can not be logically and comprehensively applied to every preservation project.

Realistically, the Secretary's standards and guidelines are just that-recommendations that should provide philosophical guidance and reasonableness in approaching a particular preservation project.

I view successful historic preservation as a balancing act. As an aviation trainee in years past, my student colleagues and I were told that flying a helicopter was analogous to standing on a basketball wearing roller-skates. To accomplish the task required an ongoing series of careful assessments and small adjustments. One swift and decisive action would bring the whole thing to a crashing halt. In some respects, that is how I view successful preservation-as an ongoing process. Not one that is best accomplished with extreme and irrefutable moves that must be made, but one that requires carefully balancing all the objectives and unique variables of circumstance.

Let's stop stomping on our own toes, and move the discussion forward.

• Fitch, JM. Historic Preservation: Curatorial Management of the Built World. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1990, p256.

--S. Harris & Co. Comprehensive Project List--