I once visited a National Trust
property in England to learn about their Hundred Year Plan for landscape
management of the historic site. It dealt with the changed perceptions of
landscape design during the several hundred years the place had been lived in
and developed, and brought to focus the modern plan to recreate the landscape of
the time of its greatest thorough design (mid 1700s). However
popular public perceptions of the estate's appearance (namely a current popular
love to the Rhododendrons that had been installed in relatively recent times)
meant that the plan had to cope with public anger when the colourful rhodos were
to be eliminated in favour of the 1700's classical vision for the grand
estate. The Hundred Year Plan facilitated selectively removing
10% of the rhodos each year, hoping the general public would not notice and
that change would also be accommodated naturally by attrition of the local rhodo
appreciating elders.
How many of us have a hundred year plan for our
buildings? Certainly Ezra Cornell's library grew like Topsy just
like the rest of us. In the 1950's they simply built another
building across the street, connected by a tunnel to the old one.
Both continue to exist and function, but the old one has a character the new one
with its T-bar and fluorescents never will. I never lamented the
lack of elevator in the old one, instead appreciating every day that I was
walking on the same cast iron stair steps that the scholars of a
century had used.
Cheers,
cp in bc
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 12:05
PM
Subject: [BP] If anyone ever asks you why
bother hiring an architect...
In a message dated 12/27/2007 2:47:36 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
The
Collections Management Plan was that a certain number of books would always
be out on loan, so the
number of shelves was adequate to stack all the
books currently inside the library. However, the loan patterns
were always shifting. Arriving for work Saturday morning,
we would find a note left by the Collections Manager saying, "Move the
middle three rows of West 7 to the first three rows of South 2, then
move the last two rows of North 3 to space on the middle rows of West
7." We would gather as many books as would fit between our
outstretched hands and our chins and waddle up and down from floor to
floor in that elevatorless historic
building. .
...tell them about this. yrs
Sempronius
-- To
terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the uncoffee-ed, or to
change your settings, go to:
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html