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The 2019 National Preservation Awards

By Forum Online posted 9 days ago
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The 2019 National Preservation Awards are being presented this week at PastForward 2019 in Denver, Colorado. The awards honor inspirational projects, individuals, and organizations that have demonstrated excellence in the field of preservation.  Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award The Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award is the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s highest national recognition. Named for one of the National Trust’s founding trustees, the award is made with the greatest ...
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Remarks at PastForward 2019 by Paul Edmondson

By Paul Edmondson posted 10 days ago
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Good afternoon. Welcome to Denver, and welcome to PastForward, the National Preservation Conference.  First, let me thank you for being here. You are what makes the preservation movement what it is – a vibrant community of people committed to saving places that matter – in our cities, on our main streets, in our small towns, and across the countryside. I’m fortunate to count all of you as colleagues in this important work.  And that’s why I’m deeply honored to serve as the 9 th president of ...
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2019 PastForward Virtual Attendance and Social Media Details

By Colleen Danz posted 12 days ago
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PastForward 2019 kicks off here in Denver this week! Preservationists from all over the country—and even some of our international colleagues—will come together to learn, mingle, and immerse themselves in all that this amazing city has to offer.  Can't attend in person? You can still be a part of the conversation. While we want everyone to be able to participate in all the programming, networking events, and unique experiences in Denver, we also want to provide as many people as possible the ...
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PastForward 2019 Preview: Revitalizing Small Communities – Dar Williams

By Forum Online posted 18 days ago
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Dar Williams has been called “one of America’s very best singer-songwriters” by The New Yorker. She’s released ten studio albums and authored four books including her latest, What I Found In A Thousand Towns .   Known as much for her staunch progressive ideals as her raw acoustic energy, Williams has been captivating audiences with her sheer elegance and honesty in her folk-pop songwriting since the '90s. Williams’ growth as an individual over her two-decade-long career has gone hand-in-hand ...
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Building Tomorrow’s Heritage: Correcting “Architectural Myopia”

By Special Contributor posted 24 days ago
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By Michael W. Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros This is the third post in a series about recent lessons from the sciences for historic preservation and compatible new development. The authors—a physicist and mathematician, and an urban researcher and philosopher—explore emerging scientific findings about historic structures, and discuss lessons for generating more sustainable and resilient human environments. The shopping center of Cumbernauld near Glasgow, U.K. (Geoffrey Copcutt, 1967). ...
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PastForward 2019 Preview: Celebrating Women's History—Amythyst Kiah

By Forum Online posted 30 days ago
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Born in Chattanooga and now based in Johnson City, Amythyst Kiah’s commanding stage presence is matched by her raw and powerful vocals—a deeply moving, hypnotic sound that stirs echoes of a distant and restless past.   Accompanied interchangeably with banjo, acoustic guitar, or a full band, her eclectic influences span decades, finding inspiration in old time music, alternative rock, folk, country, and blues. In preparation for   the   TrustLive on Celebrating Women's History    at   PastForward ...
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PastForward 2019 Preview: Saving Urban Neighborhoods —Mindy Fullilove

By Forum Online posted 09-13-2019
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National Trust conference attendees first heard from Dr. Mindy Fullilove at the National Preservation Conference in St.Paul, MN in 2007 where she talked about her book Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It . In the years since, Fullilove has continued to examine the connections between the environment and mental health in cities and beyond. During her talk at PastForward 2019, attendees will hear about another project, the 400 Years of ...
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Storytelling with Audioguides at Industrial Heritage Sites

By Sarah Rovang posted 08-27-2019
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Preservation Leadership Forum is presenting  a series of posts  by  Sarah Rovang , the 2017 recipient of the H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship from the Society of Architectural Historians. The fellowship allows its recipients—recent graduates with advanced degrees or emerging scholars—to study by travel for one year, providing them with opportunities to see and experience architecture and landscapes firsthand; think about their profession deeply; and acquire knowledge that will be useful for ...
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PastForward 2019 Preview: Celebrating Women’s History – Dr. Tiya Miles

By Forum Online posted 08-20-2019
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Tiya Miles is the author of three multiple prize-winning works in the history of early American race relations, a prize-winning work of historical fiction, and various articles and op-eds on women’s history, history and memory, black public culture, and black and indigenous interrelated experience. She is a past MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellow, and a current National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Award recipient. She is currently a Professor of ...
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From Vacancy to Vitality in Little Havana

By Mike Powe posted 08-15-2019
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With contributions from Carson Hartmann In many cities across the country, older neighborhoods are experiencing intense development pressures. City planners, preservationists, and residents are considering how to maintain community identity while also accommodating growth. In such scenarios, infill development presents an opportunity to add new vitality to vacant and underutilized spaces while also preserving existing cultural heritage. Over the past two years, the National Trust has worked ...
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PastForward 2019 Preview: Celebrating Women's History - Ada Deer

By Forum Online posted 08-07-2019
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Ada Deer has spent her life advocating for American Indians across the United States. Born in 1935 she was the first Native American woman from Wisconsin to run for Congress, and the first American Indian to graduate with a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. A member of the Menominee Tribe, she was pivotal in the passage of the Menominee Restoration Act of 1972 which restored the tribe to federally recognized status. In 1993, she was appointed the first woman Assistant Secretary, ...
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Lessons Learned, Lessons Shared: A Q & A with Jannie Harriot

By Lawana Holland-Moore posted 07-29-2019
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The work of the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission (SCAAHC), which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, illustrates how grassroots organizations and leaders can have a significant impact on historic preservation efforts in their state. Founded as a council in 1993 and established as a commission in 2001, the SCAAHC was created to identify and promote the preservation of African American historic sites, structures, buildings, and culture in South Carolina. Comprised of about ...
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Forum Journal: Heritage in the Landscape

By Forum Online posted 07-25-2019
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The latest issue of Forum Journal examines the history, issues, and current conversations surrounding the preservation of cultural landscapes. In her introductory piece on cultural landscapes and the National Register, Barbara Wyatt explains that there is no single, rigid definition for a cultural landscape, and that in the past, the National Register process accepted varying descriptors, as long as the accompanying narratives included explanations and context. With that in mind, this ...
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Heritage Conservation as a Civil Right

By Special Contributor posted 07-17-2019
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John H. Sprinkle, Jr. The Pocantico Center Preservation Fellowship, now in its fifth year, is funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This two-week residential fellowship provides preservation professionals with the opportunity to reside in the historic Marcel Breuer House in Pocantico Hills, New York, while working on a defined project with significant benefit to the preservation field.   For more on the Environmental Justice movement and ...
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2019 National Preservation Law Conference: Attacks on the Antiquities Act

By Forum Online posted 07-12-2019
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The 2019 National Preservation Law Conference was held on Tuesday, June 25 in Washington, D.C. The conference is put on by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in partnership with Georgetown University Law Center. This intense one-day summit provided a highly focused look into historic and cultural preservation law, highlighting recent and influential developments in the field. Attendees were able to gain knowledge and skills to effectively advocate and champion key preservation issues. ...
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Into the Machine Hall: Lessons in Visitorship at Industrial Museums

By Sarah Rovang posted 07-11-2019
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Preservation Leadership Forum is presenting  a series of posts  by  Sarah Rovang , the 2017 recipient of the H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship from the Society of Architectural Historians. The fellowship allows its recipients—recent graduates with advanced degrees or emerging scholars—to study by travel for one year, providing them with opportunities to see and experience architecture and landscapes firsthand; think about their profession deeply; and acquire knowledge that will be useful for ...
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Mapping Where History and Opportunity Meet

By Anthony Veerkamp posted 07-02-2019
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With contributions from Shaw Sprague and Dan Watts Included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Opportunity Zones are perhaps the single largest new federal tax incentive in decades. Designed to spur private investment to revitalize distressed communities, Opportunity Zones have the potential to direct trillions of dollars in deferred capital gains taxes to transform 8,700 distressed census tracts—a prospect at once thrilling and alarming to preservationists and community activists. ...
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Partnership for Building Reuse Helps Support Code Change in Chicago

By Special Contributor posted 06-28-2019
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By  Beth Mattson-Teig Editor's Note: There are almost 500,000 buildings in the city of Chicago. Nearly two-thirds were built before 1945. For years, an outdated city building code made repair of these buildings more expensive and time consuming than new construction projects. That will change later this year, when a new Chicago Building Code goes into effect. As described below in an article from Urban Land, the new code implements recommendations from the Partnership for Building Reuse ...
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Edward Hopper House: Nighthawks Teen Leadership Program

By Special Contributor posted 06-25-2019
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By Nina Jean Berlingeri   Editor's Note: The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Trustees Emeritus Award for Historic Site Stewardship recognizes success and innovation in historic preservation, management, and programming at historic sites. Want to submit a nomination for this year’s award? Learn more about the criteria and nomination process   here . Deadline for 2019 is July 1.  The Edward Hopper House Museum and Study Center’s Nighthawks Teen Leadership Program (named after ...
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Here, Now: Contemporary Art at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site

By Special Contributor posted 06-21-2019
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By Kate Menconeri Imagine visiting Thomas Cole at his house in 1840 and standing eye-to-eye with one of his original paintings such as “The Architect's Dream . ” Cole, who spent years exploring the Catskill landscapes that inspired his art, hung his own paintings, still wet from the studio, on the walls of his home. Patrons and fellow artists traveled from all over just to see the latest work by the artist who would go on to change the face of American painting. It was not until 2016 that the ...
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