Tuesday, 13 February
TOWERS AND DALLES: MODERN ARCHITECTURE VERSUS PARIS
Norma Evenson, Professor of Architectural History Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

Long renowned for its urban beauty, Paris, together with its suburbs, now evidences the results of a half-century of intensive redevelopment. Building efforts inspired by the modern movement have often been viewed as threats to the city's architectural harmony and destructive to the traditional urban fabric. Two building types have been particularly associated with large-scale projects and subject to continuing controversy: the tower and the dalle (a mulitlevel platform). The lecture focused on the impact of these structures on the Parisian townscape, with reference to both urban aesthetics and wide-ranging social issues.

Saturday, March 31 and Sunday, April 1
JOHN JOSEPH EARLEY: EXPANDING THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CONCRETE
Fourth Biennial Symposium on the Historic Development of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.

This symposium examined the life and work of John Joseph Earley (1881-1945) who developed a "polychrome" process of concrete slab construction and ornamentation that was admired nationwide. In the Washington metropolitan area, his products graced a variety of buildings - all formed by the staff of the Earley Studio in Rosslyn, Va. His uniquely designed polychrome houses in Silver Spring, Maryland are outstanding among prefabricated houses in the country, appreciated for their Art Deco ornament and superb craftsmanship. Sessions included papers on the development of concrete as a material, Earley's life and work, his refinement of the medium of exposed aggregate concrete and his use of patterns. A number of preservation case studies were also presented including Meridian Hill Park (Washington, D.C.), Earley's Polychrome Houses (Silver Spring, Maryland), The Fountain of Time (Chicago, Illinois), and Baha'i Temple (Wilmette, Illinois). The Sunday session was devoted to a bus tour of Earley's work in the Washington, DC area.

Monday, May 7
CHALLENGING MODERNISMS: ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN EASTERN EUROPE
Steven Mansbach, Pratt Institute

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a modernist avant-garde developed in eastern European countries as in the West. Since the 1930s, however, scholars have analyzed and evaluated the innovative architecture and visual culture of eastern Europe according to models of western European art. By considering examples of work in Baltic and Balkan countries, the lecture will explore the inadequacies of this prevailing modernist methodology and suggest a new interpretive strategy by which to account for modernism's variety, complexity, and inconsistencies--in both the East and the West.

Tuesday, September 25
PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION OF LOG CHURCHES IN NORTHERN RUSSIA
Travis C. McDonald, Director of Architectural Restoration at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest

In August 2000 the newly formed Foundation for the Support of Wooden Architectural Monuments in Russia asked an international group of six professionals to come to Russia to study the deterioration of wooden log churches in the northern part of the country. Many of these structures have disintegrated in the past seventy years, and without intervention those that have survived will soon vanish. Professionals in Russia have begun a private initiative to save these monuments through an effort to train craftsmen in the art of traditional log restoration.

Washington's national religious monuments are well known, but the city is also home to more than 700 purpose-built places of worship that have served local congregations over the last two centuries. The Latrobe Chapter's fall tour visited at least five churches in out-of-the-way neighborhoods and drove by and discussed some fifty places of worship en route. Architectural historian Pamela Scott chose examples of work by local architects (Maurice Moore; Appleton P. Clark, Jr.; and Frederick V. Murphy) as well as specialists in American ecclesiastical architecture (Charles W. Bolton and Son from Philadelphia and Maginnis and Walsh from Boston). The tour concluded with a drive down 16th Street from the District line to the White House, identifying each place of worship by original congregation and architect.

Designed in 1950 by Frank Lloyd Wright for Isadore and Lucille Zimmerman,the Zimmerman House reflects its architect's concept of total design (in this case including gardens, furniture, textiles and even the mailbox) as well as the clients' habitation over thirty-six years.  As a historic house museum owned and operated by the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, it is becoming the focus of a reciprocal relationship between the museum and its community.  Hetty Startup, site administrator for the Zimmerman House, explored the ways in which an urban house museum can reinforce the community's role in preservation and interpretation of local cultural resources, while the city itself can provide an educational setting for a historic site, even acting as an extension of the museum "collection."