MASTER OF PRESERVATION STUDIES
FALL 2016
ANNUAL PROGRAM UPDATE LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR The school year 2015-16 was an especially exciting and productive year for Tulane’s Master of Preservation Studies program. Four new adjunct faculty members joined the program. Professor Michael Shoriak inaugurated a new approach in leading Studio I: Building Preservation that currently emphasizes a variety of digital documentation methods. In assuming the American Architectural History for Preservationists course, Professor Laura Blokker redoubled the program’s efforts in teaching style identification and historic building structural systems. Professors Courtney Williams and Elliot Perkins co-taught the Economics and Practice of Preservation course during the second semester. As always, the MPS faculty engaged the first year class of sixteen students, plus several double major students, in various experiential learning encounters at actual preservation projects in the area. Among them were conservation analyses and planning studies for the imperiled Jefferson Parish Courthouse built by renowned New Orleans architect Henry Howard, documentation of the special construction techniques Godchaux Reserve, an early 19th century Raised French Planter house in LaPlace, LA. Field projects addressed in the second semester included conservation planning assessments and recommendations made along sections of Old Metairie Road with input from the Planning Division of Jefferson Parish and formulation of an array
of conservation planning ideas for the city of Madisonville, LA, situated on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Overall management of the MPS program was helped considerably by the assistance of Margot Ferster, MPS ’15 who supported in ways ranging from systematizing student progress and application inquiry tracking, to establishing an MPS program Facebook presence, and assisting with the Spring trip to Havana for the International Practice course. Margot is moving to Memphis, TN this summer and her role as assistant to the Director will be filled by Professor Laura Blokker. The program was enriched over the past half year with over two dozen outside lecturers, including Roberta Gratz who spoke about her new insightful book on the realities of preservation in New Orleans, and by TSA Emerita Professor Karen Kingsley who introduced her handsome new book on Bauhaus influences that inspired early Louisiana Modernism in Shreveport, LA. The fall Field Studies: USA class trip that went to Washington DC to attend the National Trust for Historic Preservation annual meeting included a tour of preservation projects there with the day ending at the office of the US/ICOMOS where director Andrew Potts and other ICOMOS board members spoke on architectural conservation abroad. The spring Field Studies II: International course returned to Havana for our best foreign class trip yet to compare heritage conservation practices. In our ceaseless efforts to better coordinate, enrich and increase the effectiveness of the MPS program, we have broken some new
ground in the way of study topics. Following the suggestions of the Tulane Preservation Advisory Group (TPAG), Studio II: Urban Conservation addressed, among its three principal projects, Conserving Modern Architecture. The economics of preservation was also addressed more fully than ever, which anticipates the program’s next biennial Preservation Matters IV conference slated for October 27th that will focus on how everyone benefits from historic preservation. At the end of my fifth year directing the Master of Preservation Studies program, I am pleased to say that it is operating at an all time high in terms of instructional quality, content, and the number of experiential learning initiatives in the field projects we undertake. It is exciting all around to be engaged in actual projects and current issues, though not completely surprising, given the relevance and dynamic nature of heritage preservation practice. Forward we go! John Stubbs Director and Christovich Senior Professor of Preservation Practice
This MPS Program Update features news as well as essays from faculty and students on some of the key aspects of the program:
INTERNATIONAL FOCUS, NEW ORLEANS FOCUS, COMMUNITY SERVICE, AND STUDENT TRAVEL