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The Whitehill Report on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation
The Whitehill Report on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation was submitted 15 April 1968 to the Trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation by the Committee on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation, Walter Muir Whitehill, Chairman. Note: This copy of the Report was scanned from a manuscript provided by John Fugelso of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. It is used with permission of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
I. Professional Education for Historic Preservation and Restoration
In the past twenty years the speed of change in the appearance of the United States, both in city and countryside, in buildings and in landscape, has been vastly accelerated. Continued prosperity combined with rapid growth of population bring about more changes in a year than were previously normal in a decade. A sudden awareness of this new rate of change has aroused a vastly enhanced interest in historic preservation, for many Americans have now become aware that, unless they do something, and do it fast, they will soon have lost all ties with their past and will have reached George Orwell's 1984 a number of years ahead of schedule.
A century ago historic preservation was chiefly the concern of historians and antiquarians, who sought to save, for exhibition and edification, buildings and sites associated with the lives of great men or with great events. In the present century men became aware that fine examples of architecture, regardless of their age or events associated with them, added dignity and beauty to the scenes in which they stood, and shouldn't thoughtlessly be demolished in the quest for "progress" (a word frequently used to justify needless change). One cannot pickle or crystallize the past; indeed no sensible person would wish to live surrounded by obsolete artifacts simply because they were old. But many fine survivals of the past can lend distinction and variety to their surroundings, and so preservation turned from its earlier concept of exhibition and edification to the idea of keeping such buildings in use--their original use, if possible, and if not, a new one that will do the least harm to their salient features. Thus historians and antiquarians ceased to be the only advocates of historic preservation. In this new phase, everyone concerned with maintaining the character and integrity of their surroundings has a part. As the rate of change increased, popular enthusiasm for preservation grew apace. A threat to a significant building often generates activity accompanied by generous gifts of money. It is, however, a great deal easier to raise the funds for desirable projects in historic preservation than to find the architects and craftsmen necessary to carry it out.
Forty years ago most architects had been trained in the grammar of historic styles and in draughtsmanship, while many older carpenters and masons were still familiar with the traditional techniques of their crafts. Through changes in the curricula of architectural schools beginning in the 1930's, only an occasional architect of the present day has the interest in and knowledge of the past that were once a commonplace of the profession. With rapidly changing techniques in the building trades, inspired by new materials and pre-fabrication, the ability to repair (or where necessary reproduce) details in old buildings has become extremely uncommon. The larger public and private organizations engaged in historic preservation--of which the National Park Service and Colonial Williamsburg are conspicuous examples--have been forced to train and develop their own staffs of archaeologists, research historians, architects, and craftsmen. As these specialists are normally fully occupied with the work of their own organizations, the number of professional restorationists available for general work is very small indeed. The pressing need to increase their number is the main problem to which this committee has addressed itself.
Our concern with professional education in historic preservation is rigidly limited to architecture and the building crafts, for it is only by continued practical use of some kind that most buildings can or should be preserved. Only a limited number of highly exceptional buildings are important enough to be preserved solely for exhibition. We already have on exhibition more museums and (supposedly) "historic houses" than we need, or can afford to keep up, or are good for us as a nation. Therefore we are not, as a committee, concerned with matters of museum administration or interpretation, or anything else to do with exhibition, but solely with the problem of the people who are so urgently needed to carry out the physical aspects of preservation and restoration.
Introduction
I. Professional Education for Preservation and Restoration
A. Architectural Curricula
B. Conservation of the Traditional Building Crafts
II. Public Education for Historic Preservation and Restoration
III. Publications
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