of a heritage

OF A HERI-TAGE

By Kevin Crace

of a heritage-A Collection-

Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Masters of Architecture

in the Department of Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Kevin CraceM.Arch 2012, B.A. 2009

Approved by:

of a heritage-A Collection-

Peter Tagiuri; Professor, Department of Architecture.

{Primary Advisor}

Anastasia Congdon; Professor , Department of Architecture.

{Secondary Advisor}

Jonathan Knowles; Professor, Department of Architecture.

{Degree Project Coordinator}

History is often represented through reenactment, architectural pastiche or

preservation. More specifically, the inheritance of place, the accumulation of past, remains a determining factor that perhaps most shapes a site’s present condition, its present being. I argue that a current stance on preservation, recreating an artifact to be frozen in a period of time, erodes the inheritance of an object or place, and that, rather, a participatory attachment between artifact and protagonist is a more lasting means of preservation. History already operates as a myth, a myth created by multiple authors amongst multiple biases. The creation of a new myth between artifact and individual prolongs and facilitates the great inheritance of place.

As history begins to interact with the individual, it begins to shed its carefulness. Fiction begins to emulsify the boundaries of history and individual. Myth does not stain history; rather, myth offers a means of preservation, a means of continuation. The story remains tethered to the narrator, and tethered to the artifact. I propose an archive to facilitate such an attachment.

I intend to forge a bond between individual and the heritage of place, a relationship

thesis abstractAn Argument

between protagonist and story. An architecture, a curation of myth, stands as a projection of a site’s history. A projection elongates an instance, absorbs a feeling, extends a future, and stands as an artifice to blur the reality behind. Through fragment and the layering of instances, a comprehensive whole emerges through experience and the historical discovery of place.

An initial investigation encompassing a sixteen inch strip of wall. Artifacts are

informed by past projects that shared the same sixteen inches, the same site, in previous years. The blinds stand between viewer and miniatures as an interactive barrier between the present and the past. Allowing for diff erent vantage points and diff erent distances from the artifacts, the blinds are manipulated.

dP boardAn Installation

shared site10/20/2011

poplar and paper

A manipulation of photographs taken in Beaufort, S.C. They are curated

amongst other photographs and materials to initiate a new dialogue, a new narrative. The photograph’s story is recreated and restored in the present. Offering a new relationship to the viewer, the artifact continues to be repositioned and remembered.

PhotograPhsA Layering of Meaning

frame 105/15/2012

mixed media

frame 2, side b05/15/2012

mixed media

frame 2, side a05/15/2012

mixed media

frame 3, side b05/16/2012

mixed media

frame 3, side a05/16/2012

mixed media

titLe10/23/2012

medium

Beaufort, SC was occupied by the Spanish in the early 1500’s, and then the French

before the English came in 1629. Its water’s depth allow for it to be a very accessible port by naval ships. The city was almost destroyed in 1715 by the Indian War and saw much action during the Revolutionary war. The county was largely spared during the Civil War because Union occupation was swift and at the start of the war. Beaufort had a period of great wealth from indigo and rice farming and stood as one of the wealthiest cities on the east coast. This sparked the construction of many plantation homes. The nearby Penn center is one of the fi rst schools built to educate recently freed slaves.

I am interested in the contrasting levels of preservation of Beaufort. There is the cultural preservation of the Gullah people, the material preservation of the immense war bunkers, the historic preservation of the Penn center, and the artistic preservation of its history through numerous stories and photographs.

beaUfort, scA Site

Beaufort, S.C. is distinguished by the active Gullah culture present and is

regarded as home to the purest form of the Gullah dialect. The Gullah culture is descended from the many slaves that were taken from Sierra Leone and brought to Savannah and Georgia to cultivate the marshy land. Being taken from a humid country with many swamplands, the Gullahs had built up immunities to the harsh diseases present. The Europeans had not and were prone to sickness in the warmer months. The majority of the European plantation owners would then leave to vacation during the spring and summer season, allowing the Gullah people to keep growing and preserving their culture. The culture is rooted in tradition and has a long history of storytelling. They eat only what is caught or grown locally and have a rotating diet that changes with each season.

the gULLah traditioNA Culture

sLave famiLyphotograph

sweet grass weaverphotograph

The fort was built for occupation during the Spanish-American war and was

constructed in 1898. The fort itself saw little action, only ever fi ring the enormous guns as a test. However the fort housed over 100 soldiers and was largely occupied until 1912. In 1921 the fort was eventually deactivated. One altercation occurred in 1910 between soldiers and local slaves over the sale of bootlegged whiskey (“Blind Tiger Liquor”) resulting in 6 injured and 1 dead. When the fort was deactivated, the majority of the wooden buildings were disassembled. The hospital, the only structure made of brick, was left and operated as barracks in 1917. It was then bought by a private owner and operated as a plantation home. In 2004 Beaufort County bought the land to make a national park with hopes of making it a preserved historic site but little action has been taken.

fort fremoNtA Ruin

fort fremoNt soLdiersphotograph

the batteriesphotograph

the remaiNs01/30/2012

graphite on mylar

caNoPy02/20/2012digital print

agricULtUre02/15/2012

graphite on mylar

aN archive02/23/2012

poplar

“The women sat among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them

and back. This book. My father had it. He liked a book. Pilgrim’s Progress. Used to read it. Got his name in it. And his pipe—still smells rank. And this picture—an angel. I looked at that before the fust three come—didn’t seem to do much good. Think we could get this china dog in? Aunt Sadie brought it from the St. Louis fair. See? Wrote right on it. No, I guess not. Here’s a letter my brother wrote the day before he died. Here’s an old-time hat. These feathers—never got to use them. No, there isn’t room .... How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

An archive calcifies an instance into an entity and is the primary means for an index to occur. An archive illustrates an object’s singularity while promoting a situation of it amongst another. An archive stands as a habitat; a habitat that shelters a collection, an accumulation of narratives and a projection of time.

aN archiveHousing a History

artifacts 1 & 202/19/2012

digital printed book, copper

artifact 3 & 402/03/2012

digital print

artifact 5 & 602/25/2012

digital print, spanish moss and shell

An exploration in the episode. Housing a single story while blurring the boundary

of exterior and interior. An inverse perspective, peering through the past to the present.

the beacoNAn Episode

head PositioN03/05//2012

bristol and digital print

beacoN03/15/2012

birch plywood, copper, digital print on mylar

beacoN, iNterior03/15/2012


beacoN03/15/2012


beacoN as archive02/02/2012

graphite on paper

“Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever.... For, indeed, the

greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength which ...maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy of nations: it is in the golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suff ering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess, of language and of life....”

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1890)

beacoN tyPoLogy A Series

beacoNs combiNed04/15/2012

digital print

beacoNs, a PLaN04/15/2012

digital print

In moments throughout the site, a boardwalk is created. The route one takes

shifts in height and directly engages the ground level. To emphasize the amount of agriculture proposed on the site, the route is submerged within its fields. At points the crops rise above your head, while at others you walk level to their height. As the crops grow or are harvested throughout the seasons, the ground level changes and demarcates a change in time.

chaNgiNg groUNdA Seasonal Change

above aNd beLow05/01/2012

cardboard, dowels, and chipboard

UNder05/02/2012


over5/03/2012


One’s movement throughout the site is impeded by obstacles and beacons. An instance is elongated, blocked, or truncated to influence an interaction between individual and a story. One inhabits the story at present and is surrounded by other instances.

obstacLes, iNstaNcesAn Interaction

obstacLes 1 & 204/23/2012

poplar, chipboard, cardboard

obstacLe 304/24/2012


obstacLe 404/25/2012


The boardwalk is reintroduced, following the path of the fort’s previous dock

eroded over time. A greenhouse stands to house the medicinal plants of the Gullah tribe and acts as a gallery to display their preserved presence. A traditional slave home is built to spatially stand as a reference. A gallery of walls is built to direct the individual into direct confrontation with images of the past at human scale. The beacons are splayed throughout to off er a garden of stories that gather new meanings and connections as you move from one to the next. The instances are gathered to the north and begin to fade to the fort’s south like a gradient revealing what has been built and what remains.

the ProPosaLA Strategy

PLaN 105/12/2012

digital print

PLaN 205/13/2012

digital print

PLaN 205/14/2012

digital print

sectioNs05/14/2012

digital print

“The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which

we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years.”

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

the beacoNs iNtrodUcedA Curation

greeNhoUse05/15/2012

acrylic, graphite, and linseed oil on bristol

beacoN gardeN05/16/2012


a hoUse05/17/2012


a gaLLery05/18/2012


greeNhoUse05/10/2012

cardboard, poplar, chipboard, and acrylic

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of a heritage

Documents

department of architecture

new myth

heritage of place

sites history

masters of architecture

curation of myth

boundaries of history

great inheritance of