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0:03
Hi everybody, welcome. I really have a great pleasure today, and actually an honor, to introduce Jeff Chusid, who's our speaker today. His title of his talk is The World Through a Preservation Lens. And Jeff, as many of you know, has been part of CRP and at Cornell, and really at the heart of historic preservation planning here for the past 20 years. And before that, he taught at UT Austin, at Harvard, at Cal Poly Pomona, at University of Southern California.
0:39
He's also most recently been part of a teaching team at the University of Kiev and the Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. So today, well not today, but this is his last semester of teaching, and Jeff will formally retire at the end of this academic year. We will have a get together around graduation for him. But I really wanted to start out on this very personal note, that Jeff has been an amazing mentor. He has been chair of CRP for five and a half long years.
1:16
Jeff is known in Cape Town, where my family lives, as not as Jeff, but as Happy Jeff. And we know many Jeffs, so he really is known as Happy Jeff, because they met him when he was handing chairing over to me. And Jeff was levitating in the joyfulness of that occasion. But Jeff really has been personally for me, a mentor, a chair, a friend, really somebody who's helped me feel at home at Cornell, and really take forward what he has offered the department or all the leadership he offered CRP.
1:50
Jeff has also been a teacher, and I'm sure many of you, there are generations of you here in the room, an advisor, somebody who has really shaped how we think about historic preservation planning, and how we also, MRP students have engaged with him. He has taught in Rome for two semesters. Maybe most of all, Jeff is a friend to so many of us, a great citizen. Jeff is also a brilliant cook. If you ever get invited to his house, say yes. Jeff has fed me many, many times.
2:23
The only way I can repay him is I've said he's got to come to Cape Town, because I am not a cook, and Cape Town will do the trick of saying thank you. But I know Jeff has played that role for so, so many of us. And this is a chance to, you know, really mark and celebrate that. But I actually asked Jeff to do this colloquium, and he might be in this moment cursing me out at the thought of that. But I really find that when people have played that role of leading, and being a good citizen,
2:54
and chairing, and offering so much, that sometimes their intellectual work is a little bit of the backstory. And really, Jeff is a really, his intellectual contributions to his historic preservation are really huge and momentous, and across his entire career. So I want to just give you a little feeling of that. His research and teaching, his writing, his exhibitions have focused on the fate of historic resources in areas of cultural exchange and conflict.
3:26
And he really has done extensive work on the conservation of modernist architecture and planning on sustainable development, on placemaking, using historic sites and communities. I have too many things in my hand. But this is his very well known book called Saving Wright, which is about one of the Wright buildings in LA. It won an Antoinette Forrester Downing Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians. It was used and mentioned in a New York Review of Books article.
3:57
You know, these are all really significant signs of his work and his intellectual work. He's working at present and will be heading to California when we are here in the middle of January, February, March, and April. He will be heading to California to work on his Joseph Stein book, which is another really significant contribution to the field. He's also presently working with Andy Robley, who might be here, I'm not sure, on a collaborative
4:25
project with historic preservation experts in Ukraine, thinking about the very practical and urgent, pressing political and substantive questions of how do you think about, how do you work in a context of conflict and war and outright destruction of the built environment around preservation? So with that all said, this is really a chance to celebrate Jeff, to listen, to reflect, and to have a feel of his broad work and intellectual contribution to historic preservation. Let me hand it over.
4:59
Please reassure me that he has put his career into two and a half hours, no, he has put his career into one hour, and this will be really select segments that give us the chance to really engage now. And Jeff isn't running away, we will, you know, we know we'll have a longer term conversation with him. On that note, let me be quiet and hand it over. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that amazingly generous introduction. And I don't know what I do will rise to that, that level, but thank you.
5:44
And I realized there are things I need to learn how to do like control this. So many years ago, I spent a summer exploring Turkey and I was very fortunate to be able to do so. And on a beautiful balmy evening, I arrived at Hattishash, which is the ancient Hittite capital. And as I walked around the site, I came across this polished green stone set in the earth, glowing in the soft sunlight. And I took this picture and then I wandered on.
6:28
And a little while later, I encountered three other folks who were walking around the site, turned out to be two doctors who had been at a conference in Ankara, one Turkish and one Israeli, accompanied by the site curator. They invited me to join them and soon we found ourselves back at that stone. The curator explained that this stone was a gift from Ramses II of Egypt to the Hittites to cement a peace treaty. That's cool. Now it's more than just a beautiful object.
7:05
The Israeli doctor then said, oh, Ramses II. He was the pharaoh negotiating with Moses, at which point I got chills. That story, by the way, is familiar to my students because I tend to start my classes every year with it. Interestingly, it was only a few years ago that I decided to figure out what was that peace treaty. And it turned out to be not just a peace treaty, but the oldest known peace treaty.
7:39
It was written down in 1300 BC in several copies and is significant enough that a reproduction of it hangs at the United Nations. Stories are central to our understanding of place. And that evening in Anatolian Turkey demonstrated for me how powerful those stories can be. Historic preservation is many things. Perhaps most practically, it is a set of tools and insights on how to make a community's tangible and intangible cultural heritage a meaningful and useful part of its future.
8:20
For me, preservation has been a profound way to see, understand, and engage the world. In other words, stories. The lens of historic preservation can reveal wonders, interesting places and peoples, narratives of meaning and memory that give insights into how and why a world came to be and how it is represented to the act of conserving objects, places, and communities. That lens also shows us a world of ferocious battles in which the meanings people invest
8:53
in places and things are deeply contested and the outcomes can be violent, even catastrophic. Preservation as a discipline is full of both tame problems, such as the technical aspects of material conservation, and wicked ones, should something be preserved and why and for whom. The technical problems are often not easy or simple, by the way, but it is the wicked ones that make historic preservation an act of planning.
9:24
In this presentation, I will share some more stories from projects with which I have been involved, mostly with students, and the questions and issues that they pose for us as planners and concerned people in the world. Preservation begins by looking and listening, with finding a piece of cultural heritage and then learning about it, and sometimes the fresh perspective we bring to a place can uncover value that others might have overlooked or forgotten.
9:57
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans along with other communities along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast, killing some 1,400 people and causing at least $125 billion worth of damage. Eighty percent of the city of New Orleans was flooded. Just a few weeks later, several CRP faculty, led by then Chair Ken Reardon, went to New Orleans to see what we could do. Over a series of visits over the next several months, working with ACORN, a non-profit advocacy
10:38
organization called actually the Association of Community Organizations of Reform Now, we met with community members and held numerous conversations, as did many other universities and groups, to help identify where we could be most useful. You might see Professor George France standing in the back of one of those images. Two long-term projects came out of the discussion, a plan for the Upper Ninth Ward, or Lower
11:08
Ninth Ward rather, written by Ken Reardon and students for the city, and the project I will show you in a minute. Meanwhile, the Historic Preservation Work Weekend took place over spring break, and a significant percentage of CRP students spent the week in New Orleans helping to remove mold and rot from homes. They also helped with the second project. ACORN had noticed this old market structure that had been flooded and abandoned.
11:42
It sat on the neutral ground of St. Rock Avenue, meaning it was on New Orleans city land. They thought it might have value. We went to work. It turns out that the St. Rock market was one of the last of the 19 municipal markets of New Orleans, along with the French market. But while somewhat altered by a brick enclosure at ground level, the St. Rock also had much of its character and fabric from when it was built in 1875. We started by researching history at the archives at Tulane University.
12:17
We then investigated the condition of the building and its materials and systems, and documented our findings through measured drawings, field notes, and large format photography. We then assembled that information in a historic structure report, and began looking at how the space could be reused. We put this material not only into the HSR, the book, but also various brochures and posters. Over the next few years, that material circulated around, not just Louisiana, but apparently
12:54
as far as D.C. and New York. Apparently some developers became interested. The city suddenly realized it had something valuable and funded a basic restoration. While it took 10 years, by 2015 it was open again, looking better than it had for decades. It wasn't an easy project, and it is modestly profitable at best, but it survives, a resource for its community, and like many older historic structures, serves as an incubator today for new businesses in the community, in this case focused on food.
13:39
In 2010, the organization here in the college known as MOAB, Minority Organization of AAP, wanted to organize a study tour of India over winter break. They also wanted a service component for the trip, and that is how this project came about. Thanks to the help of Ravi Kaimal, a Delhi architect, we were invited to tell the story of Diggy and help imagine its future. If you Google Diggy, by the way, you will find the following, a village located in Malpura
14:21
Tessel of Tank District, Rajasthan, India, and that's it. But it is much more than that. And so here we are, 12 students and one faculty member at the town gate. Diggy, approximately one kilometer across, a town of 7,000 inhabitants, hosts close to a half a million pilgrims every year, every summer, in fact. They come to visit the historic Mandir Sri Kalyanji, a temple shrine which is located in the center of the town.
15:00
Diggy also contains a number of other significant sites, including a sprawling fort, step wells, city wells, important religious, residential, and commercial structures, and several large tanks on the perimeter. The annual pilgrimage both gives meaning and a financial boost to the community and exacts a toll in environmental damage and strain on the town's infrastructure and populace. We began with looking and listening.
15:29
Students were asked to conduct mapping, building typology, streets, transportation network, zones of use and activity, infrastructure, major institution, monuments, et cetera. We also met with residents of the town, from school children to various groups of workers and residents, to the local Thakur, or hereditary ruler of the town, Sri Ram Pratap Singh, who is seen here talking to us over here, interrupted by a visitor.
16:07
Here, one of our students talking to a group of other students in a local mosque, and here one of the students surrounded by the crowds that love to follow us wherever we went. The origin of the idol of an avatar of Lord Vishnu in the Kalyanji shrine is lost in the myths of time and myth, but the pilgrimages, as I mentioned, have had significant impacts on the town, such as businesses that count on two months of pilgrims for a year's income
16:46
to the construction of dharamshalas that serve particular castes from particular regions. There's also been a severe impact on local water supplies and some poorly planned roads that caused environmental and social problems. Here are some images from the report we produced at the end of the project. Photography turned out to be one of the most important tools that we had to help us and others see. These are views of the dharamshalas, views of the historic fort, and other images from
17:26
around the town, including water infrastructure and the fantastic mud dwellings seen here. Houses that had traditional paintings done on them. We also looked at the wildlife, including the birds, the other views of the fort, and views of people at work. Turns out that the main industries besides the pilgrimage in this town were cutting stones and jewelry making, and then also seed oil made from grains grown nearby.
18:19
At the end of our week in Diggie, we presented our research to the Thakur and got his questions and feedback. We then came back to Ithaca, and over the course of the semester, produced this book about Diggie, which examined all of the items that you see here from the pilgrimage to infrastructure to the people, art and architecture, etc. With our book in hand, the Thakur and others were able to persuade the chief minister of
19:02
Rajasthan to invest the funds necessary to fix the town's infrastructure, including restoring the lake seen in this picture and redoing the damaging roads. The fort itself was partially restored and now operates as an inn and community facility and other improvements followed. Just by seeing and respecting what was there, we had managed to make this place memorable and valuable to others. This could also be called preservation of what and for whom.
19:41
Austin, Texas has traditionally been one of the fastest growing cities in this country from when it was founded in 1836 to today when it's well over a million people. The site I'm going to be talking about is right here where this crane is. If we go and do a Google map search of Austin, we see Rainey Street Historic District, which is a long block of small homes just to the west of the Interstate 35. But if we look a little bit more closely, something interesting seems to be happening.
20:34
Here's that block of small homes, the Colorado River, downtown up there, 2006. 2025, doesn't look anything like it. What happened? Here's the map, the historic plan of Austin. It's again designed, it's located along the Colorado River. Congress Avenue, the main street, ends in the Capitol and right behind it was the State House. It's a little bit like our campus surrounded by changes in the topography on either side bounding it.
21:15
A little more of a clue, oh, by the way, our neighborhood is right here. A little more of a clue, if we look at this map of downtown, and here's again the area, we see that it's listed as unrestricted district. In other words, good luck building something in the floodplain of the Colorado River. And so, in fact, that became an area that could be settled by people who couldn't afford or work elsewhere. And the result was a neighborhood of small, beautiful 19th century vernacular homes, basically
21:54
built between 1885 and 1934. Little Greek Revival and Queen Anne, other vernacular styles, tree-lined streets. A special neighborhood sort of hidden just besides downtown Austin. This is a map of the development of the neighborhood. Even then, back in the early 2000s, there were ideas about massive development happening, a proposal for this condominium complex right next to the river. There were signs for properties that were for sale. In fact, this was a view of transitory tranquility.
22:49
The residents were being offered big money to sell and move, and they wanted to take it. The problem is that if the houses stayed, the value of the land was relatively low. But if the houses went and the land could be redeveloped, then there was a great deal of money to be made. There were a lot of debates at City Hall. And so, working with Preservation Austin, the local NGO, a preservation studio at Austin,
23:21
looked at what could be done from proposing ADUs that is in the character of the existing buildings that essentially doubled the capacity of the area, to development along and around the historic street that might add as much as 3 million square feet to the area while saving the houses. Well, what happened? For a while, the houses remained, although the inhabitants had left. And suddenly, Rainey Street, which is relatively unknown, became a major entertainment district in the city of Austin.
24:03
And there are all these cool bars and restaurants and food trucks, et cetera. And it felt very much within the somewhat real and somewhat manufactured zeitgeist of Austin. And it's interesting to read this conversation on Reddit about what's going on. Rainey's character, LOL. Rainey Street was a neighborhood full of homes and lost its character when they were bought and turned into bars during the past two decades. There's some somewhat negative critiques of the bar scene.
24:46
And then it ends, Rainey Street was never meant to be bars and culture. It was rezoned central business district on 2005 to make way for more downtown development. So this is Rainey Street today. I want to go back to India and look very quickly at another example of change over time and the values and motivations of play. The India International Center is located at the southern edge of New Delhi's bungalow district and adjacent to the Lodi Gardens.
25:24
It was designed by Joseph Allen Stein, an expatriate American who had fled the US on the blacklist in 1950, came to India, and within a few years, actually had the largest architecture and engineering firm in the country. The importance of the India International Center can be judged in part by this view of then Crown Prince Akihito, who was later emperor of Japan, and his wife laying the cornerstone of the building.
26:03
Construction was fascinating because it was occurring as India was still in the process of industrialization. So a modern building was built by a combination of hand techniques and modern technologies, many of which were imported. Other figures seen in this image include John D. Rockefeller and Joe Stein here on the right. The groundbreaking was attended by Prime Minister Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and other figures like Dashmukh and Radhakrishnan in the pantheon of newly independent India.
26:43
The purpose of the India International Center, seen here shortly after construction finished in the early 1960s, was to host events that brought leading cultural figures from around the world to India, providing housing and dining, an auditorium library, and other facilities. The IIC has become a popular and beloved institution. It was ranked in Outlook India as the best building in Delhi. It is seen here with the bungalow districts in the distance.
27:16
The Ford Foundation to the right, which Stein also, I'm sorry, which Stein also, here's the Ford Foundation, Stein also designed Lodi Gardens over here. Its popularity was such that a large annex was constructed nearby, but even that wasn't enough to accommodate all the demand. And so the pressure on the original building happened even as, to grow and to change, even as it was acknowledged to be a really special and beautiful place. There was a great controversy amongst the membership.
28:04
Here's an original drawing of the IIC by Stein. At the bottom, you see how it looked in 2008, two stories with this kind of vaulted roof. And here it is by 2015 with a third floor here, and actually an entire part of it torn down and replaced by this office block over here. This raises a question because of course buildings are allowed to change, grow, adapt, modernize, but what is the motivation behind it, or perhaps more, what is the value that is given to these
28:49
early monuments of independence? Nearby was Pragati Maidan, which is basically fairgrounds that over the years developed an astonishing collection of modern architecture by people like Raj Rawal, as well as Joe Stein and many others. In 2017, all of a sudden, almost overnight, bulldozers tore these buildings down with the idea of building something new and more exciting. But it seems to be across the board a kind of attack on the modernist legacy in India.
29:42
Here's Lukan's India Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, which a few years ago was about to be demolished because the buildings were declared unusable or even unsafe, even though preservation architects working on them had been doing successful things. So what's going on? In part, there is the fact that there isn't really an ability to designate modern architecture as historic in India, but more than that, these are creations of Nehru's secular modern
30:29
vision for India from the early part, from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, when as a neutral nation it could take the best from both the Communist bloc and the Western bloc and build these amazing institutions and bring in people from all over the world who are doing these things that created an exciting new country. And so this debate continues even more today and is seen in the Central Vista Redevelopment Project, which is Prime Minister Modi's grand scheme for Central Delhi.
31:13
It is described as an anti-colonial venture and could be argued in a way that it is because it's taking on the British legacy of Central New Delhi. But at the same time, it has also become this amazing political football. As you can see from this comment here, that has been put in, that was put in the newspaper, that the decision to inaugurate the new parliament building by himself was not only a grave insult but a direct assault on our democracy.
31:59
It's fascinating to see the debates over the saving or the destruction of these monuments of India put in these terms. Lavooka, Fiji, is a town that was founded in the 1820s, before Fiji even became a nation. It contains Catholic and Methodist missions from the 1850s. And then in 1870, King Thakabal, who is seen here, united a series of sort of independent islands into the nation of Fiji, in part a response to the apparently rather bad depredations of American whalers on the islands.
32:55
Thakabal then turned around and tried to give Fiji to Great Britain. And it took a few years, but by 1874, Britain finally agreed to annex the island. And Lavooka was the first capital, for at least a few years. Besides the growth of the town and the nation as a stop for whalers and others on South Sea trading routes, the British established numerous sugar plantations and brought in indentured laborers from what is now India and Pakistan to do the work.
33:32
Today, the population of the country is approximately 55% indigenous Melanesian, 40% descendants of those laborers from South Asia, and 10% European and East Asian, or 5% European and East Asian. Hence, Lavooka shares with Delhi the question of what to do with the colonial legacy that constitutes the built fabric of their communities. But it's magnified in the case of Fiji by the ethnic divisions inherited from the British.
34:08
Here are some views of the beautiful structures that you can find around the town. The Bure, by the way, on the left, is where Prince Charles signed the papers giving Fiji independence. Lavooka also happens to have some real landmarks, such as the Royal Hotel, which was built in the 1860s. It's the oldest and still functioning hotel in the South Pacific. The public school, which is built with Oregon Pine, is the oldest public school built and still functioning in the South Pacific.
34:51
And similarly, the oldest Masonic Lodge was founded there, along with other things like the first post office in Fiji, etc. And there are still the warehouses that were used for transporting goods and other beautiful buildings, including the City Hall down here on the right, which is where we did our work while we were there. We came at the invitation, by the way, of the heritage advisor of Lavooka, who had arrived
35:29
just the previous year from having worked for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Honolulu, Hawaii. Upon landing in Fiji, he was promptly put under house arrest until it was clarified that he was only going to work on buildings that were European or Western in origin and had nothing to say about the traditional architecture of the island. The real charm of Lavooka is its downtown that still looks much as it did in the 19th century.
36:05
In fact, it and Lahaina and Maui were sister cities and the two surviving South Sea whaling ports. And of course, Lahaina is much gone because of the fires a few years ago. In Fiji, everything outside the town is tribal lands. So the Indo-Fijians and others are essentially limited to living in the towns. Lavooka was a rare multi-ethnic community and, at least when we were there, very proud of that fact.
36:37
But Lavooka was also a historic site that was governed very strictly by Australian regulations for historic properties. And that meant that the appearance and construction of the buildings was protected. The problem is that the population of the town was growing, but by being surrounded by tribal lands, the town itself could not grow. But the town also, at least on paper, could not change. So what to do?
37:10
Working with local businesses and homeowners, we basically came up with a model of development that wasn't dissimilar to what in New Orleans are called camelbacks, which is building second floors set back far enough that they're not readily visible from the street. And still, while that idea helped maintain the physical character of the town, it also perpetuated a kind of apartheid that was baked into the uneasy political status of
37:41
the country, as attested to by the numerous coups in which one side or another, the ethnic divide took power. In fact, the Masonic Temple itself was set on fire during unrest following Fiji's 2000 coup, allegedly by people suspicious of Masonic rituals. Other buildings in the downtown have also burned because the wooden town has no hydrants or other firefighting infrastructure. Several of the fires have been blamed on arson.
38:12
But although they impacted the historic character of the town, it's not clear that tourism or heritage were specific targets. Meanwhile, if you go to the Fiji Heritage Tourism website, you find this, which says, There's no more appropriate building in La Vuca to understand its colorful history than to visit the ruins of its Masonic Hall. Truly one of the great examples of turning lemons into lemonade. The city of La Vuca actually made the ruin into a public nursery.
38:48
Despite those fires, they were not of sufficient quality to impact La Vuca's designation in 2013 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. And despite its beauty and significance, tourism makes up only a small part of the local economy, largely due to the difficulty of getting there. So this is a town that really serves its locals. The major industry, in fact, is Pafco, a tuna cannery that is alternatively owned by Fiji and Japan, depending on various things.
39:22
Also fun story, you see the bumblebee logo here. Our trip to La Vuca coincided with the annual three-week visit of a rabbi from New Jersey, whose job it was to monitor the processing of kosher tuna for bumblebee. Also designated a World Heritage Site in 2013 by UNESCO was the Archaeological Preserve of Torre Chersonesus. The ancient Greek town of Chersonesus was founded on what we now know as the Crimean Peninsula in the 5th century BC.
40:02
Over the centuries since, it was an important outpost of the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine empires, before becoming essentially a lightly inhabited ruin in the 14th century. It then became part of the military lands when Catherine the Great established the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Before that, in 988, Volodymyr Veliky, or Vladimir the Great, Prince of Kievan Rus, was reputedly baptized here, and that marked the start of the Christianization of the Slavs.
40:42
Chersonesus' monuments and artifacts are, according to UNESCO, among the most complete and coherent remnants of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine civilizations in the region. The city walls are the largest standing monuments of classical antiquity on the Black Sea, and the ancient theater is the only one known to exist in the region. Early Hellenistic grave monuments preserve some of the finest known examples of ancient Greek painting.
41:11
Remains of residential quarters, cobbled Roman roads, a theater, a port, wineries, craft workshops and stores, taverns, and inns have been preserved. And there are also ruins of sanctuaries, pagan temples, basilica churches, cross-domed and district temples, monasteries, synagogues, and cemeteries. These are the site, and this here is a view of the many things collected in the rather simple museum that was there when we were there.
41:48
There is both the historic town and the kora, the sort of suburban agricultural regions which stand beyond. And these have things such as pits that used to hold wine or olive oil, grape vines, some of which can be dated all the way back to vines planted in the 4th and 5th century BC, even irrigation structures from that period, and the ruins of farmhouses. Under Joseph Carter, who is an archaeologist at the University of Texas, who worked on
42:32
the site from basically 1997 to 2013, there was a tremendous amount of excavation and work done. Part of our job as in this team was conserving what was uncovered by the archaeologists, as well as helping to develop planning documents for the site and for the park. And in part this was necessary because it's located adjacent to Sevastopol, which is a big city and the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet. So things easily encroached onto the site, and the site itself became important to the
43:17
townspeople because for much of the 1990s, the sailors in the Black Sea Fleet and their families had no income. Russia had collapsed and there was no new government running the fleet or paying the bills. And so they were taking over the archaeological lands to plant food to sell in the markets. And some of the dachas that were built actually took the stones from the site. So it took some years to work to preserve that.
43:51
But in the meantime, one night, a set of a unmarked black helicopter flying over the site lowered this little shelter onto into the ruins there, bolted it down. And so the next day, when the director of the museum said, basically, what's going on and why is this here, he was told, this is to commemorate Volodymyr Veliky's baptism. And if you touch it, we and the we here being the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox
44:35
Church and the mafia, who basically ran much of Sevastopol at the time, would destroy everything pagan on the site. And here was a 19th century church being restored. Well, within a few years, it was clear that the site was venerating Volodymyr's baptism. So 2013, it's designated, 2014, Russia invades. Putin thinks this is a very important site. And within a few years, he has done this. Basically constructing a new museum, new cathedral, auditoriums and other facilities, destroying
45:32
much of the archaeological site. In fact, as someone wrote, the construction works destroyed the cultural layer, which in some places reached more than 10 meters. The remains of an ancient temple, the city necropolis with unique burial and memorial structures, the remains of suburban complexes, all of that, thousands of finds put into dumps and scavenged to some extent, but otherwise gone. Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a beautiful town built around an old bridge.
46:27
In fact, most is the word for stadi, most is old bridge, and so Mostar obviously is the town built around the bridge. The significance of it is clear, culturally, just from the fact that it shows up on these postage stamps, as well as in this map, you can see, here's the bridge, and you can see this is built in a valley, essentially, along the river, the Neriva. This bridge was built, stood for over 400 years. It was designed by Hayruddin, who was a student of the great Ottoman architect Sinan.
47:16
It spanned 20, basically 94 feet of the Neriva River, 69 feet above it. It was the largest single-span stone bridge in the world. The towers housed the guardians of the bridge, and during Ottoman times were also used as storehouses. Well, in the early, you know, here's, again, some pictures of the historic town. And here you can see, with the image of a church here and a mosque here, that the town was also a multi-ethnic one, sitting on the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnia being
48:14
basically the Muslim part of the country, Herzegovina being basically the Catholic part of the country. And this sat right there. In fact, the bridge became a symbol of exactly that kind of spanning between cultures, traditions, and religions. In the war that, in the civil war that began in the early 90s, as after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, first Bosnia, Mostar was under attack from Serbian forces, and the Croats and Bosnians fought together.
49:01
And then after the Serbian forces left, the Croatians and the Bosnians went after each other. And the Croatians spent a couple of years shooting at the bridge, which did its best by hanging tires and other things on it to save it, you know, to be saved, until eventually in 1994, the bridge collapsed into the water. This was a big enough event to actually make it into the New York Times and headlines around the world.
49:40
And I remember when I looked at it, thinking, both being really shaken by it and upset by the destruction of the bridge, but also recognizing the power that place monuments have in people's minds that it was so important to get rid of this monument, for some people as important as it was for others to save it. Of course, the war was more broad than that. Mostar was a town of 100,000 people or city of 100,000 people before the war, and as a
50:26
city of 100,000 people after the war, 90% of them different. Among the things that we witnessed being there was parks that were filled with graves. In fact, the school in which we worked, the playground had about 80 people buried in it. And clearly, it wasn't just about the monument. Amir Pasic, a Bosnian architect, in 1994 started something called Mostar 2004 and basically said, committed himself that in 10 years, that bridge would be rebuilt.
51:29
And how he did it was quite remarkable because he basically, starting with a meeting in Istanbul, which was happening while the war was still going on, and where people who attended from Bosnia had to flee basically at night through the fighting to get to this conference, put together a group of people from around the world who supported this effort. And as soon as it was safe to go there, every year would bring students and faculty from
52:09
universities not just around Europe, but the US, China, other places. And so, this program, this project of Mostar 2004 gained more and more energy.
52:34
What I wanted to show you on the side, this is actually students at one of the summer workshops that had built a little bus shelter in the town, but also put lots of examples of their work and ideas in. So what Amir was doing was saying, okay, we're going to reconstruct the bridge, but we're actually reconstructing a community at the same time. And how do we do that? And so after the war, he was not the only one, he was Luciano Pavarotti at the opening of a music center in Mostar.
53:14
And even in, these are Sarajevo roses, but even bomb craters from mortar shells exploding in the street would be filled with red resin as a way to make something that was both emblematic of the suffering, but also beautiful in its own way as a form of healing. How successful that effort was, in part, can be seen here by looking at the amount of devastation following the war in this aerial photograph, and then a photograph a few years later after
53:59
the bridge was restored and many of these buildings around put back. This is a view, by the way, of the prime minister of Croatia, who attended a Mostar 2004 workshop. I'd like to sort of end with a view of, again, Ukraine. The old academic building is a structure in Ukraine that was built around 1700 originally. Again, important enough to show up on a Ukrainian 500-hryvnia note. It has a complex history. It was established by Ivan Mazepa, who himself is quite a controversial historical figure.
55:03
In fact, he was a Ukrainian Cossack leader who fell out with Peter the Great and was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church, and thus has become a kind of symbolic hero for Ukrainians today. The building originally had one story, and then bit by bit over the course of the 18th century grew into much of what it was today, although it's had other campaigns since. A few years ago, it underwent a significant restoration, and interestingly, it's not a
55:47
complete restoration, but it took care of many of the critical structural issues which were besetting the building. This was paid for, by the way, by the American ambassador to Ukraine, part of the soft power funding that probably doesn't exist anymore. Since that project, of course, there's been a war. In that context of what to do as there is so much death and destruction happening, one of our former HPP alumni and I, Andy Robley and me, proposed to do a preservation course
56:45
with a university in Kiev, the National University of Kiev, Mohyla Academy, technically, because it turns out there is no formal preservation coursework in that country, and so we did a 10-week Zoom class that included part of which we actually went to Kiev, and this is us with some of the students inside the old academic building, and we used the thinking about the building and its future as a way to introduce preservation ideas and coursework
57:25
to the students there, and they produced a really quite remarkable 50-plus page report on the building afterwards. Again, in the context of ongoing events, we would have a Zoom meeting scheduled with a dean from one of the departments in the university and then get a note that, sorry, he couldn't attend because he was wounded in last night's missile attacks. And of course, there are a lot of people operating and trying to help in Ukraine, various organizations
58:17
and other schools, such as the New School and Penn Museum, et cetera. But a few weeks ago, Andy Robley and I were invited to present at the Ukraine Action Summit in Washington, D.C., this project that we're developing with the university for a center for preservation and reconstruction, which would essentially include research, curricular offerings and community advocacy and programming based in the old academic building.
59:02
And so what I'd like to do, if I could, would be to end on an optimistic note, but I'm not sure about... This is a video, but I'm not sure that it can open. But ending with a beautiful view of Lviv and Ukraine and the life that continues in a historic city even today. So thank you.
59:55
Thank you so much, Jeff. Jeff has this beautiful quote on the website about the intimacies, the intimate stories of preservation and this combination of these, how he described now, the wicked challenges as well as the technical and political work that you just showed us so beautifully. OK, can I have a volunteer and I'll do questions on one side? Could somebody come help? Della, thank you. Great. So now we have lots of time for conversation. Thank you, first of all, it's awesome.
1:00:28
So just to get the conversation going, I guess, I wonder if you would reflect on how your own practice in these cases has changed over the years. What do you what did you do before that you don't do as much of now? What do you see that's important to do now that grew out of some of these experiences?
1:00:55
That's a great question. I suspect that in part.
1:01:01
I came into this field with some biases and ideas about what I was interested in, and I was fortunate that I learned my craft in a way in Los Angeles, which was a very diverse city. And among the first things that I was working on was the oldest surviving McDonald's and housing in Eagle in Echo Lake, you know, sort of low income housing apartments and
1:01:32
at a Pacific Asian museum that was built in the shape of a Chinese treasure house. And so I think right from the beginning, it
1:01:43
it set me up to always feel like other people were going to know more. I was always sort of an outsider in these narratives and these stories. And and I think that served me in good stead.
1:01:59
Thus, learning how to see and listen. The thing that just experience has given me has been learning the craft of preservation and the process and the skills, and maybe better being able to help communities through that
1:02:19
to to better understand what does it take to achieve what you want to achieve? So I, you know, I I'd say it's more about the capacity I have to be useful.
1:02:32
And I think that I hope has grown over the years.
1:02:39
Jenny.
1:02:42
Hi Jeff. Thank you so much for all of the teaching and service you've done here at Cornell over the years. It's really amazing. I guess one question I have.
1:02:55
I feel like historic preservation, even in the examples that you've brought forward, sometimes can be seen as a pretty weak force, like in the case of the Great Lakes, for example, in the case of the Great Lakes. And so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that. I feel like historic preservation, even in the examples that you've brought forward, sometimes can be seen as a pretty weak force, like in the case of Rainy Street,
1:03:23
where there was a historic district, I think a national historic district. And I wonder if you might say more about preservation and the strength of it, how it might be retooling in recent years. And then just any more that you want to say about historic preservation as a field moving forward. Thanks.
1:03:53
But the interesting thing about the particular case of Rainy Street is that for many years, there was a woman who headed preservation in Austin who was vehemently opposed to local historic districts. And one of the surprising things about this field is that national districts don't have the same power as local districts do to protect things, because local districts mean that building officials have to follow the rules about do they or do they not issue demolition
1:04:31
permits and things like that, whereas the national districts only affect things done by the national government effectively.
1:04:39
And it was clear that none of the people who wanted Rainy Street saved were considered important stakeholders. They weren't the owners of the property. They weren't the people who were going to benefit from it. They weren't the city who was trying to develop its coffers.
1:05:09
And so that's one of the, so I think that's one of the cases I would use to say if you really want to save something, make sure it's on a national, on a local district or a local designation. But even beyond that, it led me to think that at its worst or its weakest, preservation can still offer a conversation about resources that's important to have, even if we lose the battle, that it can still be a way to engage.
1:05:43
And knowing that, maybe we need to develop our skills around advocacy and but also around listening and trying to solve what the motivations of the people involved. So it was hard in Rainy Street because the owners, they were in favor of gentrification. They wanted it. And it's hard to say that they shouldn't get it. I mean, these were people who otherwise had been ignored for decades and suddenly there was a paycheck.
1:06:21
And, you know, the hard part is that nobody in the midst of all that, nobody could see that we had this, what we thought was a solution that would do both things. There just was no audience for it. As much as we screamed in the wind, there was nobody who wanted to save those buildings and densify the surroundings and come up with just, it was too complicated. It was, there was already a way forward. They didn't need to deal with that. Were any of them moved or they were all demolished?
1:06:59
As far as I know, they were demolished.
1:07:04
I have a question that's a little bit on the opposite side of Jenny's tack. In New York, certainly in other cities, preservation in recent years has become one of a number of values that, you know, we've embraced since, really since the 1960s.
1:07:26
Community engagement, environmental protection that increasingly have been blamed for, blamed as impediments to the kinds of infill development that is needed to provide denser, more, you know, more affordable housing, for example. You know, the latest track to claim that is Ezra Klein's book, Abundance. You know, that these well-intended ideas and laws and programs have now made it impossible for us to build alternative energy sites, light rail, high-speed rail.
1:08:07
But the affordable housing is really where it comes to a point in terms of preservation. As a preservationist, how do you deal with that? And also coming from the community side, the kind of weaponization of preservation, you know, by NIMBYs to stop projects that we really need.
1:08:28
I mean, that's a great question. I, you could have said gentrification, and it would be a similar sort of battle, right?
1:08:39
Part of the place to start is to understand that we didn't get here just because of preservationists. It wasn't just preservation that made housing expensive. It wasn't just preservation that led to, that leads to gentrification or makes cities desirable, right? The other thing I would say is
1:09:05
there are a lot of different kinds of preservationists. And so there are going to be preservationists who are very concerned about keeping things the way they are. And there are other preservationists who are much more fluid or flexible in terms of how they understand things moving forward.
1:09:31
I think it's,
1:09:36
you know, again, taking, looking back at the city of Austin,
1:09:43
it had a commission that for a while
1:09:47
was willing to designate a street because of the trees, this historic, just so that people wouldn't build quad plexes to serve students for the university and stuff. And eventually the city kicked the Preservation Commission out. I mean, they changed the laws, changed the commission, redid everything. And for a while, it was a fear there would be nothing there, but actually sort of calmer heads prevailed. And there was a reasonable replacement put in.
1:10:19
So there is a debate even within the preservation community about this, but
1:10:27
preservation changes its philosophies and ideas just like everybody else does, right? I mean, preservation and, you know, back in,
1:10:41
just to grossly oversimplify, but preservation started by protecting the homes of the great white founding fathers of this country and then became about the most elegant example of
1:10:56
of a particular style. And now if you go to a plantation,
1:11:03
you know, most people are more interested in seeing the daily lives or even the slave quarters than they are seeing the big house. So the interests of the people in the field reflect the interests of the society at large. And I think we bring tools and an ability to see, an ability to work with existing resources and hopefully a flexibility and attitude to respond to that. Chad, that was such an amazing talk. And I think I think of you as one of the best listeners that I know.
1:11:44
And I feel like as a practice, this is kind of a practice of listening. It's a it's like a collaborative practice, kind of a follow up question to Tom. Something as a non-planner that I'm not sure about is, you know, as you go into these different as the preservationists go into these different sites, it's not like you can have just like one kind of protocol to follow because of the various kind of different needs of that community.
1:12:08
The thing that I would love to understand is that as you're talking to the people who are who you're collaborating with as making these decisions, can you kind of parse out for me sort of the percentage of who those stakeholders are? Because I understand when you say community, but, you know, truly like
1:12:26
who are these people and who are the people who are the most empowered? And in having those final say, that's a great question.
1:12:36
And I don't often and there are times when I'll go into a project and not know the answer to that or be surprised somewhere down the course of things to find out, oh, actually, these other people have the information.
1:12:54
Oh, for me, one of the great theoretical works that have guided me was the Dilemmas in a General Theory of Practice by Mel Webber and Horst Riddle. And one of the things they talk about is symmetry of ignorance,
1:13:16
which is the idea that the information you need to know to solve something can be located anywhere amongst any of the participants in the situation, among any of the stakeholders. And so there's usually a client who's brought me in or brings in the professional and they have to be treated with respect and understood.
1:13:44
But I do bring a certain, often, and maybe this is me more than the field, but I often bring a slightly challenging attitude towards whether the client actually speaks for everybody. And I also try and think about the resources having a voice as well.
1:14:05
And so who's so I'm speaking for
1:14:10
the thing, the cultural or intangible heritage. And at the same time, I'm trying to imagine how this thing is going to be successful. So who's going to be using it and making it valuable and meaningful in the future? And how do we get there? And I will say that, you know, the further afield
1:14:35
you travel, the more questioning you have to be. And I found that was really helpful. Doing Fiji early in my career, I came back with my students after our summer there. And I said, now, when you work in L.A., we were in L.A. at the time, you should think you are just as dumb as you thought you were when you were working in Fiji.
1:15:03
Don't assume.
1:15:06
And and I know, you know, even in Ukraine, like trying to have conversations with the university there and keep thinking, well, I'm an academic in a university. I should know how they work. Now, it's so different how universities work in the former Eastern Bloc than it is how they work here and what the conversations mean. Even, you know, you just have to listen and think and
1:15:32
really try and understand. And at least yourself, try and be as transparent as possible, because the more transparent you are, the more I think you can persuade other people to be transparent, too.
1:15:51
Thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. You asked a question in the beginning. What are we preserving and for whom thinking about that? And I'm curious in your many years of experience in this work of preserving, whether it's like preserving like cultures or ways of being, if the effort of preservation didn't necessarily result in the preservation of a physical structure, but something else. Thank you. And by the way, I should say preservation of what by for whom
1:16:25
is a Michael Tomlin's book from some years ago.
1:16:30
So well, there is in the same way that I was talking about the interest of the kind of objects changing. There's also been increasing interest in an appreciation for intangible cultural heritage.
1:16:48
And so. So
1:16:57
that means thinking not just about rights, rituals or practices that might be happening, but also the impact of the resource on people's lives and whether that's going to be better.
1:17:12
Or more fulfilling or more what they want at the end, just a little bit. I mean, it's a little bit like thinking, well, we'll put in a bike path because people really want to bike here. You know, it's like, why are we doing this? What is it that people are going to gain or how are they going to benefit from this? Resource being conserved. And what is the heritage that's that's there?
1:17:46
In. Sometimes those things go hand in hand, for instance, there's something called the Main Street Program, which is an economic development strategy that was hatched about now 50 years ago by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and works with state preservation offices and goes into small towns and basically hiring some college grad as a project manager, working with very small budgets and a community figures out how to make that place thrive instead of being the dying
1:18:21
main streets of so many towns. And a lot of it has to do with programming.
1:18:27
And the thinking about the programming is it can be really kind of hackneyed like, oh, we should have a parade or a but.
1:18:39
But it can also be really specific and thoughtful. So, for instance, in Albany, in Shackleford County in Texas, there is this wonderful little town called Albany, which has
1:18:58
something called Watt Matthews Days. And Watt Matthews happened to be a local Princeton educated rancher who was very beloved in the in that area. And so at least particularly in the beginning, people just loved to come out and celebrate him and to celebrate that legacy. And then they had a little jail and somebody was able to take that jail and turn it into a fantastic little art museum, really good quality art.
1:19:35
And suddenly within a few years, that's just an interesting place to live in West Texas.
1:19:44
And I think that's the most successful kind of preservation. It's like understanding who the people are in the history and the heritage and what are the stories that can be told and making that thing so meaningful that that people just love to be there. And that makes it successful. Great. Thank you.
1:20:09
Good afternoon. Thank you, Professor Chusid for your lecture.
1:20:14
I'm still chewing through my question a little bit, so please bear with me. But I'm I'm curious about preservation.
1:20:23
Yes, as a way to preserve culture and heritage, but also as a way to preserve quality. And I think a lot about my hometown of Syracuse, who right now is looking to repeal its preservation ordinance and dismantle its preservation board,
1:20:42
but is also demolishing in large swaths older homes. And what is being built in its place are things that will likely need to be overhauled in 40 years from now. So I'm I'm curious, I guess,
1:21:01
what role do preservationists have in educating those stakeholders who do have more power to to decide these things
1:21:10
to preserve quality? Thank you. Thank you. That's a great question. There's a quote that I can't exactly remember, but John Ruskin said, I would that people would build things to last.
1:21:27
And I, I, I have a little lecture on preservation, sustainability, and I show a tomb from Italy that's about 3000 years old, perfectly intact, well built, meant to last. Right. And conversely, we have depreciation
1:21:50
built into our tax code, which means that if you build in a residential housing that's older than 27 and meant to go longer than 27 and a half years, you're wasting your money, right, or 39 years for a commercial property.
1:22:10
It's not apparently it's not enough to say they don't build them like that anymore. Right.
1:22:18
It's it's, I guess, an education about the value of living in places that are meant to last.
1:22:30
That's really important. I'm sorry to hear that about
1:22:34
that effort in Syracuse. A converse effort is the land bank that was set up a few years ago and is run by one of our CRP alumna,
1:22:45
Katie Wright, which was set up in part because there was so much demolition of vacant property. She set up a land bank to try and stop that or slow it down at least. And that has been somewhat successful. And of course, carrying down the freeway, it's meant to help unite and, you know, re-knit together communities.
1:23:12
I would also say the this may not sound like a preservation project, but the Onondaga Creek Walk in Syracuse, which has fantastic recently opened with fantastic signage about the history and the stories of the city and all of its inhabitants,
1:23:30
is to me a form of preservation and education.
1:23:35
So I would say just go back to Syracuse and fight for quality, please.
1:23:45
Hi, Jeff, my name is Ray and I'm a first year MIP student. And first, thank you for giving us a lot of very specific examples. And I have a question because I was my background undergraduate is architecture. In my home country, I know more about the preservations like historical preservation in architecture. It's more target to like attract more tourists and the business and something may be right where I will have to repair a temple to like memory our assistant.
1:24:24
But in this time, I will listen to a lot of example. And I was in planning now. I'm really excited to hear that a lot of preservation is toward like a local community and to like to renew or to preserve their memory. So I was really excited to hear that. And I was curious about and if you have more specific example after the preservation, what's the transfer in the local people after this preservation among them, like atmosphere or people's comments about this region? Is that clear?
1:25:04
So how they benefit or continue to benefit from the efforts? Yeah, like in because a lot of example in like a local memory. I was curious about like how people act before and after this preservation. How about their emotional atmosphere change there? Yeah.
1:25:27
Well, there is a saying in the business that nobody regrets the preservation project once it's done.
1:25:38
I, I think there's.
1:25:44
I think that's a great question and and
1:25:49
but I would say a lot of of places that have undergone restoration.
1:25:58
You know, it depends on the nature of the institution, of course, but there are religious sites that have undergone restoration and the congregations are really happy afterwards. And I think it's a broad question, I guess. I'll take another example from around here, which is there's a. A house called Open Door, which was the house of a suffrage leader in Sherwood, New York, which is not far from here, and it was a it was a near ruin until some people in the community took it on and and
1:26:40
over the course of about a dozen years, they've been working to restore this place.
1:26:47
And it's now open as a museum to the suffrage movement and to this the Howland family.
1:26:54
And the work was done largely by these volunteers, average age 76, but but they put in thousands of hours of free labor and doing it. And they did it to basically save their town. Put it back on the map. And they are so proud of it. And they get to benefit from like, you know, it's not like things are going to just like blow away, which sometimes, you know, you can see with the ruin, but
1:27:28
but they've reestablished an identity and a community and a physical presence. And by their action, they've also made something beautiful, which sort of, you know, isn't always the or shouldn't always be the result. But in this case, it really helps to be the result.
1:27:48
So obviously hard to think of a lot of examples offhand to specifically answer your question, but I think
1:27:58
it speaks to the importance of the conspiracy model of planning, which is trying to get as many people involved in a project as possible and getting those stakeholders there.
1:28:13
I think we have time for two more questions, and I see two here. Is that good? OK, great.
1:28:23
Hi Franklin. I was interested in, you know, when you're going to these new communities, specifically in foreign countries where you're probably not as familiar with the culture, specifically, what are some techniques that you use to kind of ingratiate yourself within the communities and gain trust so that they're willing to work with you in like a positive way
1:28:53
towards the goal of whatever you're trying to preserve? That's a great question. I think the first thing I do is try to be very clear about who I am, what I bring to it, what I know and what I don't know. So that and any biases I have. And then I ask a lot of questions.
1:29:19
So that I try and get that same information from the people I'm talking to. What are their biases? What are their ideas? What are they?
1:29:27
And. And I rely on establishing trust so that we can have an open conversation.
1:29:41
Because one of the really tricky things is having is that what what I might consider a clear.
1:29:51
Frank, open discussion might not be what another how other people talk or think or want. So it's like working to figure out how are we going to have the conversation where the information we need to exchange is done and we trust each other?
1:30:11
And almost always there has to be.
1:30:17
I mean, there have to be local people.
1:30:21
Who are going to continue the work because I'm not going to be there forever. And the sooner they're involved, the better as well. So ideally, my role is a very sat circumscribed one and not like, oh, you're here to solve the problem. No, I'm here to help you solve or resolve what it is that you're trying to do. And this is what I can bring to it. And so that that's important. Oh, thank you.
1:30:57
Thank you, Jeff. Right here in front of you. Thank you for yet another awesome lecture and for a great semester and preservation perspective. I learned a lot and it opened my eyes to a lot of different things.
1:31:12
Some of our favorite conversations, some of my favorite conversations in your class were about ethics and kind of like the debate about historic preservation in that regard. And we started off the year talking about these shacks on Cape Cod, which I thought were, you know, how much can I really write about that in a five page essay? But they really there was a lot to say about, I have to say. But, you know, we talked about, you know, this purpose versus prettiness kind of in a certain way.
1:31:36
And you even talked about like how historic preservation is a story. So my question for you to kind of maybe end it off is, you know, does the ethnographic process of preservation ever romanticize certain sites? Too much in a way that might stifle urban progress.
1:31:58
Certainly could. I mean, but.
1:32:06
This is the this is the importance of the story, right? For some people, those stories are really, really important. And sometimes they're more important than reality.
1:32:20
Or to put it another way,
1:32:25
different people don't just come on a continuum on value. They have different values. Right. So for some people, you know,
1:32:41
a tree lined rainy street was just so wonderful next to downtown. And there's a place to walk and to be able to, you know, take people and say, look at this beautiful piece of 19th century Texas right here next to the convention center.
1:33:04
And you can imagine for the people who live there, who are trying to move or whoever, you know, like.
1:33:13
Hello, what does that mean? Why are you why should I care that you feel that way?
1:33:25
You know, as Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
1:33:35
And in a way, the conversation about historic resources is not always going to end where you want it to end. But. But a conversation about meaning and value and place.
1:33:50
We can't operate without it either. So.
1:33:55
OK, you have a very powerful, provocative question from Mary Woods. Mary, I'm really sorry. I was so caught up in listening to Jeff, I didn't look at the screen.
1:34:05
But I think actually your question about this question of heritage in India and just and Joseph Stein's work, given the current political climate in a way, one of those slides, Jeff, you shared that question. I think we're going to have to invite Jeff to come back with his Joseph Stein book in hand and then to give us a full blown lecture on that, because that's such a powerful, provocative
1:34:32
you know, the questions itself in terms of Stein and India in particular, but also in terms of our own questions of heritage here and the politics that are ongoing in D.C. and all over the place. You know, it's a really powerful question. So let us invite you back for that. And yeah, apologies, Mary. I just want to end by saying, Jeff, I hope you got the feel for the appreciation of all of us. This was really such a beautiful lecture, such a powerful set of lessons
1:35:00
about the practice of heritage and historic preservation planning. But also really your intellectual work, your commitments, the rigor, the broader geopolitical questions that frame these place specific practices and this wealth of practice across the world and the sensitivity and nuance, the engagement with context, as well as these bigger themes. So let me end with two comments. We are going to miss you in so many ways, but we're going to pull you back in here as an emeritus.
1:35:36
You will not escape us. And we will have a celebration at the end of May. But if you would like to come back to the department, we have a chance to really thank Jeff in a very little way. So come to room 105 for and if you're a little bit hungry, it's a good place to come to for a little bit of afternoon sweetness on this Friday. But really a very big let's really thank Jeff for a really brilliant lecture. Thank you.
1:36:06
Thank you.
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