Hello SAH MDR membership,
After rain, autumn leaves press their intense colors onto sidewalks in the Pacific Northwest during this time of year. Welcome to the October newsletter!
Sending my best, always,
Amanda Roth Clark, SAH MDR President
amandaclark@whitworth.edu
Kenneth Guzowski, past Chapter Treasurer, and Shirley Courtois, Treasurer, accept Marion Dean Ross Outstanding Service Awards during the annual conference in Corvallis in 2007.
Remembering Shirley Courtois
by Elisabeth Potter and Mimi Sheridan
The Marion Dean Ross/Pacific Northwest Chapter, Society of Architectural Historians, lost one of its most stalwart members with the recent passing of Shirley Courtois, at her home in Seattle, on August 16, 2020, after a brief illness. Among her survivors in the region are Erika Courtois, her daughter, and her nephew Gavin Younie.
Shirley was the face of SAH/MDR to many while she graciously fulfilled leadership roles continuously for fifteen years. She was coordinator of scholarly papers for the 1996 conference before advancing to become coordinator of publications, vice president, and acting president. From 2002 to 2011, as chapter treasurer, she was integrally involved in annual conference planning. In 2007, the chapter honored Shirley with the Marion Dean Ross Award for Outstanding Service in recognition of her stellar management of financial affairs and venue planning details. It was Shirley, who in 2001, produced the chapter’s essential operating manual for officers, a pamphlet including by-laws, duties, and protocols for conducting annual meetings.
Shirley earned her Master’s degree in architectural history. Following her student years at the University of Chicago, she became an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Illinois. After relocating to the West Coast, she organized her consulting firm, Courtois & Associates, in Seattle. She served on the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board and was appointed to the Washington State Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in 1998. During the 1970s, she had been engaged in contract work for the Seattle Office of Urban Conservation headed by Earl Layman, a long-time SAH member and officer. On such projects as the city-wide survey and inventory of historic properties and identification of historic resources that would be affected by construction of the METRO Transit Tunnel, she worked collaboratively with colleagues who became good friends and fellow members of the SAH regional chapter. Succeeding preservationists are accustomed to seeing her name on the numerous landmark nominations, environmental assessment documents, and focused studies she produced.
Dennis Andersen remembers with pleasure the celebratory gatherings Shirley hosted in her home and noted that she was proud of her Luxembourgeois heritage. Lawrence Kreisman observed that Shirley “was always modest about her role, but we in the preservation world certainly appreciated her thoroughness, her critical eye, and her curiosity.” It was to Mimi Sheridan that Shirley, retiring from her role, passed the treasurer’s check book during the annual meeting in Boise in 2011. Shirley was noted for her generosity and for sharing her time and professional expertise to help others. Mimi points out that Shirley donated funds to the chapter to establish a Young Professionals research grant that is now named to honor her memory.
In the Media
Former SAH MDR conference paper presenter, Harley Cowan, describes his first large format photograph in this short 2.25 min video: https://vimeo.com/471970969
Design in Mind, a PBS series, includes an episode that features director James Ivory, who credits Marion Dean Ross with his understanding of architecture and explains how important architecture and art have been to his developing films like Remains of the Day and The Golden Bowl. https://www.pbs.org/video/on-location-with-james-ivory-o8qddu/
September fires were devastating for Oregon this year.
Burned chevron; September 2020; image taken by Oregon Department of Transportation, courtesy of Wikimedia commons.
One tragic loss—Belluschi’s Thetford Lodge—reminds us of what we had.
Annemarie van Roessel, Assistant Curator at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, wrote to me on September 14th to share some memories:
I write to share the sad news that Thetford Lodge, the weekend home that my great-grandparents Charles and Blanche Sprague commissioned from Pietro Belluschi in 1947, was destroyed last week in the Santiam Canyon fire in Oregon. Thetford Lodge was a very modest entry in Belluschi's job book, but it has been deeply significant for four generations of my family, as well as for the students, faculty, and staff at Willamette University after Charles and Blanche donated the property in 1963. Countless wonderful relationships and memories are rooted in that place. Our thoughts are very much with everyone in Oregon, Washington, and California who have lost family and property and who are enduring devastating hardships because of these fires. Although the Lodge is now gone, several years ago I helped my grandmother Martha Sprague, Charles and Blanche's daughter, donate the working drawings, correspondence, and photos to Belluschi's papers at Syracuse. Additional documentation for the commission exists in the Belluschi collection held by the Oregon Historical Society.
On a personal note, the stories I heard growing up about Belluschi and my grandparents (who were friends and collaborators on other projects) certainly influenced me to follow my own career as an architectural historian. I was fortunate to visit Thetford several times with my family to appreciate Belluschi's modern vernacular design and his sensitivity to the forest and river landscape and to my great-grandparents' needs. Belluschi certainly created a retreat that served my Sprague family and the WU community tremendously well for over seven decades.
Read more on this here: https://willamette.edu/news/library/2020/10/thetford-lodge.html and https://gaietyhollow.com/2020/09/18/a-week-of-devastation/.
Opportunities
The 2021 Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School will be located in Concrete, WA, nestled in the foothills of the North Cascades. The Field School is intended for anyone who is interested in historic preservation or seeking hands-on experience working with skilled craftspeople and professionals in the Pacific Northwest. Our curriculum covers archaeology, architecture, cultural resource management, history, landscape architecture, public history, and hands-on building maintenance as it addresses historic preservation. Work on preservation projects will be interspersed with tours and lectures from a variety of experts from within the field. This program is open to both novices and practicing cultural resource professionals. Undergraduate and graduate credit is also available.
Image from Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School, "Hands-on Experience" video.
Concrete, WA is a small town that once produced and supplied Portland cement to the greater Northwest. The Field School will focus on the Baker Club House, an early cast-in-place concrete building, constructed in 1914. This building first served as the laboratory for Washington Portland Cement Company and later as the social center for the Puget Sound Power & Light Company. This year we will offer three different week-long sessions in September. Projects will include wood window and door restoration, cast concrete repair work, and cultural landscape investigation. While each session has a specific theme, all include hands-on work and documentation at a variety of skill levels. Come join us for the first Field School to work with historic concrete!
Please note that the 2021 Field School is contingent upon the opening and operating status of the University of Oregon, the States of Oregon and Washington, and our host, Puget Sound Energy. Please check the field school website for updates.
Applications for the University of Oregon's 2021 Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School will open in the spring of 2021. For more information, visit archenvironment.uoregon.edu/PNWFS or email pnwfs@uoregon.edu. Join our online community: www.facebook.com/PNWFS.
Public Live-Streamed Lecture
You are invited to attend, via Live Stream, Whitworth University Bruner-Welch annual lecture, delivered by Amanda C. Roth Clark.
Title: “Commodity, Firmness, and Delight: A Theology of Beauty in Architecture.”
Time: Monday, November 2nd, 7:00 p.m.
Livestream Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWJ7y-h3AejJ9Ul5bO8GdxQ?reload=9
Description: Always in search of the good, the true, and the beautiful, it is sometimes hard to discern what beauty is and why it matters. The ancient Roman architect, Vitruvius, offered an answer that remains poignant today. In this lecture, librarian and architectural historian Amanda C. Roth Clark will explore the theological intertwining of firmitas, utilitas, and venustas, as persuasive principles to those in search of beauty and truth today.
The SAH MDR will hold its annual voting virtually via email in the coming months.
A nominating committee is being formed that will seek to fill the positions of SAH MDR Treasurer, Secretary, and Vice President; these terms will commence in June 2021.
SAH MDR Board of Directors
Amanda C. Roth Clark (Spokane, President)
Chris Bell (Salem, Vice President)
Kathryn Burk-Hise (Worley, Secretary)
Mimi Sheridan (Monterey, Treasurer)
Diana Painter (Spokane, Past President)
Phil Gruen (Pullman, Washington Regional Delegate)
Phillip Mead (Moscow, Idaho Regional Delegate)
Jim Buckley (Portland, Oregon Regional Delegate)
Jenni Pace (Vancouver, British Columbia Regional Delegate)
Ahsha Miranda (Portland, Membership Coordinator)
Copyright © 2020 SAHMDR all rights reserved.
October 29, 2020
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