This week I hope to direct our attention to some intriguing preservation issues in the news of Wyoming and its surrounding areas.   A recent study ranked Wyoming seventh out of the eight states considered to be part of the Rocky Mountain Region, just behind Nevada, for the total number of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Mary Hopkins defended the state by dismissing the study as too narrow in its focus. For example More Haven Heights in Cheyenne was one of 10 places added to the Registry in 2008, but this site encompasses over 300 houses. More than a defense of how the state is actually competitive, I want to point out the advances of the Main Street Program in Wyoming, and how they may in fact be gelling with a statewide initiative for sustainability in downtown centers.

One of the study’s other shortcomings was the way in which it failed to show that 89 % of historic sites are still functioning spaces in some capacity. Adaptive use is a terrific way to conserve the embodied energy that went into erecting the structure. Interest in preservation is evidently on the upswing, as a recent workshop in Sheridan called, “Living Upstairs: Getting Residential Space Back in Use,” indicates. As in downtown Laramie, the state of Wyoming has many buildings that are of historical value (even if the space was once used for brothels). By finding residential and commercial uses for the upstairs of downtown structures people can live and work in beautiful buildings, while reducing the need for automobiles by making working spaces closer to home. These points bring the state closer to creating urban sustainable dwellings. There is an economic advantage to people working from their homes which may become the wave of the future as businesses can exist without hefty rent costs for building spaces. There is an environmental advantage in reducing automotive dependencies and a social- cultural advantage by preserving historic architectural structures.

Wyoming may be doing better than the study suggests.

But all the same, I think raising awareness about issues in preservation is an ongoing battle worth fighting.
Today, the Bank of Vernal in Utah is a registered historical building on the Uintah County Landmark Register because of the funny story attached to its history.  This is the story of a wealthy banker named W.H. Coltharp, who wanted to use textured bricks to provide a modern architectural style to its facades. Since those bricks were only made in Salt Lake City by Salt Lake Pressed Brick Company, the delivery cost would have “broke the bank” so to speak. He found a way to circumvent these high costs by mailing the bricks to himself by United States Postal Service. Coltharp had people package the bricks in fifty pound parcels of seven bricks per parcel. In all, he mailed forty packages a day with the total amount exceeding 80,000 bricks. U.S. postal regulations were later fixed to prevent further exploitation of the service. The United States Postmaster reportedly commented in a letter that “it is not the intent of the United States Postal Service that buildings be shipped through the mail.” The Bank of Vernal was nicknamed “The Parcel Post Bank.” Clearly, this is a case where a building has found protection for a historically anecdotal occurrence, and not for the textured bricks that made it an example of architecturally modern construction in 1916. Philosophically this article raises the issue in historic preservation that construction issues often times lend far greater significance to a building than its architectural beauty. Here the call for brick, what we take for a mundane building material is in fact exotica and very expensive due to the circumstances of construction, and this is a facet of historic preservation that seldom gets its due. 

The last case I wish to address deals with a cultural landscape.  Christo’s project “Over the River” raises several interesting issues for historic preservation. My comments assume that none of us question the power of art to transform our existence by shifting paradigms and impacting lives etc. Christo’s transforming Frederick Law Olmstead’s Central Park design is such a case in point. It is the permitting process itself for an environmental artwork statement which is partially what Christo’s work is about: the process of approval. So while the proposed construction date is 2013 the work of art is well under way. From our point of view, as people concerned with historic preservation, we must ask when does the work of art cease? When does it end? Here preservationists function much like curators in the museums of old. That is way back when art was found on museum walls. Yet in the purest sense, we confine our preservation instincts to “architecture” proper; but in an expanded form, to the built environment. If this is so, Christo’s proposed work is tomorrow’s preservation problem.

Seen in this way, are we to preserve the work of art in its original artistic conception or are we free to suggest, as interpreters of original intent, other meanings. Are we seeking interpretation of original artistic intent to hold true to it? Obviously, the aesthetic debate could widen beyond this little comment, but one parting thought: if we assume the physical manifestation of “Over the River” is intended to be transitory, a moment in history, then what would the ethical decision of the “historic preservationist” be who is called to continue the life of a structure beyond a fixed duration specified by the “architect.” Just imagine if Frank Gehry mandated demolition after fifty years of one of his iconoclastic structures. Year fifty-one poses quite the dilemma for the preservationist in charge; as it must for the Bureau of Land Management official in charge of protecting our environmental treasures.

John Agricola is from Gadsden, Alabama. He received his B.A. in History and American Studies from the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa. After college, he worked for a few years in an American art museum as an Education Coordinator. He is currently a graduate student in the American Studies Program at the University of Wyoming. John’s interests are eclectic and include: early American mass entertainment, the various ways “last stand” art has been cinematized, Native American representation, 19th century travel histories, and heritage tourism. He currently is working for the Wyoming Humanities Council, but in his spare time he enjoys the chance to fly-fish in the scenic Snowy Mountain Range.

“The very idea probably sounds quaint and old-fashioned, but it is the subject of a powerful recent book by Susan Neiman, an American philosopher living in Germany. People often shy away from a moral view of the world, if only because moral certitude reeks of intolerance and bigotry. As one sociologist has said “don’t be judgmental” has become the 11th commandment.

But Ms Neiman thinks that people yearn for a sense of moral purpose. In a world preoccupied with consumerism and petty self-interest, that gives life dignity. People want to determine how the world works, not always to be determined by it. It means that people’s behaviour should be shaped not by who is most powerful, or by who stands to lose and gain, but by what is right despite the costs. Moral sensibility is why people will suffer for their beliefs, and why acts of principled self-sacrifice are so powerful.”

The other article that caught my eye this week came from a special section on education in the Sunday, January 3 edition of the New York Times (followed shortly by a thoroughly depressing article on “Making College ‘Relevant,’” but whatever, you can’t win ‘em all). Anyway, in “How to Train the Aging Brain,” Barbara Strauch looks at current research on how to improve brain function in middle age. Here’s what she finds:

Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. [Kathleen] Taylor, who is 66.

Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.

“There’s a place for information,” Dr. Taylor says. “We need to know stuff. But we need to move beyond that and challenge our perception of the world. If you always hang around with those you agree with and read things that agree with what you already know, you’re not going to wrestle with your established brain connections.”

I blame the fact that I was drawn to these two very different articles on the arrival of the new year. It is good to ask ourselves periodically whether and why we should keep doing what we do, and we are primed for such self-analysis at this time of year.

So, then, why? Why should I keep coming in to work at the Wyoming Humanities Council? As an organization, why should we keep supporting cultural institutions across the state as they work to present new ideas to their communities? Why should we keep running programs of our own that ask “the big questions”?

And, lo and behold, I was presented with these two answers! The Times article reminded me that new ideas — even ideas with which we violently disagree — force us to develop, whether they inspire us when we’re young or challenge us when we’re older. The tricky bit, of course, is that this can only happen when we’re not merely gritting our teeth and enduring other points of view but actively engaging them. At their best, the programs provided and supported by the Wyoming Humanities Council create a forum for exactly that kind of discourse. New ideas make us better, down to the neural pathways in our brains.

The article in The Economist takes an even broader view, claiming that a well-developed moral sense on an individual level is what drives social progress. Think about that for a minute. The parents described in “Making College ‘Relevant’” are obsessed with defining the jobs their children will have four years from now, but what about the world they’ll be working in? Literature moves us to empathy. Philosophy prepares us to think well in new circumstances. History gives our thought context. And so on. The humanities can help us develop the “moral sensibility” that guides social progress.

In short, yes, I’ll be coming in to work next week.