Preservation in Mississippi
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MissPres News Roundup 7-23-2010
Let’s keep one eye on Bonnie and the other eye on the preservation news around the state. And those of us who wear glasses will still have two more eyes to, like, avoid marauding oil splotches, watch tv, read a book, etc. See how useful having four eyes is, y’all? ——————————————- From Monroe County, a … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 7-16-2010
Ok, I admit that I accidentally allowed my Clarion-Ledger subscription to lapse–that happened with my home insurance recently too, and it’s getting annoying–so I probably haven’t been keeping up with the news like I usually do, other than my Wall Street Journal. I just can’t get into reading the news online–I like the convenience of … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect: Hinton Hall, Perkinston Junior College
The latest in our ongoing series re-printing the 2-year run of Mississippi Architect from 1963 through 1965. Today’s article is the feature in the April 1963 issue. As always, you can view the full issue, which includes articles on non-Mississippi issues such as computers solving trusses problems and the Sheridan Park development in Ontario. ——————————————— … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 7-2-2010
Well, other than an ongoing gusher of oil spilling into our Gulf, destroying wildlife, killing my redfish, fouling beaches and marshes, and an early-season hurricane washing it all in faster, what else has been going on in our Magnolia State this week? I should have known that right after I said something nice about the … Continue reading
Now-angry buildings were once carefree mid-century moderns
Yesterday’s picture of the former Petroleum Building in Jackson brought out the inner-Modernists in all of us, a fun jaunt back to a time when colorful buildings were considered not only fashionable but suitable for the headquarters of an oil and gas company. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you hate color), those of you who live … Continue reading
Building in Disguise
Tons of MissPres brownie points to whoever can identify this building in downtown Jackson. Hint: It’s very well disguised.
MissPres News Roundup 6-25-2010
It’s the last Friday of a hot and steamy Mississippi June, which means it’s time for another news roundup. Things have been hopping out there, so let’s get started. An update on the ongoing renovations of the “Lil’ Red Schoolhouse” aka the Drew Rosenwald School up in the Delta comes from the newsletter of the … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect: First Federal Savings & Loan, Jackson
Still in the inaugural issue of Mississippi Architect, March 1963, which we introduced with Bob Henry’s first editorial, about the architectural profession, yesterday. Today we’ll pass along the first building profile, which I love for many reasons: it’s an R.W. Naef building (now called BancorpSouth) that I have grown to admire over the last several … Continue reading
Modernist Gems in . . . Booneville?
Well, I didn’t start out the week with intention of having a Modernism theme, but since we’ve had three days of it, it just seems right throw in some pictures I took a few months ago on a road trip through Booneville, way up in the northeast corner of the state. I haven’t done anything … Continue reading
Lustron House in Jackson
Just around the corner from the classically proportioned J.R. Flint house designed by A. Hays Town in south Jackson is a house that makes no bones about its modernity. It’s a Lustron House, one of only two or three that I know of still in the state. For those unfamiliar with Lustron houses, they are … Continue reading
The Beauty of Modernist Storefronts
I admit I sometimes spend a good amount of money on a book that 99.999% of the population wouldn’t pay two cents for. I found one such book on a trip to Cincinnati a while back. Published in 1946, it’s called Modern Store Design by Gene Burke (B.S. Arch) and Edgar Kober of the Institute … Continue reading
The Old Benwalt Hotel Blows Its Top
I have a bit of fondness for architectural oddities, and the Benwalt Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, with its impressive Quonset Hut roof, was a definite Oddity when I took these pictures in 2006. Beneath that rather awkward veneer is a three-story brick hotel, built in 1927-28 and designed by Meridian architect R.C. Springer, who also … Continue reading
Does this mean you hate it, Miss Ada Louise?
I took the opportunity over the holidays to get back into my reading schedule and finish books that I had started during the dog days of summer. One of those was Ada Louise Huxtable’s recent compilation of her decades of essays as architectural critic with the New York Times and more recently with the Wall … Continue reading
What Jackson’s Trustmark Bldg Might Have Looked Like
I love alternate history, where an author changes a small event in history and takes what follows to a different conclusion than what actually happened. Preliminary renderings of buildings are a real-live version of alternate history, and it’s fun, in a nerdy way, to notice what was changed from the early version and wonder why … Continue reading
Pics of Goff’s Gryder House in Ocean Springs
Last week when looking around for a picture of the Gryder House in Ocean Springs to put in “Notes on SESAH Keynote” I realized I didn’t have any myself, and I just didn’t feel that those on the internet showed the true amazingness of the house. So, courtesy of MDAH, I have acquired a few … Continue reading
SESAH’s Bus Tour: Beyond Greek Revival
Ok, I promised to post a few pictures from SESAH’s Saturday bus tour of Jackson, called “Beyond Greek Revival.” The weather did a wonderful about-face overnight from the rainy dreariness of Friday to a brilliant sunshiny Saturday, and it was a great day for touring. True to promise, we saw only non-Greek Revival buildings, except … Continue reading
Notes on SESAH’s Keynote
Friday evening’s SESAH keynote lecture was co-hosted by MSU’s College of Architecture, Art + Design (CAAD), and I was glad to see a number of local architects in the crowd, along with a few young people who I presume were students at the 5th-year program just down the street. The night was cold and rainy, but … Continue reading
Notes from SESAH
Well, the SESAH conference is over as of Saturday’s bus tour of Jackson’s historic sites. I’m sure all of you were able to attend and listen to interesting papers and the thoughtful keynote lecture. If you weren’t though, rest assured your faithful correspondent attended several Mississippi-related papers and took copious notes for the MissPres readership. … Continue reading
The International Style: Conformity, not Individualism
You have reached the end of a four-part series about The International Style by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. If you missed the earlier posts, you can find them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. ———————————————————— Way back in the 1990s, I picked up an old hardback novel at a book sale in … Continue reading
The International Style: Regularity, not Symmetry
Since I spend a good part of my life writing and reading descriptions of buildings, I naturally love symmetrical buildings. It’s so easy and simple to describe, say a Georgian Revival building, even a big building: center entrance with transom and sidelights and broken pediment is sheltered under a full-height portico and flanked by four … Continue reading
Book Quotes: The International Style
It’s been a while since we did a book quote series, and since the three earlier series included a diatribe against Modern planning principles (Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of the Great American Cities), a polemic against Modern architectural design (Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House) and a complaint about the lack of flexibility of Modern … Continue reading
Lost Mississippi: Benton Elementary School
You may remember from Monday’s post “Mississipp’s Outstanding Post-War Schools” that the elementary school at Benton in Yazoo County was included in a list of Mississippi’s best school buildings constructed between 1945 and 1951. I also noted that this particular building was no longer standing. But thanks to a remarkable survey of schools completed by the State Dept. … Continue reading
Mississippi’s Outstanding Post-War Schools
It’s totally normal (I’m sure you would agree) to collect books like American School and University, and as I was flipping through the 1950-51 (22nd annual) edition, I came across a chapter called “America’s Outstanding School Buildings (built since 1945).” In that chapter was a series of school photos and a longer listing of “best” schools … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 7-24-09
Here’s some goings-on that you might find interesting. July 12, 2009: An obituary in the Hays (FL) Daily News for architect and planner Raymond L. Eaton, who died July 7, 2009. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Eaton was a partner in Lewis-Eaton, the successor firm to Overstreet, Ware, Ware, & Lewis. July 16, 2009: “For … Continue reading
July09 Name This Place #2
To play this exciting week-long game, see The Rules. Congratulations to Joseph A for grabbing the first points yesterday. Today we’ll go to a different part of the state and a different era. Current Standings: Joseph A: 2 points tsj1957: 1 point Theodore: 1 point
Abandoned Mississippi: School for the Blind
I know this isn’t a particularly preservationist thing to say, but one of the things I love to do is find abandoned places and explore and take photographs of them. I guess part of it is the thrill of discovery, but another part is the melancholy of being in a place that once was loved … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 7-3-2009
This week’s round-up of all the preservation news I can find from around the Magnolia State. As usual, if you have any newsy tidbits come your way, please pass them on to me so I can be sure to post them. June 22, 2009: “Return to Glory” in the Vicksburg Post about the renovation of … Continue reading
Already Missing Newspapers
I know lots of people claim to be eager to see the death of paper news, that old dinosaur, delivered to your door each morning to be read with a good, healthy breakfast. They say that the internet can take the place of newspapers more efficiently and can cover a wider range of topics more effectively. They … Continue reading
Name This Place #1
To be a part of this exciting game, see The Rules. Hint: This photo, with caption appeared in a Preservation in Mississippi post in March, 2009.
Sun-n-Sand More Endangered Than Before
<img class=”size-full wp-image-1569 ” title=”SunSandfront” src=”http://misspreservation.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/sunsandfront.jpg” alt=”Sun-n-Sand Motor Hotel by One of the Mississippi Heritage Trust’s Most Endangered historic properties became even more so this month when the Mississippi Legislature voted to move toward acquisition of the property in Jackson, just west of the Capitol and Woolfolk State Office Building, to build more state offices on the … Continue reading
In Memoriam: Robert K. Overstreet (1924-2009)
Those of you who don’t read the obituaries every day might have missed the notice of the death of Robert K. Overstreet last week. Overstreet was the son of our famous Jackson architect N.W. Overstreet and he was also a well-known architect in his own right. Here’s a bit from the obituary that appears in full … Continue reading
Jackson’s Municipal Library
The Northside Sun published an article last week about the old Municipal Library in Jackson. Besides being a pretty cool Modern structure designed by the prominent Jackson firm of N.W. Overstreet & Associates, the building is significant for its Civil Rights history, as the site of the 1961 Tougaloo Nine sit-in. The Mississippi Heritage Trust had … Continue reading
Mies, Mies, van der roh-ha
So after a week of berating Mies van der Rohe and his Mieslings for everything bad in architecture, here’s a little video that presents a different perspective. It’s guaranteed to keep you humming its catchy tune while you do your Saturday chores. This is the 6th and last post in a series. Wouldn’t you love to read … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: Apostates and Post-Modernists
Ok, since it’s Friday, let’s finish up on From Bauhaus to Our House. The last two chapters deal with the architects who strayed from the Modernist compounds and were ostracised from the hip and cool in-crowd. These included Edward Durell Stone, who started out Modern but married a girl from Spain who said his buildings … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: The destruction of craftsmanship
Wolfe points out in chapter 4, “Escape to Islip,” the irony that while the 20th century was the American Century, the architecture that defined that century was primarily a European import. In the same chapter, he also touches upon what he sees as the myth that Modernism was a reaction to the lack of affordable craftsmanship–that … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: Architectural Education Overthrown
In chapter three of From Bauhaus to Our House, “The White Gods,” Tom Wolfe recounts what he sees as the almost instant change in course in American architecture after the German Modernists began arriving in the late 1930s as refugees from the Nazi regime. He (I think rightly) pinpoints their most long-lasting influence as being … Continue reading
From Bauhaus to Our House: Wolfe Does Not ♥ Gropius
To start off From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe looks at the architectural scene in Europe after World War I. The picture he paints is one of confusion in the arts and an increasing tendency to spend more time on theory than on creativity. Walter Gropius, who he calls “The Silver Prince” and “White … Continue reading
Book Quotes: From Bauhaus to Our House
I recently read–finally, way after I should have–Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House. Published in 1981, this is not a scholarly work, but it’s a passionate rejection of Modernist architecture and its practitioners. According to the copyright page, most of the book was published in Harper’s during the June and July issues, so you can … Continue reading
Red Hot Truck Stop, Meridian
In Friday morning’s SAH session on Architecture of the Road, Ethel Goodstein-Murphree of the University of Arkansas gave an enlightening paper called “The Common Place of the Common Carrier: The American Truck Stop.” She devoted a whole section to the Red Hot Truck Stop in Meridian, whose sign is still standing last I saw, but whose … Continue reading
Gulfport Library update
A third public meeting about the future of Gulfport Library took place on Thursday (the 12th) and this one seems to have actually produced some encouraging movement on all sides. According to the Sun-Herald article, the many interested parties, including the county, FEMA and MDAH will sign a Memorandum of Agreement wherein the county agrees to … Continue reading
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