Habs

Architecture seems a perfect embodiment of technology and culture, combining as it does the structural elements of a building with the aesthetic elements of style. Function and form intermingle in a good building, and, when the architect has succeeded, both precepts emerge to make a statement about time and place, use and context. Thus it would appear that an exhibit celebrating the first fifty years of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the agency created to record examples of sites and structures across the length and breadth of the United States, should have been most appropriate to review in these pages. Indeed, it should, yet it fell short of the mark, leaving the viewer interested but still curious about placing the work of HABS into a larger context relevant to technology and culture. HABS and its sister agency, HAER (the Historic American Engineering Record, founded in 1969), have accomplished much good work by recording the legacy of our built environment. HABS began in 1933 as a relief project designed to create work for unemployed architects sent out to document sites and structures. As the economy improved, its emphasis gradually shifted. The recording function emerged as the primary goal, carried out by architectural students, photographers, and historians trained by the program. What started as an experimental cooperative effort by the National Park Service, the American Institute of Architects (as advisers), and the Library of Congress achieved permanent status in 1935 under the Historic Sites Act. Its worth was reaffirmed in 1980 by the Historic Preservation Act. Some 17,000 sites and structures have been recorded through measured drawings, photographs, and written reports constituting a col

Art · Art history · Exhibition · Library of congress · Library science · Computer Science · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History