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Return to: Documents Determining Significance | Timeline of Events Letter
of response to Gettysburg NMP Section 106 Case Report SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS 6 January 1999 John Latschar, Superintendent Dear Mr. Latschar, Thank you for your letter of ll December, the accompanying documents, and the opportunity to respond to your Section 106 case report on the Cyclorama Building. I would like to preface our remarks by underscoring how unfortunate we consider the inadequacies of funding for Gettysburg and many other national parks and that we support, in principle, responsible initiatives to secure adequate facilities for housing interpretative exhibits, collections, and staff as well as for the maintenance and preservation of other components of park-infrastructure. We must, however, register disagreement over many of the points raised in your report and in the proposed General Management Plan. At stake, we believe, are fundamental issues concerning the practice of historic preservation in the United States that transcend the resources involved. Given the fact that the Park Service has held the leading public- sector role in preservation for decades; that, under Section 110 of the National Historic-Preservation Act, the Park Service is mandated to set standards and guidelines for both the public and the private sectors; and that, due to this mandate, the Park Service exercises enormous influence on preservation practices nationwide, we view the framing of this report with considerable alarm. The remarkable landscape that comprises Gettysburg National Military Park is indeed one of great historical significance for the battle that occurred there and also for the many forms of commemoration that have followed for the near century and a half since. The importance of this setting, then, is not just as a historic landscape documenting a narrow time frame, but also as a cultural landscape that has evolved over a considerable length of time. This complex, dual nature of the resource is recognized only up to a point in the proposed General Management Plan. Like any cultural landscape, Gettysburg will continue to evolve in the future. Those changes, however, must be predicated on careful stewardship of the continuum from the past. Without this balance, the past has no true protection. Each generation can fabricate the past it wants to have, which may often entail undoing significant components of the actual past. History is then manifested as a current, popular theme, not the complex, multi- faceted sequence it almost always is. For this reason, we must disagree with the proposed General Management Plan's framework that values so much of what evolved on the site through the War Department's tutelage and disregards the legacy of Park Service stewardship for nearly three quarters of a century. This bifurcation seems particularly unwarranted given the basic reasons for the park's transfer and the Park Service's many subsequent efforts to foster interpretation of the battlefield setting. For this reason, too, we find problems, philosophical and actual, with any program to "restore" the battlefield to its mid nineteenth-century conditions. To be a true restoration, as defined by the Park Service (a definition that is the nationally accepted standard in preservation), all facets of the landscape changed since then would have to be eradicated. This objective is impossible, of course, given longstanding patterns of public roadways and uses of adjacent land that fall out of the Park Service's purview. The objective is also undesirable as it would eliminate many natural elements such as groves of trees and the great spectrum of commemorative and other artifacts that are associated with the park. The proposed General Management Plan suggests as much by retaining some portions of the evolved landscape. But what is really being proposed, in our view, is a selective historical rehabilitation, with certain components of the landscape transformed into something approximating what they seemed to have been like around 1863 and others maintained or refashioned with some commemorative artifacts of later periods; with some aspects of the evolved natural landscape recast and others left in tact. What visitors will experience, then, is neither a mid nineteenth-century landscape, nor one of later decades, but a new quasi-historical patchwork that is readily datable to the early twenty- first century. Equally disconcerting is that this new creation is likely be interpreted, and will readily be seen by most visitors, as an authentic one. And even if this program is carried out to the full degree proposed, it will always be compromised by changes wrought in the twentieth century over which the-Park Service-has no control. Such a step, it seems, is nearly as radical and misleading as that which was taken in the development of Independence National Park in the l950s and early 1960s. There over a century's work of urban fabric, which included many significant, but then popularly vilified, buildings, was demolished; the small number of buildings then deemed historic were dutifully restored or recreated; and the ensemble developed as a new parklike setting that could never have existed in North America or any other hemisphere in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The most valuable outcome of this exercise in historical urban renewal was that it became a conspicuous lesson in what to avoid, which underscored for a generation of preservationists how important identifying and retaining an appropriate context was in their work. At Gettysburg, we believe it is imperative to develop an agenda that is more conservation-oriented and holistic in addressing the significant past. The Cyclorama Building should be a key part of that agenda, not just because it is a significant work of an internationally renowned architect, but also because it represents a major initiative by the Park Service to improve and facilitate the interpretation of its resources. In intent and actuality, it stands far removed from some expeditious, temporary solution to needs, making it very different from the current visitor center. It also stands worlds apart from some external, profit-driven attempt to capitalize on the park's popularity, as characterizes the nearby observation tower. As the material submitted in the process of determination of eligibility for the National Register reveals, the Cyclorama Building is a major work in the late career of one of the world's foremost modernists. It also ranks as one of the most distinctive and important modernist works of its era in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as one of the most distinguished examples of interpretation facilities erected by the Park Service. The fact that the full extent of this building's significance has only recently come to light in the public forum in no way diminishes its significance, but rather underscores the failure of previous Park Service surveys to identify a major resource. No work of such significance should be casually dismissed. To the contrary, every possible effort should be made to ensure it can continue to remain a viable component of the park. Whether or not it is mentioned in the authorizing legislation, this building, as a recognized cultural resource of exceptional significance, must receive a high priority for protection. Had a more holistic and conservative approach to park resources been implemented early on in the process, we suspect that many of the practical problems associated with this building might have been resolved. Matters of fire safety, handicapped access, proper temperature and humidity control, roof leaks and building settlement all appear ones that can be resolved either through appropriate treatments or through the waivers of the kind routinely given to historic properties. The proper care and installation of the cyclorama painting is clearly a matter of utmost importance. Given the enormous expense and considerable time entailed in constructing a new facility for this work, we urge that a wholly independent expert party be commissioned to seek prudent and feasible ways in which the painting can be conserved and adequately protected in its present setting. This recommendation does not question the judgement of conservators who have examined the painting in the past, but it does necessitate posing a different set of questions that have the potential of resolving the matter in a much more expedient and inexpensive way that could prove substantially more beneficial to the painting's future. The siting of the Cyclorama is probably a choice that no one would make today given current views on interpretation; however, it was carefully and deliberately made by Park Service officials in the 1950s as an effective way in which further to engage visitors with the setting. It is very easy and often very tempting to find fault with the work of our parents' generation, but certainly in cases that were seen as so significant in their own time, we believe it is best not to rush to condemnation. Moreover, given the extent of change of that site, it can never be truly restored, only recast, and even then it will always have an array of incompatible twentieth-century developments in plain view over a roughly 180 degree arc. While the siting is not ideal, it can be argued that the building provides an important visual buffer between many of these developments are key components of the park lying to the south. This genre of work may not yet enjoy widespread popularity, just as Victorian architecture did not in the 1950s and early 1960s. We believe it is imperative for the Park Service to maintain its rightful position of leadership in preserving significant works from the mid twentieth century. The importance of this case to the preservation of cultural landscapes and of exceptional works of the recent past is hard to overestimate. Given the significance of the park and of the building, the outcome could be one that fosters the National Park Service's role as a national standard-bearer in historic preservation, setting a precedent that is worthy of emulation for decades to come. On the other hand, the outcome could send a clear message to preservationists: do as we preach not as we practice. It could become an embarrassing object lesson in what to avoid. We share the concerns of many others involved in developing solutions that set the highest standards in historic preservation not just for Gettysburg but for the nation. Toward that end, we look forward to working with you and the other concerned parties in the months ahead. Yours very sincerely, /s/ Richard Longstreth President n.b. Please address correspondence
to me in care of: cc:
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