Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors
Column by Cindy Frank

The University of Maryland’s Architecture Library, housed in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, is lucky enough to have its own Special Collections room. However, for the past several years, it has been a hidden gem. The books were rarely requested and current faculty seemed unaware of the collections. The enthusiasm of a new graduate student employee caused me to re-visit the collection with an eye towards getting more of the School community in there.

The Special Collections consist of approximately 1,500 items, including eighteenth and nineteenth century oversize monographs, plates from Le Castel Beranger Oeuvre de Hector Guimard, small brochures on seventeenth century building techniques, and Josef Albers’ Interaction of Color study set.

The Special Collections room is climate controlled and many items are fragile, so we began by discussing logistics with the Maryland Libraries conservation team. The Head of Preservation was enthusiastic and brought one of her managers to visit, who happened to know the collection quite well. He was able to suggest certain monographs for display and volunteered to discuss the collection during the open house, as well as protect certain volumes from over-eager hands. We wanted visitors to be able to actually touch the books if they wished, so we chose several books that were sturdy enough to be handled, and displayed them separately from more fragile items.

The open house took place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, from 4:30 PM to 6 PM. The library closes to the public at 4 PM, and we intentionally limited the audience to the School and Library communities. An architecture student designed invitations, which were printed and placed in all faculty mailboxes. The event was advertised on the School’s Facebook page, and via printed posters in studio. Email invitations were sent to Libraries staff, as well as the School community.

The conservation staff and my students pulled out certain monographs, including DesGodetz’ Rendering of Antiquities that were displayed on top of the flat files within the Special Collections room. Other items of interest were brought out to the two large tables in the reading room of the library. We used foam wedges to support larger monographs, and acrylic cradles for smaller books. One table had books and plates that could be touched; the other table had Charles Garnier’s Le Nouvel Opera de Paris open to the section through the theatre. The Head of Conservation stood next to that monograph and turned pages when asked.

I am delighted to report that my campus library colleagues stopped by, and so did many faculty and students of the School. One of the architecture historians asked me for some scans of the plates of Paris shop fronts, for her Modern Architecture seminar. The architecture program Director asked if we would open the Special Collections room for the Spring open house. Another professor suggested we do this again based on a particular theme, for example: Ancient Rome, European Churches, or Colonial America. There is enough material to feature several unique holdings from the Collections. The majority of students who attended were in the architecture program, and they were quite excited to see oversize books with plans, sections and elevation drawings spread out.

The good will and enthusiasm has carried over the winter break into this semester. On the first day of class, one of the studio professors brought his students up to look at our Letarouilly 3-volume set. The open house reminded the faculty of the resource that they have down the hall as well; I am interested to see if there is an uptick in the number of items requested from the Special Collections during this semester. I highly recommend this type of event to get people into the library. Although it took some planning and coordination, the interest it generated was well worth the effort.

Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Barbara Opar

While online resources like streaming video are being increasingly integrated into architectural education, new content often becomes available and yet is not widely known. One such case is the Pidgeon Digital Archive. The Pidgeon series began as slide-tape lectures and was a mainstay of many schools of architecture and design in the 1980s.The online archive was launched in 2007 but not widely marketed to audiences in the U.S.

What is the Pidgeon Archive?  It is a resource started back in 1979 by Monica Pidgeon. Monica Pidgeon was once editor of both Architectural Design and RIBA Journal. As editor of AD from 1946 to 1975, Pidgeon was responsible for establishing AD as the preeminent journal of architectural ideas. When she retired, Pidgeon decided to create and distribute a series of slide-tape sets in which architects and designers talked about their work. Since being recorded, major figures like Buckminster Fuller, Philip Johnson, the Smithsons and James Stirling have died.  As Peter Murray, her successor, states in the March-April 2010 issue of Architectural Design: “The complete archive is not only a testament to Monica’s wide-ranging enthusiasm for architects and architecture, it brings to life a whole generation of architects and their thinking in a way that the printed media cannot. (p.109). The original series consisted of 200 half hour lectures and Murray began digitizing them at the rate of 60 a year. His next step was to add new material, so Renzo Piano was recorded. The greats of the past and the images they selected to showcase their work now appear alongside major figures in contemporary architecture like Frank Gehry, recorded both in 1981 and 1997.

The Pidgeon Archive lectures are clear and the images synchronized to move along with the talk. Content can be sorted by speaker, talk title and year recorded. In 1955, the likes of Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra were all recorded. You can also hear Reyner Banham talk about the importance of Buffalo’s grain elevators (1982) or a 2015 lecture by Norman Foster on why he became personally involved in work at the Chateau Margaux.

It is worth exploring the Pidgeon Digital Archive which like resources such as Kanopy and On Architecture can only add to your student’s understanding of the world of architecture.