Ball State University Center for Historic Preservation and Indiana Landmarks release guide to historic architecture of Bartholomew County

Congratulations to the Ball State University Center for Historic Preservation and Indiana Landmarks on publication of the Bartholomew County Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. Graduate students from the College of Architecture and Planning's Historic Preservation program spent over a year making frequent visits to Bartholomew County to compile this comprehensive illustrated report of well-known landmarks as well as lesser-known structures, such as the c. 1865 Horace Solmon House in Haw Creek Township, Bridge #47 on County Road 1150 East over Clifty Creek, and the Nau House in the Forest Park neighborhood of Columbus.

The public is invited to an illustrated presentation on the inventory's findings Wednesday, December 5, 7:00 p.m. The presentation will be held at the Bartholomew County Public Library in Columbus. The 213-page report-featuring historic and contemporary photos and maps-may be purchased at the special price of $20. The price will be $25 after the event.

Greg Sekula, director of Indiana Landmarks' Southern Regional Office will present a brief program showing architectural highlights of the county as well as discoveries of overlooked gems. He will also discuss services available to assist those interested in saving and celebrating Bartholomew County's landmarks.

"This is an update of the 1980 survey that examined properties constructed prior to 1940," says Sekula. The 1980 survey identified 1,987 historic structures; the current inventory documents 3,245 properties. The 2012 survey documents properties constructed through 1969, which includes the county's large concentration of post-World War II architecture.

The survey and report were funded in part by matching grants from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund, administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology (DHPA). DHPA oversees Indiana's Historic Sites and Structures Inventory.

For more information on the December 5 program, contact Julie Hughes at jhughes@bartholomewhistory.org or 812-372-3541.

Historic Muncie Students Shoot Architectural Drawings for Immersive Learning Project

Last week the Drawings + Documents Archive welcomed back film and historic preservation students in Prof. Chris Flook's Historic Muncie: Preserving Middletown's Neighborhoods Immersive Learning class. Offered for the first time last year, students created a website to chronicle their discoveries as well as a documentary film Stories and Legends: Historic Preservation in Muncie, Indiana that was just shown at this year's Heartland Film festival in Indianapolis.

The research and film project has been garnering much praise for the students' work and it has just been announced that the group will be awarded the Governor's Award for the Preservation of Historic Places, presented by the Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indiana Division of Natural Resources. We're thrilled to see the students and faculty rewarded for their hard work and proud to be an on-campus contributer to the project.

This year's class focused their research on Beech Grove Cemetery and the Old West End neighborhood of Muncie. They spent the earlier part of the semester researching our collections of original drawings and Historic American Building Survey (HABS) drawings, and returned Friday to film the drawings and drawing tools for use in their upcoming documentary.

Both the drawings and the tools you see in the photograph, above, are from our extensive Kibele & Garrard Collection. Prominent gas-boom era architects Cuno Kibele (1866-1927) and Carl W. Garrard (1889-1981) established the firm in downtown Muncie and built many of the town's extraordinary structures, including Ball Gymnasium, Masonic Temple (now Cornerstone Center for the Arts), and Ball Memorial Hospital (now IU Hospital). The collection is rather unusual for its large amount of historic drawing implements, such as pencils, watercolor sets, technical tools, papers, eraser shields, and measuring tools dating from the early 1900s.

Image: Historic Muncie students filming in the Archives, October 26, 2012, photo by Carol Street.

Central Union Telephone Company/Indiana Bell Building Move

The Central Union Telephone Company Building that stood at the southwest corner of Meridian and New York Streets in Indianapolis had a fascinating history that involved an impressive preservation effort to save it from the wrecking ball. It eventually succumbed decades later, but not before attracting worldwide attention for the architects' daring maneuver.

The building was purchased in 1929 by the Indiana Bell Telephone Company with the intention of tearing it down to create a larger building on the site for the ever-growing company. The existing building certainly wasn't small at 118 feet tall, 11,000 tons, 8 floors, with a rooftop garden on top of the elevator penthouse, but it was inconveniently located on the site where they wanted a much larger structure. There doesn't seem to be a record of how architect Kurt Vonnegut, Sr. of Vonnegut, Bohn & Mueller (and father to famed novelist Kurt Vonnegut) hatched his plan to move the building 52 feet south and pivot it 90 degrees and then move 100 feet west to face New York Street, nor how he convinced the Indiana Bell Telephone Company to approve the plan, but he began the massive undertaking on October 14, 1930.

Moved in 3/4 inch increments on 400 rollers, the building move was completed a month later, on November 12th. Due to the extra 200 feet of slack spliced into the telephone cables, flexible hoses for plumbing and gas lines, and a rotating, wooden sidewalk bridge, the employees in the building didn't lose a day of work nor did the company interrupt their service during the move.

Not surprisingly, Vonnegut, Bohn & Mueller were hired to build the new Indiana Bell Telephone Building on the site of the previous building. Their design smartly incorporated potential expansions, which took place in 1947 and again in 1965. The latter expansion involved demolishing the original Central Union Telephone Company Building to create the present-day structure.

The photograph above, which is from the Wright, Porteous & Lowe Architectural Records collection (a successor to the firm started by Vonnegut & Bohn), depicts the building in the middle of the move at the point where it is pivoting. The photograph is pasted on a large board with other impressive examples of the firm's architecture and framed. Other photographs in the collection show that these framed photographs hung in the foyer of the firm's offices, providing a glimpse at how proud the architects were at their accomplishment. It remains one of the largest buildings ever moved.

Many thanks to Ball State University College of Architecture & Planning alum Ben Ross for his research on this topic and for generously allowing us to borrow from it. You can see more pictures of the building's move in Ben's post on the RATIO Architects' blog http://www.ratioblog.com/?p=320

Image: Central Union Telephone Company building move photograph, 1930. Wright, Porteous & Lowe Architectural Records, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

A Cinderella Story for Muncie

Congratulations to all of the Ball State University Historic Preservation students who worked on the proposal to save the 20th Century Flats apartment building in Muncie. I know they really worked hard on the project because they spent a lot of time in the Archives researching the building and its surroundings before passionately delivering their proposal for renovation to the city. 

The happy ending to the story arrived last night at the opening reception for the completely renovated building. Thankfully they displayed a monitor with a slide show of photographs documenting the restoration work. It's impossible to overemphasize how bad the conditions were in the building, so this rehab is truly a Cinderella story. You can read more about this fantastic success in the Muncie Star Press.

Midcentury Modern + Preservation

Duncan Campbell, chair of Ball State University's associate professor of architecture and director of the graduate program in historic preservation, has been invited to give a presentation for Bloomington's Preservation Commission's inaugural Rosemary P. Miller Lecture on Historic Preservation, taking place this Friday, March 4th. Campell will be speaking on designer Elaine Doenges' midcentury modern houses built in Bloomington, Indiana.

Campbell's talk will be Friday, March 4th at 7 pm in Bloomington's City Hall. For more information, visit the Preservation Commission's website.

How to research a historic Indiana neighborhood

For new students in the Historic Preservation department, or for researchers who just want to learn more about their own neighborhood, writer Tanya Marsh details her method of researching the Brightwood neighborhood in Indianapolis. Read her interesting article at
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2009/09/tracing-the-history-of-a-neighborhood.html

Preserving Modernism

The New York Times reported on building and landscape preservation efforts to save Modernist environments on Cape Cod.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/garden/27cape.html

Historic Landmarks Save

Historic Landmarks is currently restoring this Victorian cottage on the east side of Indianapolis. Here's what it looked like before renovation:

http://www.historiclandmarks.org/ForSale/Pages/ForSaleDetails.aspx?ForSaleID=78

And here is what it looks like now, mid-renovation:

To the north of this house is busy New York Street, which is the main street heading east from downtown. The house stands in a depressed area that has much to offer, in terms of accessibility and architecture. Kudos to Historic Landmarks for making a positive impact on the neighborhood!