Can architects and urban designers help determine the fates of Confederate monuments or Black Lives Matter murals?
In fact, that’s an emerging specialty for the preservation experts at Page & Turnbull, a national design firm based in California, led by president H. Ruth Todd, FAIA, and a team of architectural historians and planners.
As part of the firm’s work on historic resource surveys, cultural landscape reports, and historic context statements, the cultural resources planners at Page & Turnbull help property owners, elected officials and other public-sector leaders to evaluate their options for significant artworks, new and old.
The team’s rallying cry is “context and informed analysis for decision-makers,” and team members have analyzed an extraordinary range of properties. Page & Turnbull makes determinations of historic significance, identifies character-defining features, and develops recommendations informed by national standards, such as the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes.
Research is paramount in the process, Todd says, “ensuring that decisions are well-informed and outcomes are ultimately supportable for a property owner.”
For example, if community members ask to remove a Confederate monument, what is the impact on the historic setting, and what monuments or installations could take its place? As part of political movements, like ongoing Black Lives Matter activism, when are newly installed murals considered historically consequential enough to merit preservation?
The cultural resources planners work to provide informed guidance for tangible and intangible heritage. Recent major works by Page & Turnbull have included SurveyLA, “the largest and most comprehensive survey ever completed by an American city.” Over a number of years, several historic preservation firms, including Page & Turnbull, documented L.A.’s historic resources covering 880,000 land parcels and 500 square miles. (Learn more about SurveyLA.) Recently, Page & Turnbull architectural surveys and design guidelines also have assisted other California cities—Napa, Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Francisco and Sonoma—plan for growth and change in their historic neighborhoods.
Ultimately, Page & Turnbull provides an important service of cultural resources planning and preservation in today’s challenging contexts.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF PAGE & TURNBULL