Senate Passes Orphan Works Copyright Act

Supported by libraries, challenged by artists, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 is a copyright amendment designed to free up creative works for which no owner can be identified. Many library professionals advocate for the act as it will allow them to provide reprographic services without fear of liability. Additionally, the act limits infringement penalties if an accused infringer can prove that he/she made a diligent effort to contact the copyright holder. The Senate bill supports the development of online registries of copyrighted works, such as the University of Reading/Harry Ransom Center's WATCHfile.

The Senate passed the act with last-minute revisions on Friday, September 26th. Professional photographers' organizations; such as the National Press Photographers Association, the Advertising Photographers of America and the American Society of Media Photographers; have voiced significant concerns about the act, and encouraged their members to contact their representatives as the Senate's version of the bill moves to the House. To read more, click here and here. To read the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) take on the legislation, click here.

The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains the following guides relevant to copyright associated with architectural records:

Lowell, Waverly and Tawny Ryan Nelb. Architectural Records: Managing Design and Construction Records (2006).

Ritzenthaler, Mary Lynn and Diane Vogt O'Connor. Photographs: Archival Care and Management (2006).

Sabo, Werner. Legal Guide to AIA Documents, Fourth edition and cumulative supplement (2007).

George Eastman House on Flickr

In the last few months, the George Eastman House has followed the example of the Library of Congress and started making some of its extensive collection of photographs available on flickr. For those interested in historic buildings, the George P. Hall and Son photographs will be particularly noteworthy.

Hall and Son (1886-1914) was a commercial photography studio in Manhattan that specialized in views of New York City. Although the Eastman House has a significant collection of Hall, the New York Historical Society has the studio's log books, albums, prints and over 2000 glass plate negatives.

[Photograph: George P. Hall and Son, Construction of the Flatiron Building, gelatin silver print printed 1977 from original negative, c. 1905. George Eastman Kodak House, Rochester, New York]

Lexicon: Sacs des sable entre poteaux

Thursday's Architects Newspaper features an article about this year's recipient of the University of Kentucky College of Design's Curry Stone Design Prize, which honors innovative achievement in humanitarian architecture and design.

The Cape Town, South Africa firm of MMA Architects won the $100,000 award for their 10x10 house, built for just over $6,000 with sandbags and timber. It's similar to local briquette-entre-poteaux. To read more, click here.

One could always plan for flooding in the spirit of historic relocatable beach structures, such as those featured on Pruned's blog.

[Photograph: MMA Architects, 10x10 House, 2008. University of Kentucky College of Design as it appears in Architects Newspaper 09.25.2008]

Vino on the Bayou: Louisiana Landmarks Events

The Louisiana Landmarks Society has announced its next Vino on the Bayou event, a book signing by Jan Arrigo and Laura McElroy, who recently published Plantations and Historic Homes of New Orleans (Voyageur Press, 2008).

The first in a series of events will be held at the Pitot House Museum/1440 Moss Street on Bayou St. John on Friday, October 3rd from 5:30-7:30 pm. $10 per person/$5 for Landmarks members. All proceeds donated to Louisiana Landmarks Society.

On Sunday, October 5th, from 1:00-3:00 pm, the Louisiana Landmarks Society will present Pieux Redux: A Series of Historic Fence Workshops. This grant-funded workshop offers three sessions during the month of October: Lime Putty and Limewash Production (October 5), Limewash Applications on Wood & Plaster (October 12), and Cypress Splitting for Pieux Production (October 19). Tulane Preservation Technology Adjunct Assistant Professor Heather Knight and students from Tulane University School of Architecture's Masters Program in Preservation Studies will demonstrate how to make lime putty and tinted limewashes. Additionally, local craftsmen will demonstrate colonial era cypress fence-making techniques. Cost: $10 including all supplies. For more information and pre-registration call 504.482.0312.

From the Creole Lexicon: pieu (singular) 1) Picardy and Louisiana: a riven or split plank, generally thinner than a madrier. Louisiana: a stake or picket, but generalized to any medium-sized piece of wood for building, rough-hewn or split. Less commonly, a round or squared post. In 17th-cent. Canada and Upper Louisiana, chapels and other structures were built en pieux, or de pieux, meaning piquet or palisade wall construction. Walls built of medium-sized stakes were plastered with clay and covered with bark. To read more, check out Jay Dearborn Edwards and Nicolas Kariouk Pecquet du Bellay de Verton's A Creole Lexicon: Architecture, Landscape, People in multiple locations in the Tulane University Library. NA 730 .L8 E2997 2004

When Disaster Strikes II: Galveston

The Houston Chronicle reported Saturday about the gradual return of Galveston residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Johnny Hanson's photograph of mold damage to books at the Rosenberg Library is a reminder of how quickly mold spores grow in tropical climes.

Today's Library Journal published an interview with John Augelli, the Executive Director at the Rosenberg, which houses the Galveston and Texas History Center. Augelli and two of his staff members stayed in the library throughout the storm, and witnessed a six-foot storm surge that wiped out the library's first floor, its childrens collection. Prepared for wind event, the library that sits on one of the island's highest points was overwhelmed with water.

To read an updated version of Sandra Nyberg's 1987 Solinet Preservation Leaflet, "Invasion of the Giant Mold Spore," click here.

[Above: Detail of Johnny Hanson photograph "Mold has damaged books on the lower floors of the Rosenberg Library, home of the Galveston and Texas History Center." 20 September 2008 Houston Chronicle]. For full article and photograph, click here.

Stone Mountain Granite/Graffiti

In 1901, the Atlanta-based Venable Brothers boasted that they had supplied the city of New Orleans with 25,000 feet of Georgia Granite for curbings and crossings (as opposed to the 900,000 feet for Atlanta). The company maintained quarries at both Stone Mountain and Lithonia, which were reached by railroad that was also owned and operated by the Venable Brothers.

In 1915, the United Daughters of the Confederacy commissioned sculptor Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) to survey the Ku Klux Klan rebirth site for a monument intended as a memorial to the Confederacy, the "Lost Cause Shrine". World War I delayed the project. Eventually Borglum and his patrons parted ways over disagreements, Borglum destroyed his models, and Augustus Lukeman (1871-1935) was hired to complete the work.

Lukeman informed the supervising body -- the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Association -- that Borglum's unfinished carving could never be completed, and recommended an altered design, smaller in scale, featuring equestrian figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. Borglum's carving was sandblasted away from Stone Mountain's face. The Crash of 1929 shut down operations again, and work did not resume on the project until 1958, when the Georgia State Legislature created the official Stone Mountain Memorial Association, and authorized it to sell revenue bonds.

The Massachusetts-based sculptor Walker Hancock (1901-1998) took over the project, following Lukeman's models. New Orleans stone carver George Weiblen (1895-1970) was ultimately commissioned to supervise the 7 carvers working on the site in the 1960s. Weiblen and his wife lived in a trailer at the mountain's base. On 25 March 1966, The Atlanta Journal reported that the stone carving was costing $442.80/day in wages, including those of Mr. Weiblen. In the same article, the 70-year-old New Orleans tomb designer conveyed his reasons for taking on the project:

'I want to put my father's name there, too. He brought his family from New Orleans in 1911 to open a quarry on the back side of Stone Mountain and he leased the whole mountain. He offered the Venable Brothers a million dollars for it in 1920. He died in 1961 at the age of 99 and five months. He said he wanted to lie down before breakfast and he took one deep breath and he was gone. I don't know how I will work his name in but there is a way."

George Weiblen died at Stone Mountain in 1970, the same year Vice President Spiro T. Agnew dedicated the monument. It is now part of an expansive theme park that draws millions of visitors annually.

To read more documents related to the project, click here.

To read excerpts from David Freedman's 1997 book, Carved in Stone: The History of Stone Mountain, on googlebooks, click here.

To read the Smithsonian's oral history with Walker Hancock, click here.

[Photograph above: Frank Rippetoe. Stone Carver at Stone Mountain, Georgia.
8 March 1964. Box 64, Weiblen Marble and Granite Company Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries].

FOR SALE: Swamp Castle with Alligator

Howard Solomon's 12,000-square-foot castle and its surrounding 70 acres of reclaimed swampland near Ona, Florida are for sale.The turreted structure has been featured on HGTV's "Most Extreme Homes in America" as well as on Roadside America. The Center for Land Use Interpretation has highlighted the self-built castle as an architectural and cultural landmark. Annually countless visitors tour the grounds and eat lunch on Solomon's 60-foot galleon in the complex's moat, which is populated by a resident female alligator.

The structure is 60 feet tall and largely constructed of recycled trash, including beer cans and oil drums. Sheathed in 34" offset aluminum newspaper printing plates, Solomon's Castle at times disappears in vibrant reflections of the intense sun. Over eighty stained glass windows populate the castle's many walls.

Although it is not as spectacular as the Forevertron, the Dr. Who-Influenced/Badger Army Ammunition Plant-Salvaged-Cold-War-Bits Concoction of Tom Every in Baraboo, Wisconsin, it is worth seeing.

What is the asking price? $2.5 million and listed on Castles for Sale.

Listen to This American Life's episode on "Simulated Worlds" and Read Umberto Eco's Travels in HyperReality: Essays (1986):

"We are dreaming the Middle Ages, some say. But in fact both Americans and Europeans are inheritors of the Western legacy, and all the problems of the Western World emerged in the Middle Ages: Modern languages, merchant cities, capitalistic economy (along with banks, checks and prime rates) are inventions of medieval society. In the Middle Ages we witness the rise of modern armies, of the modern concept of the nation state, as well as the idea of a supernatural federation; the struggle between the poor and the rich, the concept of heresy or ideological deviation, even our contemporary notion of love as a devastating unhappy happiness. I could add the conflict between church and state, trade unions, the technological transformation of labor."

Eco, p. 64 (Weaver translation)

To read more of the text: Check it out from Tulane: HTML PQ4865.C6T7 or googlebooks.

[Lomograph. Solomon's Castle, near Ona, Florida. Spring 2006 by K. Rylance.]