Tour v. Explore

Touring a place can be stagnant and numbing. I can’t even count how many tours I have been on, whether guided or self-guided, where I’ve just wanted to break away and explore on my own. Listening to one person’s (probably memorized) account of a place can be so unengaging. Why take that approach when walking around a site and exploring on your own, with tools of your own? 

What is the difference between taking a self guided tour, a historic plaque at every relevant location in the park, and just wandering around the park? For starters, just wandering gives the user the opportunity to explore an area based on their whims and desires instead of being forced to take the predetermined route of a walking tour. One map can (and should) be provided at the entrance(s) to give the users a sense of the expansiveness of the site, but relying solely on a map to explore a place is very one-dimensional and will absolutely leave off a significant amount of rich information that comes with a walking tour. A way to provide historic and other relevant information without forcing the user to walking around with paper in hand would be to leave plaques at each relevant location within the site. 

However, with rapidly expanding information accessibility, putting up  plaques with information becomes dated the second it is printed. A way around this is to put the information about each location on an alterable platform, such as a website, and provide smaller plaques with a link to that information online. This is where the QR code comes in handy. 

A QR code in the wild can provide a link to an incredible amount of information that can be meticulously curated by whatever organization or group is in charge. The medium of information grows, significantly, from a two-dimensional board of information to a technological goldmine of photos, videos, personal narratives, as well as the typical historical information. 

Final Book Outline

Google is a beautiful thing

While trying to find an image of the black horse flag that flew at the Anderson’s estate for years, I came a blog solely focused on Larz and Isabel Anderson! www.larzandisabelanderson.com The site is managed by Stephen T. (Skip) Moskey, someone who I have come across multiple times as the publisher of printed papers, image collections, and such. This site is a wealth of information on the happy couple as well as some tidbits of info on the built environment of the estate:

-The glass greenhouses were designed by Lord & Burnham, a prominent greenhouse design firm that still exists today as “Under Glass”

-This is one of the most beautiful (colored) photographs of Cupid’s fountain I have ever seen

-That Asian stone sculpture that sits at the top of the hill next to where the house once stood is called a Gorinto (五輪塔)
According to Skip, “a Gorinto is the Japanese interpretation of a type of Buddhist pagoda used as a memorial or burial marker” In the case of this burial marker, only the bottom 3 of 5 pieces still remain. Skip found 1 in another park in brookline but the 2nd to the top piece is missing. There’s a lot more info here: https://larzandisabelanderson.com/gilded-age-gorinto/and here: https://larzandisabelanderson.com/page/47/ 

-I found the highest possible resolution of the black horse flag too

While on this research collection high, I decided to investigate Brookline's Park Department website too. Thanks to the video that the town of Brookline’s Parks Department put out, Skip Moskey speaks in depth (almost 9 minutes!) about the park, the Anderson’s, and the changes that occurred on the estate over time. For example:

During World War 1, in the fashion of victory gardens, the polo field was turned into a potato field.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgxFRIAqsAg

“Although the garden and the house are no longer standing, the vestiges of what they created what and they left behind are available for anyone. I think the Anderson's would be very pleased and proud to know that the land that was so dear to them, that they had shaped over many many years into their perfect living environment, [is avail be to] the people in Brookline [who are] using this same land in ways consistent with how they want to I want to use during their lifetime. I think they would be very pleased.” -Skip Moskey

Reviewing the old walking tour

Timeline Progress

From the start of this semester, I've been compiling dates of additions and subtractions to the Weld Estate.

After my most recent visit to the Brookline Preservation Commission, I was able to fill in a significant amount of information regarding additions and subtractions. However, as I was sifting through all the gathered info, I found a much more interesting piece of the Anderson estate story coming to light. The time between the town receiving the land (1949) and present day park was quite the rollercoaster of preservation & demolition, both literally and figuratively. 

In the 1940's, just as the town was receiving the Anderson's land, the outdoor recreation craze was sweeping the nation. Providing public amenities to residents was all the rage and, just being gifting a massive amount of land, the Brookline Park department, as well as the city, was eager to turn it into a recreation haven. 

The first major blow to the park was the loss of the mansion in 1959. “The town must have seen the mansion at the top of the hill as nothing more than an extravagant white elephant.” -Mary Dewart

1960s: City hired planning firm (Everett & Untermann) to develop long range plan for park

           Skating rink built on site of Italian Gardens

           Many other park assets vandalized and destroyed

1985: Listed Park and variety of assets on National Register

1988: “Larz Anderson can become a showplace, an example of the integration of a town and citizen, historical and recreational needs. In the past, things have been done expeditiously, and done badly. Let’s take a deep breath, look around, and do a better job than we’ve done in the past”. Michael Berger, Greenspace Alliance president 

December 1988: $1 million in renewal funds made available to park…still not enough to cover cost of restoring/maintaining entire park

1989: Preservation projects finally began and stone, masonry, and landscaping began around pond, temple, and bridges

June 23, 1990 (or 91?): Park officially opens (again) to town

My interest in the field of preservation has always leaned more towards the preservation process of a place and less towards the history of a place, (of course I do love the history portion though!) So of course reading the articles, op-eds, and documentation on the process of saving the estate from further distortion was extremely interesting. If it wasn't so late in the game, I would focus my independent study more on the history of the preservation process of the park. But I guess what I'm doing with it now is furthering the story of the preservation of it in some way...

We shouldn't have to move so far away from moments in our built history to appreciate their significance. 

Old Fashioned Preservation

While doing research at Brookline Preservation Commission Wednesday, I found an article from a 1970's brookline newspaper (The Citizen I believe). On the cover of the paper was a woman ice skating at the newly created rink in Larz Anderson Park. However, inside the paper was a much more amusing story.

This article on the restoration of the house at 21 Newton Street included a very old-school preservation line:

"George Washington slept here"

This information was also included in the 2011 tour guide of the estate but it was much funnier to stumble upon in a 1970's newspaper, in a time when, if President Washington rested his tired eyes there, then the building MUST be preserved. 

Notes from Brookline Preservation Commission research day

Note from Photos of articles, etc. 

December 1988: $1 million in renewal funds made available to park…still not enough to cover cost of restoring/maintaining entire park
1960s: City hired planning firm (Everett & Untermann) to develop long range plan for park

“Are we going to be stewards of that heritage or are we going to continue to see Larz Anderson merely as an undeveloped parcel of available “unused” land?” -Mary Dewart 1988

1948- Town received property
“The town must have seen the mansion at the top of the hill as nothing more than an extravagant white elephant.” -MD’88

MD was president of Brookline Greenspace Alliance at the time (1988)

Laundry House 1916-1917

1964 Greenhouse still standing but without round structure; many of out buildings still standing

Japanese Garden 1907

Rond Point 1910-1916

Chinese Pergola 1910

1940’s Recreational Movement sweeping the nation…Brookline Parks Department followed suite…disregard for Preservation and focus on recreation

1985 Listed on National Register

1989 was when Preservation projects finally began and stone, masonry, and landscaping began around pond, temple, and bridges


1988: “Larz Anderson can become a showplace, an example of the integration of a town and citizen, historical and recreational needs. In the past, things have been done expeditiously, and done badly. Let’s take a deep breath, look around, and do a better job than we’ve done in the past”. Michael Berger, Greenspace Alliance president


June 23rd 1990? 1991? Park officially opens to public again

1897 Isabel & Larz marry

1887 House build on estate for William Weld II (isabel’s cousin)

1889 Isabel bought mansion and accompanying land
1899 -1948 Andersons transformed the property into elegant and elaborate estate with international reputation

July 1907 Invited public to grounds of Weld

Larz died 1937
Isabel died 1948

“unfortunately most of the extensive and elaborate estate has been destroyed, obscured, and neglected over time. We get hints of the estate’s intriguing character by studying fragments left behind”

**OLDER AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH WAS IN 1930s!!**

Mansion addition 1914, all designed by Larz, modeled after Lulworth Castle on British Channel

Late 1960’s skating rink

Notes from copied documents: Mary Dewart, Richard Kenworthy, Skip Moskey

Larz as ambassador:
England (1891-1894)
Italy (1894-1897)
Belgium (1911-1912)
Japan (1912-1913)

The last garden made at Weld was a Jekyllesque Blue garden composed of blue and lavender annuals and perennial, all surrounded by a hedge of lilacs. Isabel planned this space as a vantage point for viewing the sunsets. Build in 1937 to the west of the house (Chinese sculpture) after Larz’s death

 “each garden served as a personal reminder of travels and collectively associated them with the accomplishments of the great world civilizations.”

“between 1914 and 1916 the original native stones, brick, and wooden shingles of the house were stuccoed over and a new three-story Italianate facade was added at the garden (south) side of the residence.” addition done by Little and Brown

paired herms

Isabel’s play “Witch of the Woods” 1925 a children's play which counseled environmental responsibility

1913 imported many (most) of the bonsai trees

Water Garden was last major feature to be added to Estate

Rond point: a circular low-walled enclosure with statues and a fountain hidden among the trees

Gnomes’ Woodland Garden 1917 refurbished 1928; existed between Italian garden and kitchen garden

Rose Garden; Fox & Gale

Albert Sullivan- Gardner who dictated content of hand drawn map (Mary Dewart drew map?)

To Do List / Schedule

This will be actively updated & checked off as things are completed

March 28th - March 30th: 

-finish reviewing previous walking tour > upload to blog

-blog post on timeline data collection

-talk to Aidan about 3D model/3D printing

-visit BPC to gather more photos & relevant info

-meet with Eleni at 4pm (3/30)

March 31st - April 6th: 

-blog post on BPC visit

-Meet with Eleni at 1pm (4/6)

April 7th - April 13th: 

-come up with final book outline
-make contact with Brookline Parks Department
-make contact with Brookline Green Space Alliance

-decide on walking tour sheet template design

-blog post on fact finding

-blog post on "tour versus explore" chapter

-present draft of book to Eleni at 1pm (4/13) 

April 14th - April 20th

-draft of chapter on semester overview chapter

-draft of chapter on 21st century exploring

-have completed images ("then & now" images) from photoshop class done 

-draft of venues for further development chapter

-draft of renderings of 21st century exploring images 

April 21st - April 27th

-Draft of book due to Eleni for review (4/27) 

-Make changes accordingly after meeting with Eleni 

-edit & finalize all drafts 

April 28th - May 6th 

-Draft print > spell check, review layout issues, etc. 

-Print & bind @ Sir Speedy 

-Final book due on May 6th!

Walking Tours

I've been thinking about the walking tours in the same format that is presently offered (8.5x11 sheets of paper + map) but I should think about creating something smaller, more compact but succinct, that could potentially be laid out at the museum for visitors to grab. Another advantage of this would be ease of information accessibility for those interested in certain aspects of the site. So, I will plan on making 6 walking tours: the 4 original that I mentioned in a previous post
1) Buildings on the site (past & present)
2) The Anderson's Gardens
3) Community spaces (past & present)
4) Open spaces (past & present)
5) Recreational spaces (past & present)

Plus one guide that takes snippets from the Anderson's life and applies them to spots around the park i.e.

I will post a template of what this will look like by the end of the week. 

The Complexity of the Site

When compiling dates for the addition and subtraction of elements on the site, I realized that looking at each object individually is messy, complicated, and overwhelming. The elements, and their locations, should instead be categorized by their main function or feature.

While researching color schemes that might look appealing together on a map, I decided to choose 5 overarching topics to categorize the key elements of the site: 

1) Buildings on the site

2) Gardens

3) Community spaces 

4) Open spaces

5) Recreational spaces

I started to play with this in photoshop to see how it may look. 

This screenshot from category 1 (buildings on the site) would highlight individual locations of buildings. Categories such as community spaces & open spaces would have to be traces of the area because a circular marker wouldn't fit properly. 

Timeline software

Timeline software is a bust-
The most promising software was Office Timeline (a platform that runs off of Microsoft Powerpoint).
https://www.officetimeline.com/download
However, it needs to be installed and integrated into a PC and I don not have the capability to add software to a BAC computer (plus the free version is clearly second rate to the paid version).

Other platforms were looked at such as:
http://www.tiki-toki.com
http://timeglider.com
http://www.capzles.com
However, they are either free and cheesy-looking, or costly (and still pretty cheesy-looking).

I think I'm going to move away from a timeline software and, instead, revert to a simple website/gallery platform with images that are of my own creation. Plus, the added bonus of doing this instead will allow for someone (i.e. town of Brookline, Auto Museum, etc). to take it over and manage/host it if it interested them. It can be a simple link (i.e. www.larzandersonhistory.com) that complies the change in time, content, and use of the site. Squarespace will definitely do the trick with this.

Presentation 3/2

In this morning's class I gave a brief presentation on my work in last semester's course, Heritage Documentation. Using most of the presentation from the final, I showcased the wide variety of lessons that myself and the girls from Pakistan were able to learn from over the 16 week course.

Although I removed the content on the upfront information regarding the Anderson couple and expanded on their house in Washington DC, the rest of the presentation remained the same and covered photogrammetry, laser scanning, large-format photography, manual documentation, and Omeka. The class seemed most interested in Photogrammetry and its best uses and practices.

We also had an enjoyable conversation about the information collected on the Anderson couple while visiting the archives in DC. Once the Heritage Documentation course discovered many personal and intimate facts about Larz, Isabel, and their relationship, our subject became significantly more lifelike and meaningful. Sharing this information with the class this morning was extremely beneficial, not only to spread knowledge, but to animate the subject of this project for the members of the class. Instead of looking at the objects and landscapes at the Larz Anderson park as inanimate things, they became the objects and home of this worldly, lively, and highly interesting couple.

Omeka!

While sitting in Aidan's class this morning, the conversation of final deliverable was discussed ("under-promise, over-deliver" was reiterated). The class will be focusing solely on a 3D tangible model and the digital model will be put on the back burner. However, the concept of the digital model is still intriguing to me (mainly because I know nothing about 3D fabrication) so, after a discussion with Aidan, a deal has been struck which, will satisfy the interest in the digital model as well as my final deliverable.

Building upon the Omeka platform that was taught last semester, my final deliverable will be an omeka-neatline digital presentation that lays out the spacial changes of the park over its lifetime. But instead of layering found visual information, which range in scale or medium, this neatline will compile versions of a visually compelling autoCAD file that the fabrication class is working with. This will, in turn, create a digital model that changes over time and is kept in one scale and one medium.

Over the next week I plan to build the timeline that the visuals will be built upon. The AutoCAD model will be built with the contents of what existed on the site in 1925 but my project will be the chronology of those items being added or subtracted.  This means verifying the construction and deconstruction of certain elements around the site.

I think this Omeka Neatline creation will compliment both the work being done in the fabrication class as well as my independent study work on a self guided tour with mobile technology.

Thoughts on Walking Tours

I stumbled across the Auto Museum's 2011 walking tour again:
http://larzanderson.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/walkingtoursmall.pdf
It's quite the mishmash of old and new information as well as good and terrible photographs. Plus it's a graphic & organizational nightmare.

Redoing this would be fairly simple and I'd love to take a stab at applying it to a mobile technology platform (like OnCell Pro)

More to come!

Independent Study Goals

Stemming from the research collected last semester in the Heritage Documentation course, this semester will be directed towards finding a creative and informative way to interpret the history of the Larz Anderson Park. This interpretation should make connections to both the spatial and cultural history of the park which will, in turn, enhance its present day use and understanding. This landscape gem in the Town of Brookline has been haphazardly documented and scarcely presented for the towns enjoyment. In my independent study, I will enhance the availability of information on the Larz Anderson Park and help users discover more of the history of the park while still being able to enjoy the mystery of what was once there.