National Park Service Centennial Symposium Series
The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), the Friends of NCPTT, National Park Service, the National Park Service Intermountain Regional Office, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, the Living New Deal, and the ASLA New Mexico Chapter partnered to hold a three-day symposium discussing the preservation of National Park Service (NPS) designed buildings and landscapes. This event coincided with the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.
The symposium focused on issues related to the preservation of park built features. NPS built environments span one hundred years of development from the early rustic period when railroad transported tourists to large western parks; through a period of major construction and land conservation during the Great Depression completed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA); into the post-WWII era and the NPS Mission 66 campaign and up through contemporary development. The NPS also played a major role in the improvement and development of state parks nationwide, through their administration and supervision of CCC and WPA crews working in these parks.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Key Note Speaker: Ethan Carr, A Century of Design in the Parks: A Tradition of Reinvention in the National Parks
Ethan Carr, Phd, FASLA, is a landscape historian and preservationist specializing in public landscapes. He has taught at the Harvard GSD, the University of Virginia, and at the University of Massachusetts, where he is a professor. He has written two award-winning books, Wilderness by Design (1998) and Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma (2007), and he is the volume editor of Volume 8 of the Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, The Early Boston Years, 1882–1890 (2013). He is the co-editor of a volume on the history of world park design, Public Nature (2013).
Hugh Miller, FAIA, Former NPS Chief Architect: Park Historic Architecture Program Comes of Age with the Historic Preservation Act of 1966
Roger Reed and Barbara Wyatt, ASLA, NPS National Register of Historic Places: Finding Significance in Park Cultural Resources
Caleb Waters, Maintenance Mechanic Supervisor, Flagstaff Area National Monuments: Money Can’t Fix Everything: Facility Management Funding at the Flagstaff Area National Monuments
Timothy Davis, Ph.D., Senior Historian, NPS Historic Structures and Cultural Landscapes Program: Perpetuating the Thrill of the Old-Time Road: A Historical Perspective on Park Road Preservation
Mike Ford, Senior Associate, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates and Liz Sargent, ASLA, Principal, Liz Sargent HLA: The Blue Ridge Parkway: Exemplifying the Evolution of the National Park Service Planning and Design
Frank Norris, Historian, National Trails Intermountain Region: Preserving Denali Park Road: Ninety Years of Challenge and Perseverance
3:00 Poster Session: Tuesday, June 21, 2016, 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM, Drury Plaza Hotel, Palace Ballroom B
The symposium featured a robust poster session offering a wide variety of topics. For more information, click here.
Julie McGilvray, Historical Landscape Architect, NPS Intermountain Regional Office and Michael Holleran, Director, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, the University of Texas at Austin: Preservation, Innovation, and Education: Exploring the University Design Studio as a Platform for New Thinking in Resource Protection, Treatment, and Sustainability for the Next 100 Years
Tim Castillo, Associate Professor, ARTS Lab, University of New Mexico, and Adriane Zachmanidis, Principal, Kronosphere Design: Emerging Technologies: Their Evolution and Limitations within the Fields of Cultural Preservation and Interpretation
POSTER SESSION
The symposium featured a robust poster session offering a wide variety of topics. For more information, click here.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Session A
Liz Hallas , AIA, Anderson Hallas Architects, PC: Many Glacier Hotel – The 100-year Rehabilitation
Suzana Radivojevic, Adjunct Faculty, Historic Preservation Program, University of Oregon: Effects of Climate Change on the Long-term Deterioration Trends of Wood in Cultural Heritage
Linda Jewell, FASLA, Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, University of California, Berkeley: Rocks, Logs, and Circular Perfection: Design Parameters and Processes for Constructing Outdoor Theaters in the Nation’s Parks During the New Deal
Cynthia Brandimarte, Ph.D., Director of Historic Sites and Structures Program, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.: Built Sturdy, Left Fragile: State Parks after the New Deal
Bess Althaus Graham, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, Historical Architect, Historic Sites, and Structures Program, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.: Restoring the Two-Step: Illuminating Texas Dance Terraces
David Driapsa, FASLA, David J Driapsa Landscape Architecture, Iconic New Deal Era Cultural Landscapes in the Florida State Park System
Langdon Oppermann, Architectural Historian/Planner, Joseph K. Oppermann – Architect, PA: “Supremely Ugly Museum:” Art Moderne at Ocmulgee National Monument
Brenda Williams, ASLA, Quinn Evans Architects: Indigenous Influences on National Park Service Design and Planning
Panel: Cultural Landscapes of the New Deal: Panelists Susan Ives, Deborah Jojola, Dr. Richard Melzer, and Jerry L. Rogers
Gray Brechin, Founder and Project Scholar, Living New Deal, the University of California at Berkeley, A Splendid Sunset of Craftsmanship: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Public Realm
Laurie Matthews, ASLA, Director of Preservation Planning + Design, MIG, Inc.: Landscape Processes and Cultural Resources: Shifting Perspectives to Protect Mendocino Woodlands
Heidi Hohmann, ASLA, Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, Iowa State University: Solving the “Recreation Problem:” The Development of the National Recreation Area
Session B
Tim Mitchell, AIA, LEED GA, Historical Architect/Architect, Hennebery Eddy Architects: Assessment and Preservation of Mission 66 Visitors Centers
Dave Anderson, AIA, Principal, Anderson Hallas Architects, PC: Building on Dragons: Saving a Mission 66 NHL — the Quarry Visitor Center at Dinosaur National Monument
Cesar Ballester, Reasearch Associate, The Architectural Conservation Research Center: Modern in the Mountains: Rustic Reinterpreted at Jackson Lake Lodge
Tanya Wattenburg Komas, Ph.D., Founding Director/Associate Professor, Concrete Preservation Institute, Alcatraz/ California State University, Chico: Lessons from Alcatraz: The Concrete Preservation Institute’s Preservation-first Approach to Concrete Repair and Maintenance in the Context of Career Skills Training for Military Veterans
Fred Esenwein, Assistant Professor School of Architecture, Mississippi State University: Modern Architecture and Preserving the Historical Milieu: Richard Neutra’s Gettysburg Cyclorama and Visitor Center
Frank Matero, Professor of Architecture, Program in Historic Preservation/School of Design, University of Pennsylvania: History by Design: The Tumacácori Visitor Center as Historical Pastiche
Jake Barrow, Program Director, Cornerstone Community Partnerships: A Century of Earthen Architectural Conservation in the American Southwest National Parks
Frances Gale, Senior Lecturer/Conservation Scientist, University of Texas at Austin; Casey Gallager, Historic Preservation and Materials Conservation Consultant in private practice; Dennis Gerow, Historical Architect, Historic Sites and Structures Program, Texas State Parks and Wildlife Department: Texas Wildfires: Bastrop State Park and Beyond
Panel: Mission 66, The Navajo Lake Visitor Center, and New Mexico State Parks: An Unexpected Convergence: Panelists Robert Stokes, New Mexico State Parks; Steven Moffson, New Mexico State and National Register Coordinator, and Jeff Pappas, New Mexico State Historic Preservation Officer.
Lesley Gilmore, AIA, LEED AP-BD+C, CTA Architects Engineers: The Survival of Mission 66’s Canyon Village in Yellowstone National Park
John Feinberg, The Collaborative, Inc.: The Development of the NPS Standard House Plans and Adaptations: The Early Seminal Designs, Standard Designs, and their Modification
Robert J. Hotes, EYP Architecture + Engineering: The Second Century: Modernizing Park Buildings for the Next 100 Years
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Cynthia MacLeod, Superintendent, Independence National Historical Park: The Power and Process of Creating Independence National Historical Park in Urban Philadelphia – Details Matter
Margie Coffin Brown, Senior Project Manager and Historical Landscape Architect, NPS Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation: Designing in the Parks: Formative Years and Risk Taking Revisited
Robert Z. Melnick, FASLA, Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon; Noah P. Kerr, Graduate Research Fellow, Department of Landscape, University of Oregon: Assessing Effects of Climate Change on the Cultural Landscape: A Dual Approach
J.T. Stark, Preservation Program Coordinator, Bandelier National Monument: Challenges and Approaches to Preserving the Civilian Conservation Corps National Historic Landmark District and the Frijoles Canyon Archeological District, Bandelier National Monument

Bandelier National Monument CCC Historic District. The National Historic Landmark District has one of the largest collection of CCC buildings in the NPS.
Field Sessions at Bandelier National Monument
The half-day field session at Bandelier National Monument allowed symposium participants to interact and understand some of the real-world preservation issues in a National Park.