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This edition of Classicism at Home is dedicated to the ICAA's 2023 national conference, Enduring Places, which took place in Charleston, South Carolina and addressed topics of craftsmanship, preservation, and sustainability.

The ICAA is very grateful to John F.W. Rogers for generously making the Enduring Places conference possible along with our supporters The Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation, Historic Charleston Foundation, Oliveri Millworks, Traditional Building, and Schafer Buccellato Architects

ARTICLES & VIDEOS: NEW THIS ISSUE

Drawing on his recent book Increments of Neighborhood: A Compendium of Built Types for Walkable and Vibrant Communities, Moderator Brian O’Looney, along with fellow panelists Michael Watkins, Daniel J. Doyle, and Robert J. Turner, explores the challenges of and opportunities in creating a variety of building types and sizes to meet housing and development demands, while still producing beautiful and desirable buildings and spaces, that are responsive to the local historic context and tradition.

The conference's second breakout session was led by Gary Brewer, former partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, and Winslow Hastie, President & CEO of Historic Charleston Foundation, and focused on Charleston’s Historic District and the process of how historic designs are reviewed and approved by the city’s Board of Architectural Review. Highlighted case studies included three types of buildings: traditional, transitional, and modern, that have gone through the historic review process.

PRESS: ICAA MEMBER FIRMS IN THE NEWS

ICAA Board Member and Studio Tre co-founder Whitley Esteban's charming nineteenth century home in Pensacola’s Seville Historic District is profiled in Garden & Gun.

ARTICLES & VIDEOS: PREVIOUS ISSUE

John F.W. Rogers, executive vice president of Goldman Sachs and chairman of the White House Historical Association, as well as the generous benefactor of Enduring Places, welcomed attendees with an inspiring set of opening remarks that emphasized the ICAA's mission to promote the practice and appreciation of classical design in architecture and its allied arts.

Enduring Places' feature lecture was delivered by Witold Rybczynski, an architect and writer as well as the recipient of the 2023 Arthur Ross Award in Publishing. "Little Houses and Big Dreams in the Holy City," based on his book Charleston Fancy, is set in the colonial city of Charleston and brings together two interests: architecture and urbanism. Beginning in the 1980s, a motley crew of builders—a lover of Byzantine architecture, an Air Force pilot, a fledgling architect, and a bluegrass mandolin player—undertake a variety of unusual projects: a domed Orthodox church, a fanciful medieval castle, a restored freedman’s cottage, a miniature Palladian villa, and a new street based on Porgy and Bess. And in the process of remaking an old city, they invent a new one.

The conference's first breakout session focused on sustainability. While there is widespread agreement on the validity and importance of sustainable practices in architecture, the metrics by which projects are assessed are dominated by assumptions of high-tech problems and high-tech solutions. The prevailing metrics inaccurately capture the benefits to be gained by use of a traditional design toolkit such as durability, adaptability, low toxicity, low energy demand, et al.

In this panel discussion, Patricia Andrasik, associate professor at The Catholic University of America; David Calligeros, founder of Remains Lighting; Steve Mouzon, architect, urbanist, author, and co-founder of the Urban Guild; and John Onyango, associate professor of architecture at The University of Notre Dame identified some appropriate metrics for sustainable architecture and discussed approaches to capturing the relevant data.

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