Fran Gale of the University of Texas in Austin talks about a cultural resources survey taking place at UTA. The survey is part of a $175,000 grant from the Getty Foundation. UT Austin’s original forty-acre central core from 1881 houses a collection of elegant early twentieth-century buildings that reflects the height of Beaux-Art urban design, and it thus remains the heart of the university. Cass Gilbert, architect of the Woolworth Building in New York and the United States Supreme Court, was responsible for the early development of the Austin campus. Gilbert’s Battle Hall (1911) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and was recently selected by the American Institute of Architects as one of America’s 150 favorite buildings. Paul Cret, campus architect from 1930 to 1942, constructed twenty-one additional buildings, including the iconic Main Building and the Texas Tower. With Getty funds, the university is carrying out a cultural resource survey, including a landscape inventory, in order to develop a management plan for its significant historic landscapes and structures. The project also includes graduate instruction, continuing education workshops, and the creation of an interpretive campus history.
Catalog Card
Archive Note
The record still illustrates how survey, planning, education, and interpretation can be integrated instead of treated as separate preservation activities.
What Remains
Documentation was not an end in itself; the survey was meant to support stewardship, teaching, professional development, and interpretation.
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