Mount Lebanon Shaker Village
Press Releases
Rebuilding History:
Shaker
Museum and Library Hosts Field School to Train Preservation
Professionals and
Rehabilitate Historic Shaker Landmark at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village
-------------------------------
Public
is Invited to Open House to Witness the
Restoration of a National Treasure
New Lebanon, New York—June 4, 2007—When first selected in 2004, the Shaker’s famous 1859 Stone Barn at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village was one of just six U.S. locations on the World Monuments Fund’s Watch List of 100 endangered architectural sites. The Village is a National Historic Landmark and a true American treasure—and it is in peril. This summer, the Shaker Museum and Library, owner of the ten remaining buildings that make up the North Family site at Mount Lebanon, will host its second summer Traditional Building/Historic Preservation Field School. The school is a unique program in which a hand-picked team of students of historic preservation will join with professionals in the field, honing their skills while helping to rehabilitate the landmark. The public is invited to tour the site, experience the restoration, and learn more about the Mount Lebanon Project and Shaker life at an Open House to be held on June 23, 2007.
The
Shaker Museum and Library’s Traditional Building/Historic Preservation
Field
School provides a new generation of preservationists with an
unparalleled
education while preserving a monumental structure and a powerful symbol
of the
Shakers of Mount Lebanon, once the center of America’s most successful
Utopian
community. The Open House provides the
public with an equally rare opportunity to experience history hands-on
and to
be a part of the preservation of a national treasure for generations to
come.
“The
Open House is an opportunity for us to give the community another
glimpse at an
extraordinary work in progress. The North Family site has largely been
frozen
in time—many of the buildings stand nearly as they did when the Shakers
left in
1947. At the same time we can share some of the state-of-the-art
documentation
and preservation techniques that are being utilized this summer. It’s a
process
we are very proud of—we encourage people to learn more about it on June
23!”
said Sharon Duane Koomler, Director of
the Museum.
The Open House will be held on
Saturday, June 23, from 10:00 am
until 2:00 pm.
The event
will feature guided tours of the North Family site at Mount Lebanon
Shaker
Village and Field School activities. Guests will be granted access to
the
interior of select buildings—something that is not usually permitted
due to
restoration activities and the vulnerability of the site—in tours
beginning at
10:45 am and 12:45 pm. Refreshments will be served and admission is
free.
The Field School is located at
the North Family site at Mount
Lebanon Shaker Village.
“Guests at the Open House will
be entranced by the site: everyone
who visits feels like they’ve stumbled on to a hidden treasure.
The
awesome scale of the Great Stone Barn, the simplicity of the style of
the
buildings, combined with the peaceful beauty of the setting is
remarkable,”
said Jeff Lick, Chairman of the Board of the Shaker Museum and Library.
About the Field School
The Field School provides a
valuable opportunity for students to learn in such an authentic milieu.
The students, who hail from around
the country and are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate or apprentice
programs, apply to the program through the University of Florida's
Historic
Preservation Program and the Preservation Trades Network. The Shaker
Museum and
Library also partners with the World Monuments Fund and the American
College of
Building Arts to develop and promote the program (please see
accompanying
material for details on these partners).
For more
information please
contact Sharon Koomler at 518-794-9100 x 222 or
skoomler@shakermuseumandlibrary.org
The Mount Lebanon Shaker Village -
Once the
spiritual and
physical center of the Christian sect known as the Shakers, Mount
Lebanon
Shaker Village was at its height in 1860, home to some 600 believers
who lived
in more than 120 buildings spread over more than 6,000 acres. At
Mount Lebanon, the Shakers’ religious
beliefs and organizing tenets helped create a unique theology and
social order
based upon a range of ideals, including celibate communal living, new
theories
about the hierarchy and composition of the traditional family, and the
rethinking of both industrial and agricultural production and
distribution. The Shakers’ aesthetic
principles that defined the group’s distinct material culture—including
objects, furnishings, architecture, and entire villages—were developed
and
first used at Mount Lebanon.
Mount Lebanon’s last Shakers
were relocated from there to nearby Hancock Shaker Village in 1947. Seventy-two acres and approximately 40
original Shaker buildings were declared a National Historic Landmark
District
in 1965. The Shaker Museum and Library,
whose preeminent collection is currently housed on a non-Shaker site
nearby,
purchased the North Family Site of Mount Lebanon in 2004 and is
revising a
master plan for relocating to the landmark property, thus repatriating
many of
the Shaker objects and artifacts back to the place where they were
created.
The World
Monuments Fund (WMF) is the foremost private, nonprofit
organization
dedicated to the preservation of endangered architectural and cultural
sites
around the world. Since 1965, WMF has
worked tirelessly to stem the loss of historic structures at more than
400
sites in over 80 countries. WMF’s work
spans a wide range of sites, including the vast temple complexes at
Angkor,
Cambodia; the historic center of Mexico City; Nicholas Hawksmoor’s
London
masterpiece, St. George’s, Bloomsbury; the iconic modernist A. Conger
Goodyear
house in Old Westbury, New York; and the extraordinary 18th-century
Qianlong
Garden complex in Beijing’s Forbidden City.
From its headquarters in New York City —and offices and
affiliates in
Paris, London, Madrid, and Lisbon—WMF works with local partners and
communities
to identify and save important heritage through innovative programs of
project
planning, fieldwork, advocacy, grant-making, education, and on-site
training. Every two years, WMF issues
its World Monuments Watch list of 100 Most Endangered Sites, a global
call to
action on behalf of sites in need of immediate intervention. (www.wmf.org)
The
University of Florida, College of Design, Construction and Planning’s
Historic
Preservation Program is one
of the
oldest and most respected of its kind in the United States. For half a century, the University of
Florida has led the nation with courses in historic preservation and
urban
conservation. The new, graduate-level
(Master and Ph.D.) Interdisciplinary Concentration and Certificate in
Historic
Preservation at the University of Florida is unique in the country, as
no other
program offers this kind of concentration in the components of
architecture,
landscape architecture, urban and neighborhood planning, building
construction,
and museum studies. In 2004, the
University of Florida was chosen by the UNESCO World Heritage Center in
Paris to
partner for an international Symposium on Modern Architecture in Miami
because
of its leadership role in the field.
The University is an institutional member of US/ICOMOS and a
founding
member of the National Council for Preservation Education.
The College’s field schools have been a
model for the country, including the Preservation
Institute: Nantucket and the Preservation
Institute: Caribbean. (www.dcp.ufl.edu/hp)
The American College of the Building Arts (ACBA) is dedicated to educating the next
generation
of building artisans and to preserving the building arts in a manner
never
before seen in America. Under the direction of experience faculty,
students
have the opportunity to learn the skills needed to excel in their
chosen field,
as well as receive a quality education. This combination of education,
training, and access to highly experienced faculty is available nowhere
else in
the United States. (www.buildingartscollege.us)
