Henry Glassie Award
The Henry Glassie Award, named for the renowned vernacular architecture scholar and folklorist, recognizes special achievements in and contributions to the field of vernacular architecture studies. It is awarded intermittently, as deemed appropriate by the VAF Board of Directors.
Past Winners:
Glassie Winner 2007 - Ronald Knapp
This
year the Henry Glassie Award Committee solicited nominations of
books published between 2004 and 2006 that made significant contributions
to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes
outside North America. The winner of the 2007 Glassie Award
is Ronald G. Knapp. The committee, which consisted of Rebecca
Ginsburg, Greg Hise, and Tom Hubka, was interested to see that Professor
Knapp had been nominated for two books, Chinese Houses: The
Architectural Heritage of a Nation, published by Tuttle Press
(2005) and House Home Family: Living and Being Chinese,
published by the University of Hawaii Press (2005) (and co-edited
by Kay-Yin Lo). Both books were excellent examples of scholarship
of vernacular environments. The committee noted that the first
was based on over thirty years of fieldwork in China. We were impressed
enough with these two volumes to want to see more. After reviewing
Asia's Old Dwellings: Tradition, Resilience, and Change
(2003), China's Old Dwellings (2000), China's Living
Houses: Folk Beliefs, Symbols, and Household Ornamentation
(1999), Chinese Landscapes: The Village as Place (1992),
China's Vernacular Architecture: House Form and Culture
(1989), to name just a selection of Professor Knapp's writings,
we realized that this lifetime of scholarship dedicated to documenting,
studying, and writing about Chinese domestic architecture for Western
audiences deserved recognition. A notable strength of Ronald Knapp's
body of works is his comprehensive approach to the study of housing. His
books examine scales from that of interior decor to the layout of
villages. He considers the role of fengshui in the placement
of furnishings and provides extensive discussion of construction
techniques and materials. Floor plans, diagrams that illustrate
social use of space, village layouts, and historical drawings compliment
his texts, which are consistently clear and accessible. Photographs
are often stunning, especially in his later works such as Chinese
Houses, which is a beautifully designed book (credit goes to
A. Chester Ong, who did the photography). Ronald Knapp, who was
trained as a geographer, has done more than anyone else outside
of China to celebrate, analyze, and promote understanding of that
country's domestic architectural heritage. We are pleased to
present the Glassie Award to Ronald G. Knapp for the lifetime body
of his work on Chinese houses.
Glassie Winner 2006 – Tom Hubka
The Henry Glassie Award Committee, consisting of Dell Upton, Stephen Hornsby, and Rebecca Ginsburg, sought to recognize recently published books that have made significant contributions to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes outside North America. The VAF awarded the 2006 Glassie Award to Thomas Hubka for Resplendent Synagogue: Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth-Century Polish Community (University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press, 2003).
In Resplendent Synagogue, Tom Hubka closely analyzes the design and use of an eighteenth-century synagogue in the Polish town of Gwozdziec, in the process uncovering the social, historic, and artistic relations that pertained within a small Eastern European community during the height of its prosperity. While the synagogue no longer stands, Tom Hubka makes critical use of historic photographs, contemporary religious texts, and archival documents, as well as modern scholarship, to reconstruct the history of the Gwozdziec synagogue and place it within its various contexts. These include both a tradition of wooden synagogue construction that was common in Eastern Europe until the 19th century, and the synagogue’s specific location within the Gwozdeziec community, where its designers drew on local and foreign, Jewish and Gentile, folks and fine art traditions in building and decorating the house of worship.
2005 “Big Jim” Griffith
James "Big Jim" Griffith’s lifetime of dedicated scholarship on the cultural landscape of the American Southwest and Arizona/Sonora borderlands region was recognized at the 2005 conference of the VAF in Tucson, Arizona, with the presentation of the Henry Glassie Award. This award, bestowed intermittently by the Executive Committee for special achievements in vernacular architecture studies, went to Big Jim for twenty-five years of researching, publishing, and celebrating the traditional lore, customs, arts, and architecture of this important American/Mexican region. Jim’s publications include Southern Arizona Folk Arts, Beliefs and Holy Places: A Spiritual Geography of the Pimeria Alta, and A Shared Space: Folklife in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands. He also established the Southwest Folklore Center at the University of Arizona and organized the seminal "Tucson Meet Yourself" festival, which celebrates the food, art, music, and other traditions of the city’s various ethnic communities.
2004 Don Yoder
At the 2004 meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Henry Glassie Award was given to Professor Don Yoder of the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Yoder has expanded our understanding of the Pennsylvania Germans through a lifetime of folkloric research on their foodways, customs, religion, and popular politics. His work, disseminated in many books and articles, arises from a fervent attachment to Pennsylvania German culture, but always preserves scholarly and analytical rigor. Professor Yoder was instrumental in starting The Pennsylvania Dutchman and Pennsylvania Folklife journals, and served as mentor to a generation of young scholars who took it upon themselves to document and interpret the varied meanings of the Pennsylvania German cultural landscape and its rich architectural traditions.
1999 Albert Lorenz and David Macaulay
The VAF presented the Special Recognition Award at the annual conference in Columbus, Georgia. The winners were Albert Lorenz and David Macaulay. VAF selected winners whose contribution to the scholarship and appreciation of architecture is unique by virtue of the audience for their work. They write for children.
More importantly, they write and draw splendidly for children. In presenting this award to David Macaulay and Albert Lorenz, the VAF is recognizing that the appreciation for architecture and its historical meaning can and should begin early. Further, in selecting these two authors, we hope to encourage excellence in children’s architectural literature–excellence in historical research, intelligent and engaging historical narrative, and revealing illustrations.
There could be no better ambassadors to world of children than these two authors. David Macaulay is a name long familiar to parents, educators, and children. Beginning in 1973 with the book, Cathedral, Macaulay has produced a delightful shelf of books on architecture and the world we’ve built around us. From Roman cities in City to modern urban centers in Underground, and from studies of historic mills, in the book, Mill, to sailing vessels, in Ship, Macaulay has illuminated with great clarity, in black and white line drawings, the structures (and infrastructures) of everyday life. David Macaulay has also created a series of videos based on his works that further explore the fascinating world of constructing objects.
Albert Lorenz’s style is entirely different. He uses color, multiple panels, ravishing detail, and selected narratives to show change, diversity, and pattern over time and place. His first work in 1996, Metropolis drew crowds in bookstores. It was followed by the compelling House in 1998. In both books, he worked with Joy Schleh. Lorenz’s work is an example of the highest achievement in the art of informative and seductive illustration. He has given children a rich context for understanding building within cultural, geographical, and historical settings.