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Talk:Architects of the United States Forest Service

Latest comment: 13 years ago by Doncram in topic Regions
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Cannot find material on Group

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Latest comment: 13 years ago13 comments4 people in discussion

After a brief search, I cannot find material on the web that supports this article: does the group currently exist? What dates was it active? Where does it fit into the USFS organization?

Hopefully other editors can provide this information —hike395 (talk) 09:23, 1 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Work of the "Architecture Group" is described some in this "Depression-Era Buildings TR" document, a "thematic resources" document of the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) which is basis for NRHP listing of some of the Oregon and Washington state properties. I am creating articles for some of the places listed in this article and found this document. I think it should provide some more context, tho i have yet to read it in detail. I may be able to dig up more documents too, but NRHP documents are on-line generally for only some of the states relevant here (including OR but not WA, ID). --doncram 23:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Apparently because i edited here, and because the editor can find fault, an editor who follows my edits (but bizarrely claims not to) chose to move this article with no discussion. I returned it. I don't welcome a Requested Move discussion, because this article is better left to be developed as I was proceeding. At some later time a rename may be appropriate. But, if someone opens a move discussion i will comment there. --doncram 00:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Hike395's comment and your reply make it clear that you have no idea what the "United States Forest Service Architecture Group" is or was (including whether it still exists), but you decided to write a factual article on the subject of the Architecture Group, apparently based solely on the existence of entries in the National Register's NRIS database that name this group. This kind of creation of content from little more than thin air is one of the types of behavior that have placed you on the hot seat recently at WP:AN. When I looked at the article after seeing Hike395's comment, my first reaction was that this was a speculative piece that does not belong in article space. I realized, however, that it is a legitimate list of buildings associated with the Forest Service that have historic designations, so I decided to helpfully repurpose it as a list and add wikilinks to some other relevant articles. Silly of me to dream that my good intentions might possibly be received with something other than derision.
You supply another reference above. The document you cite only confirms that there is no basis for the article title. That document is about Forest Service buildings that were mostly built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (not the Forest Service). The only mention of the "Architecture Group" is in the following passage:
The Region 6 expression of rustic was intended to characterize the Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest. The Architecture Group in the Regional Office responsible for all building design and site planning included architects Linn A. Forrest, Howard L. Gifford, James Pollock and W.I. "Tim" Turner, and Landscape Architect Emmett U. Blanchfield."
Bottom line is that the "Architecture Group" is 5 people who once worked in a Forest Service Region Office. It is not clear from the source that the organization named in your article title of "United States Forest Service Architecture Group" ever existed. There is no basis for it to be the topic of an encyclopedia article. However, as I indicated above, the list has merit. I greatly prefer to simply repurpose the article, rather than waste other administrators' time with your insistence on a full-blown requested-move discussion. But if your goal is to call negative attention to yourself on Wikipedia noticeboards once again, I suppose that an RM discussion might help you do that. --Orlady (talk) 01:05, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
That passage you quote is what i just added to this article, before seeing Orlady's comment here. It's not the only mention of the architecture group in the document however, contrary to Orlady's assertion. I don't know what the "bottom line" really is yet, but i wouldn't want to take Orlady's word for it, frankly. Orlady, i wish you would choose not to splash all sorts of negativity here. Let hiker guy and me and others develop some, like i said already. You're not really interested in NRHP-listed places or architects, are you? You have said you are not, repeatedly. So, I would prefer you would comment somewhere else, and leave this to those interested. --doncram 01:12, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Ah, you say that is not the only mention of the "Architecture Group" in the article. I find one other mention, except it says that they were the "Architectural Group." I suppose you are now going to revise the article to say that this historic division of the Forest Service was "sometimes also known as the 'Architectural Group'." Basically, however, you are making an article out of thin air. If you don't know what the basic facts about the topic are, you should not be creating articles in article space.
And while I don't share your fascination with the details of what day a site was listed on the Register, what its serial number is, whether the roof is made with asphalt shingles or shakes, and how many tenths of an acre are in the tract, I refuse to give up caring about history and people and quality. --Orlady (talk) 02:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

I'm also concerned about this article: I don't think it fulfills the notability criteria, because the group is only mentioned twice in one NRHP article. I don't think this counts as "significant coverage", because we still don't know basic facts about the group. I did some more research, tonight, and still didn't find anything.

Now, I think we should think about how to improve the article, rather than rushing to delete. One possibility is to split the article into multiple lists. If each architect in the group is notable, then we can easily write list articles like List of buildings designed by James Pollock. And the see also section of each of these list articles can point to the rest, precisely because the architects worked together. What do other editors think? —hike395 (talk) 03:29, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

I am certainly open to some adjustment as the facts are made more clear by development of individual articles and by uncovering of sources. One option may be to split out the Pacific Northwest regional office architectural group, which I believe is Region 6, into one article, which seems to correspond to about 25 OR and WA properties on the current list, and perhaps to split out the Region 2 group, which is architect of record for 4 items in WY. Please note the included list is not currently, and was not intended to be, a list of all notable buildings on U.S. Forest Service property designed by just anyone. The included list is, rather, a list of works whose architecture is attributed to the USDA Forest Svce. Architecture Group or name variations, which may turn out to be several distinct offices/entities. This is like an architectural firm article, which usually includes a list of major works of the firm, which themselves are often not specifically attributable to just one architect of the firm. I don't think it will be possible to divide the current list by individual architects involved in each one, because attribution is shared. For example, I have now seen multiple individual architects given partial credit for aspects of design of Timberline Lodge in OR. And when "USDA Forest Svce. Architecture Group" or a variation is specifically given as the architect of record for a place, that probably means that credit cannot be assigned to just one individual. I do think that some of the individual architects merit separate articles, such as the new article on Linn A. Forrest (one of those who gets partial credit for Timberline Lodge) which I opened yesterday.
Please note also that heavy-handed titling as a "List of..." is not required. Lists of works often are included within articles named for a specific architect or architectural firm. Sometimes lists of works are split out, when the biographical article seems best split from a too-long list. Here there is no apparent need yet to split out a separate architectural firm type article from a list of its works.
There are perhaps a few editors who might be interested in developing split-out on the Northwest regional architect group, including perhaps Orygun who started Unity Ranger Station and apparently had obtained its NRHP document among many other sources used in the first mainspace version of that article. --doncram 13:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
(ec) Or, the current article might be revised to include specifics about the architecture of several groups. Orlady's assertions to the contrary, there's a lot in the "Depression-Era Buildings" of OR and WA document about the Northwest office and some information regarding it vs. other divisions of Forest Service architects. One passage is: "Each Forest Service Region developed characteristic expression of the rustic style that was particular to its geographical area, and predicated in part, on traditional architectural styles and building techniques. The style that emerged from the Pacific Northwest Region had no clearly identifiable architectural prototype, but reflected the inf1uence of the English Cottage and Norman Farmhouse styles." (page 6).
Sigh, i see SarekOfVulcan is now butting in too. Oh great. --doncram 13:59, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
There's no question that there is merit in documenting the historic architecture of the New Deal era, but that does not justify creating a new article before you have anything more than a vague idea that there might possibly be a topic out there, somewhere. You have created an article about a small government organization that probably never existed under the name you have given it here, and about which you have only the slightest amount of information. I'm trying to decide between (1) moving this page to your user space, (2) taking it to AfD, or (3) simply slapping notability and original research templates on the article. You could, however, prevent any and all of these outcomes by voluntarily moving the page to your user space until you have obtained and documented some solid information on which to base an encyclopedic article on whatever topic turns out to be appropriate. --Orlady (talk) 14:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
Not surprisingly, I disagree with Orlady's views. There is merit in starting an article about an architectural group of the U.S. government that is notable, just as there is for notable private architectural firms, and sooner is basically better than later. In this case there are about 25 works specifically attributed to the USDA Forest Svce. Architecture Group, which now seems to mean the Pacific Northwest region group. It is documented that the Pacific Northwest region group has a distinct character, an architectural design "voice", and it is documented who several of its individual architects are.
All that might be emerging is that the article should perhaps be renamed and reorganized to cover several architecture groups, each with a sublist of works, or equivalently that the article should be split into several articles. I think starting the article as was done, and sorting out organization as facts warrant, was and is appropriate. Wikipedia is not done; there was no coverage of this topic before. Orlady's butting in with argumentative judgments (such as the incorrect assertion that the Northwest group is discussed only once within one document), coming from a non-interested-in-NRHPs, non-interested-in-architecture perspective, is not helpful IMHO. --doncram 15:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
In view of the above response, I took the article to AfD. --Orlady (talk) 16:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Doncram asked me for comments on this article--so here go... Don’t believe there has ever been a single U.S. Forest Service Architecture Group. However, each USFS region has had an architecture group within its Engineering Division for a long time—most of these groups date back to the 1930s. Regarding this article, I’d recommend changing title to United States Forest Service Architecture. That will re-focus the article on the history of USFS architecture rather than small functional organizations within the agency. Here’s a great document on the history of Forest Service architecture. It has excellent sources and numerous Public Domain photos and perspective drawing. It also lists the names of USFS architects and has biographies of leading USFS architects. Here’s quick outline of its contents:

In 1908, the USFS established an Engineering Division at its Washington HQ along with subordinate engineering organizations in each of its regional offices. The HQ approved project funding, but building designs were left to the rangers in the field. In fact prior to 1917, there is no record of the USFS employing any architects on its staff. Two important documents that helped standardize USFS architectural designs were published in 1928—the Forest Service National Manual of Regulations and Instructions and the Construction and Maintenance Handbook. Sometime around 1933, T.W. Norcross (who was USAF Chief Engineer from 1920 to 1947) hired W. Ellis Groben as the first architect on the HQ staff. Individual architects were also hired at each USFS region. To meet the demand for designs to support Civilian Conservation Corps construction projects, the regional architects hired additional architects and landscape designers to supervise the CCC work. This was the genesis of the regional architecture groups. In 1938, Groben released a book of "acceptable plans" for USFS administrative buildings. The era of handcrafted CCC buildings ended with the onset of World War II. After the war, there was an increase in recreational use of national forest lands. As a result, USFS architects began designing campgrounds, restrooms, trails, and other outdoors facilities. By the 1950s, most construction projects were for restoration or replacement of aging facilities. In the early 1960s, USFS architecture staffing surpassed the number of professionals that designed projects for the CCC. In the 1970s, USFS construction work was re-focused on environmental projects. More recently, modern visitor centers have been constructed in National Forests across the country. Hope this is helpful! For more info on USFS architectural organizations, you might consider contacting the National Museum of Forest Service History.--Orygun (talk) 04:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Database dump

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Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Moved from mainpage, as many items here are not related to the subject of the article. Moving unverified items back here will not be considered edit warring, per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive224#Doncram NRHP stubs. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:51, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Ironically, that list was the most solid part of this article, since the organization that is the ostensible subject of the article may not have existed. --Orlady (talk) 14:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Notable works (with attribution variations noted) include:

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.

Regions

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Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

As of now, the article is organized by region. If that is the appropriate way to organize the article (and I'm not saying it isn't), it would be helpful to put them in numeric order and to have an introductory sentence identifying the states/territory covered by each region. Cbl62 (talk) 21:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

That could work, but I don't know that there is material conveniently available about architects and distinctive styles of each region. The Pacific northwest Region 6 is most important and I think it works to have it be first, as it is now. It is the one region that had developed on its own a regional style and was approved of by the national consulting architect in the 1940 document. Its architects are the Architecture Group that editors at the AFD are saying never existed. :) Also, there is more about the Region 3 Arizona, due to availability of corresponding MPS document, than for others, so it should probably be second (i'll move it now). I agree that an upfront explanation of the order of presentation, if different than numeric order, is needed. Feel free o try a different ordering and to revise the introduction or otherwise develop. I am, myself, pretty sick of the AFD about this, which continues after all the early arguments against this article have been disproved. --doncram 21:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply
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