Join us for our new series as we tour some of Evansville's historical treasures presented by the Preservation Alliance of Evansville.

SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2019 at 10AM

$10 for PAE members

$20 for non-members
ticket price includes tour + membership to the Preservation Alliance of Evansville (saving of $10!)!

This familiar, well-preserved building at 420 NW Fifth Street is the only remaining section of the Evansville Woolen Mill, which originated about 1889. When the mill closed in 1910, Charles Leich & Company, which had been founded in 1854, acquired the property. The family-owned firm manufactured “drugs and sundries” for several generations, and in 1962, it was one of eleven local businesses and industries recognized for operating continuously for over a century. Now home to numerous commercial enterprises, the building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Photo courtesy of Willard Library.

The Preservation Alliance of Evansville (PAE) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting Evansville’s irreplaceable heritage resources. Through its activities and advocacy, PAE seeks to connect and rally interested people and partner organizations from throughout the City in order to promote investment in and appreciation of the City’s rich heritage, not only as reminders of the past but also as viable components of the future.

2019 Amy W. MacDonell - Randall T. Shepard Historic Preservation Lecture 
Presented by Preservation Alliance of Evansville

JAMES RUSSIELLO

PRESERVATION THROUGH TRANSFORMATION
the Adaptive Reuse of Redundant Religious Structures

This lecture examines the problems affecting historic church buildings and other religious structures and examines sympathetic adaptive reuses for redundant religious structures appropriate to their architectural and community significance. The history of continued useand adaptive reuse of redundant religious properties will be examined through the spectrum of redundancies, levels of support, and approaches to reuse present in the United States and abroad.

Sustainable reuse options depend on proactively addressing present or future church redundancies and potential community needs appropriately sympathetic to the church’s evaluated significance. Such evaluation requires an understanding of churches’ architectural, socio-economic, theological, and denominational differences. Reuse aims to maintain the building’s presence in the community while enabling its viable sustainability. Sympathetic achievement of these goals confers a balance between the needs of the new program with the conservation principles of conserve as found, minimum intervention, like-for-like repairs, and reversibility.

James Russiello is a historic preservation professional working at the City of New York Landmarks Preservation Commission. The LPC is responsible for protecting architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites in the city. Since the Landmarks Law was enacted in 1965, LPC has granted landmark status to more than 36,000 buildings and sites, including 1,415 individual landmarks, 120 interior landmarks, 11 scenic landmarks, and 144 historic districts and extensions. James previously worked for surveys as a researcher and field recorder in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England, and for the Victorian Society in America Summer Schools program in London, Newport, RI, and Chicago, IL.