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Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints and Photographs Division. The Prints and Photographs Division (P&P) invites you to get your mouse (or your car or bicycle) ready to travel the byways and highways that photographer John Margolies drove along as he created the Roadside America Collection between 1969 and 2008. …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
What do a carousel horse, Theodore Roosevelt, and a lighthouse have in common? Look closely at the drawing below from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial – can you spot two Roosevelts? There is, of course, the large drawing of the Roosevelt statue featured at the memorial on Theodore Roosevelt …
Posted in: Architecture, Drawings, HABS/HAER/HALS, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The year 1870 is significant for copyright and the Library of Congress. Prior to that year, copyright registration was administered by the U.S. District Courts. Starting in 1870, the copyright registration and deposit system was centralized in the Library of Congress. One of the requirements for protecting your creation with copyright was to send in …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Posters, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
In this latest installment of Double Take, the series where we take a much closer look at images in our collections, we will talk about how to date a photograph. Do you have any older photographs, tucked away in boxes or albums? How many have a specific date noted on them? If your answer was …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Series: Double Take, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
This photo provides an unfamiliar view of a very familiar structure: Yes, that is the unfinished stump of the Washington Monument, as it looked for about 25 years. In 1856, when funding shortages interrupted construction, the monument stood only 156 feet tall out of a projected 500 feet. During the U.S. Civil War, the site …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
In his November 1933 proposal to create the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in partnership with the Library of Congress and the American Institute of Architects, the National Park Service’s Charles E. Peterson sounded this call to action: “Our architectural heritage of buildings from the last four centuries diminishes daily at an alarming rate. The …
Posted in: Architecture, Drawings, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Many of those around the world watching news coverage of the terrible fire at Notre-Dame in Paris likely either reflected on a visit to the cathedral in their lifetime or felt a pang of regret at having not made it there before the fire. I personally thought back on my trip to Notre Dame as …
Posted in: Architecture, Drawings, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Usually when a photo warrants a double take it’s because of something visible in the photo. In this particular case, it was what was not yet visible that made me stop and think. While searching for a building on 15th Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C., I came upon this photo, with the caption: Site of …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Series: Double Take, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The Prints and Photographs Division, home to the archive of noted American architect and innovative modernist designer Paul M. Rudolph, is hosting a symposium and a display to celebrate the centennial of his birth. A day-long symposium on Rudolph’s life and work will be held at the Library of Congress on Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, …
Posted in: Architecture, Drawings, News & Events, Photographs