Preserving Historic Architecture with Professor Roy Graham
This is a documentary about my grandfather, Roy Eugene Graham (1936 - 2018), receiving a life-time achievement award for his contribution to the field of architectural preservation and restoration. He invited me to join him at the 2013 National Preservation Conference where he received the highest honor given in his field, the James Marston Fitch Lifetime Achievement Award for his leadership in preservation education. He passed away in May of 2018.
Full video of a memorial service organized by Roy's friends and colleagues at the University of Florida: http://bit.ly/RoyGrahamMemorial
Roy Graham's Obituary: http://bit.ly/RIPRoyGraham
Internationally recognized architect and educator, Roy Eugene Graham, FAIA died after a long struggle with cancer on May 29, 2018. He was born August 20, 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, he grew up in Natchitoches, Louisiana and graduated from Louisiana State University in 1961 with a degree in Architectural Engineering. In 1966, he received a Thomas Jefferson scholarship to attend the University of Virginia where he received a Masters in Architectural History in 1968. He later pursued a doctorate in art history at the University of Texas in Austin.
Graham was a Captain in the US Army Reserve until 1968 when he began his academic career at the University of Texas, teaching architectural history and design and developing the first historic preservation courses as part of an advanced design studio. This experience gave him a chance to combine architecture, engineering, history, and preservation to which he dedicated himself the rest of his life.
Tenured in 1969 at UT School of Architecture, he went on leave to become the Resident Architect of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for a decade. In this capacity he was the overall director of the departments of Architecture, Architectural Research, Landscape Architecture, and Planning. He founded the department of Architectural Conservation and served as Administrative Officer of the Foundation.
He was appointed a member of the Virginia Landmarks Commission and became active as Vice President of the Association for Preservation Technology (where he served 10 board terms), the Properties committee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Octagon Committee of the American Institute of Architects and the boards of the Victorian Society in America and the US Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
In 1979, Graham led a team of American preservation experts to the Soviet Union as part of the Nixon-Brezhnev cultural exchange and served as president of the ICOMOS General Assembly in Rome. In 1975, Graham became the first full time director of the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Virginia.
He returned to Austin in 1982 to begin the restoration of the Texas Capitol and to pursue architectural projects in his own firm. Five years later, he joined the faculty of the Catholic University of America in Washington where he established an architectural conservation program and began working with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) as well as the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Property of the Church.
Projects of note include a Conservation Plan for the World Heritage Town of Lunenburg, Canada and an inventory of cultural properties belonging to the Catholic Church in the US. Through ICCROM, he was a consultant on the conservation project at the Taj Mahal and the earthquake damaged St. Francis of Assisi Basilica in Italy. He was subsequently elected a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and US/ ICOMOS. After assisting in the formation of the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, he became a member of the board, serving as chair and remaining active until the present.
In 2003, Graham became director of the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning. As the Beinecke-Reeves Distinguished Professor, he established a Master in Historic Preservation Program and directed students in the College Doctorate program. His students produced neighborhood conservation plans for a number of historic Florida neighborhoods as Graham became active on the board of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation. That organization awarded him The Carl Weinhardt Lifetime Achievement award in 2011 and named a preservation education award for him in 2014.
In 2013 he received the James Marston Fitch Preservation Education Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Alliance of Preservation Educators (NCPE). Roy was honored with the Beinecke-Reeves Distinguished Achievement Award for Historic Preservation by the University of Florida in 2015. That same year, US/ICOMOS gave Graham the Ann Webster Smith award, their highest honor in international preservation.
Website: http://garrettgraham.net
Blog: http://garrettgraham.blog