Mental Dilemma: Where Is the Truth?

 

Into the middle of the tour, Chris Delaporte suddenly said, “Stop here!” Jumping out of the car, he rushed into a public telephone booth and made a call.

“I just called my main assistant, Mr. Skinner. He will be here in two days. Show him what you have shown me, and he will help you do all the write-ups you will need to do. You will get all the help my department can give you. I am impressed! This is more than what I thought. I think we can make Barrio Libre be an important neighborhood to be entered as a whole neighborhood into the National Register of Historic Places.” All of it, historic! He could barely contain his excitement. Only a few people may know the name of Chris Delaporte, but that phone call was another major contributor to the future strong development of Tucson’s historic preservation and attention to neighborhoods. It dove-tailed beautifully with my previous believe that it is the community, and not just its architectural monuments, that represent the history of a population, within all its levels of culture. What is more, the architectural heritage of two so different entities as Barrio Libre and Armory Park, next to each other, representing diverse elements of history and yet, demonstrating that coexisting with cohesiveness in the same city is possible and commendable.

Despite the value of the Planning Department’s Master Plan, the University research, Kelly Rollins’ personal efforts, all that together could not have saved so many of the buildings in the Barrio from a slow, painful death caused by multiple wounds and neglect as Chris Delaporte’s decision did. Not only within neighborhoods but among neighborhoods, is the interrelationship very important and can still be seen today. Within each neighborhood, it is not just individual buildings, but entire human environments that must be protected from dilution. More than just the placement of buildings abutting the sidewalk; distances, ins and outs, empty spaces, relationship between buildings, human form of communication, family, and more, all had much to say, if we could only ‘see’ it.

I am not by any means advocating freezing an entire region in the past as a standard solution, and at that time, I kept wondering, would our Barrio benefit? Our case gave me much mental dilemma since it deserved special consideration. Under a historic protection umbrella, how would the money flow? Who would benefit and who would not? Was there to be room for individual choice and at what level? Economy trumps, but there is not one simple truth.

Over thousands of years, the evolution of cities creates cultures different from one another. Where do their distinctions begin to take form? What factors are real contributors to culture or just passing trends leaving no mark? What personalities or groups make a dent, not on history, but on culture? Moses, Alexander, Gandhi, Caesar, Jefferson, Aristotle, the Rotarians? What elements shape a culture and what elements are results of a culture? Such as in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Zapoteca, Persia, and others? How about religions? Slavery? Volunteerism? Or does culture result from agriculture, mountains, oceans, climate, survival skills, language, proximities, and why do some cultures flourish, while others flounder? Cultures in the Amazon River regions or in mixed Mozambique. Or why did some first flourished and later floundered, like ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures. We have seen innovative technology, such as gun power, create and dissolve entire empires, and with it, cultures. Intriguing! Not one issue alone provides a simplistic answer to the truth.

An example on how technological adaptation has an impact on customs, but not on culture, is how the popular use of the front porch was eliminated by the telephone, radio TV, and air conditioning. Prior to those, you got your news by talking to neighbors as they walked past your front porch. Modern houses have no front porch, but the American culture goes deeper than that. In the Barrio, community exchange took place in the back yard, and for a few years, so did drinking beer inside a lowrider in front. Why?

Chris Delaporte saw in a few hours something significant that others have failed to see in a lifetime. True to his word, a few days later, Gage Skinner showed up. We put him in contact with others and began to put together a proposal to make the entire Barrio Histórico an entry into the National Register for Historic Preservation. I still had my concerns. I’m not going to talk about the trials and tribulations of the other neighborhoods, because I was not there and it’s not that they are not just as important. Paperwork is the kind of thing that Ellen was very good at and it made us a very good team. With the Federal acceptance of the nomination, federal funds were made available for an in-depth research to document the project. I did not involve myself in this portion, but I wish I had, for catching the soul of the Barrio remained elusive.

The dry heat, length of summers, and altitude dictated much of the use of adobe materials, width of walls, orientation, and heights of ceilings, which is extremely important to recognize, but there was more than that. Underneath it all, there were clues whispered through hundreds of years of building techniques that had more to say than just details about materials and methods. What were the significant common denominators, the basic truth, at work in this Barrio’s environment? Who had them, to compare them to the so much superfluous public information? Generations of learning experiences in visual and physical coordination with hands and material  in making adobes, does not translate well into a written instructional manual. The preservation of historic adobe buildings is a more complex problem than most people think. We have seen how the forces of nature can bring a building to its original condition. Restoration requires the use of same materials as the original and same construction techniques. Due to expansion and contraction, humidity, and other local characteristics adobe does not mix well with other materials and additives, like cement. However, simplifying a unique property of the proper use of adobe, dependent on the quality use of soil mix, environmental conditions, and the particular altitude and longitude of the location, which affects the desired thickness of walls based on amount of sunshine, and orientation to the sun of any one  particular wall, adobe’s main benefit is due to thermal storage and transmission of heat. Long term storage supersedes how long the heat of a sunny day takes to filter to the inside from day to night through the adobe wall. Heat is absorbed and stored during summer days from outside and inside, keeping the inside cool by absorbing the inside heat, then stored heat over time, and then release it to the inside during winter keeping the inside warm. Depending on location, a wall that is too thick will prevent the storage of heat from reaching the inside, while if too thin, a wall will begin to release stored heat into the house before the summer is over, overheating it.

Local experience is built over generations. Remember the reference to ten layers of different dirt for a good flat roof of which I knew nothing about, nor then, nor now. Erosion of the exposed surfaces requires close attention and maintenance but after ten years, I am still not the one to know about this, and so I won’t go deep into it here. Mud Adobe is unique.