We give thanks to God whose power is revealed in nature, and whose providence is revealed in history.
Ted will be guiding the next historical tour of St. Mary Cathedral on Saturday, November 17, at 1 PM. The group will meet on the front steps of the cathedral immediately following the 12 noon Mass. For those not familiar with St. Mary, the cathedral is located in Austin, Texas, at 203 East 10th Street, the corner of Brazos and East 10th.
During this tour, Ted will discuss topics as diverse as the restoration of the Catholic Church in Texas following the Texas Revolution, the design of the cathedral by Texas’ first trained architect, Nicholas Clayton, and the history of the stained glass windows that adorn the church. Join us at St. Mary Cathedral on November 17, and experience for yourself the endurance of faith.
Ted will also be talking about interpreting churches and sacred spaces at the Real Places 2019 conference in Austin. The conference is sponsored by the Texas Historical Commission and extends from January 16-18. Ted will be speaking on Thursday, January 17, from 11:15 am to 12:30 pm. His talk is titled “Open the Door – Interpreting Historic Churches and Sacred Spaces.” We hope to see you at either or both of these events!
For the past 15 months, Fermata and Ted Lee Eubanks have been working on an interpretive plan for Austin’s historic squares and Congress Avenue. Finally, the report has been released! We thank the Downtown Austin Alliance for their willingness to support this effort, and for all of the stakeholders and supporters who helped us through this effort to uncover Austin’s lost histories and to return them to their rightful place in the eye of the public.
Ted Lee Eubanks, Fermata’s founder and president, is one of two certified interpretive planners in Austin, and Fermata is the only certified interpretive planning firm available for these projects in Austin and the surrounding region.
We are making the full report available as a PDF here, so enjoy getting to know the real Austin! For those only interested in reading the executive summary, that document is also available here.
Thanks to everyone who joined me today for my workshop at the Texas Historical Commission’s 2018 Real Places conference. I could not have asked for a more congenial group. As promised, here is a link to today’s PowerPoint. Thanks again for participating, and I hope that the workshop will serve you well in your future efforts to tell the Texas story.
Austin’s Ann Richards Congress Avenue Bridge by Ted Lee Eubanks
If Austin would like to be a community of rooted citizens enjoying the fruits of diversity, a soulful city, then she must first recognize and celebrate diversity in all of its manifestations and across the entire span of its admittedly brief history.
The investigation, recognition, and celebration of heritage are among the most effective tools to be used in framing and contextualizing urban planning. Through this process (narrative-based planning) everyone is given a voice, those alive today as well as those who contributed in the past.
I thought that everyone knew this already.
Yet, recently attended a “new urbanism” luncheon where the speaker spent 45 minutes talking about city planning without mentioning the words history, heritage, preservation, or conservation. She was quick with “equity” and “gentrification,” but completely incapable or unwilling to accept that cities are first and foremost about people, not objects (such as public spaces, buildings, or roads).
Heritage comes to us from the Old French, and means “that which may be inherited.” Within heritage, history is only a part. Culture and nature are equally important. But, as the word implies, all of these component parts connect our present condition to the resources and contributions from the past, our heritage.
What matters in urban planning are people. We do not plan for cities; we plan for people. An urban plan is ideally a way in which we plan the greatest good for the greatest number of people living within a particular construct called a city.
To know people, we need to know something about their heritage. I am less interested in our artificial classes of people (black, white, Latino, Anglo, male, female, rich, poor) than I am in individuals. Yet, individuals do exhibit patterns of behavior, and those patterns are helpful in planning. Why? Because the patterns are repeated.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun….Ecclesiastes 1:9
My work is in interpreting that which we have inherited (our heritage) so that it can be grasped, shared, and celebrated by the greater population in our city, including urban planners.
Yesterday, Austin’s Mayor Adler challenged those in attendance (predominantly landscape architects, architects, planners, engineers, public servants, nonprofits) to look for ways to democratize Austin, especially in places such as its civic spaces. My response to Mayor Adler is that we should start by democratizing Austin’s history.
Austin’s past is selectively presented. Parts have been erased and expunged from the public arena. My goal is to resurrect these histories, a small step forward in demonstrating that everyone’s contribution to what is now a great city, Austin, mattered in the past and matters now. I am no more interested in the wealthy (white) businessmen who funded our historical buildings downtown than I am in the laborers who actually built them or the tamaleros on Congress Avenue who sold them lunch.
A city without a past is barren and soulless. This is an aimless landscape, inhabited by disconnected, disengaged, hollow-eyed nomads wandering a Kuntslerian nowhere. If we in Austin would like to be a community of rooted citizens enjoying the fruits of diversity, a soulful city, then we must first recognize and celebrate this diversity in all of its manifestations and across the entire span of our admittedly brief history.
What do you know about Austin? How about our history?
Join me on December 2 as I lead a short tour of Austin’s most historic creek – Shoal Creek. We will begin at 10 AM at the new Austin Public Library, and we should be finished by 12 Noon.
If you are interested in Austin’s early history, including the Comanche trail, Austin’s first settlement at Waterloo, the original Mexican community that lined the creek, and Austin’s earliest bridges, then join us for this fascinating tour.
Charles Peveto and Kitty Henderson of the Shoal Creek Conservancy Historic Bridges Committee will join me for this walk. Please register in advance so that we know how many people to expect. As always, there is no charge for this tour.
