Library of Congress Announces Winners of 2015 Holland Prize

The 2015 Holland Prize for architectural drawing is awarded to three honorable mention winners: Teresa Boegler, who drew the St. James’ House in Fredericksburg, Virginia; and Amber Anderson and Sara Sanders, who drew the Pon Pon Chapel in the Jacksonboro area of South Carolina.

The Leicester B. Holland Prize recognizes the best single-sheet, measured drawing of a historic building, site or structure prepared to the standards of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) or the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). It is an annual competition administered by the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service. The competition’s jury recommends winners to the Center for Architecture, Design and Engineering in the Library of Congress, which supports the prize through the Paul Rudolph Trust. The trust was established by, and in memory of, the distinguished American architect Paul Rudolph, a proponent of the art of architectural drawing.

For 2015, the jury acknowledged that none of the entries fully met the official, archival recording standards of HABS/HAER/HALS. But the jury was pleased to recognize the special achievement in the skillful delineations of two historic structures.

The honorable mention winners will be published in Preservation Architect, the online newsletter of the Historic Resources Committee of the American Institute of Architects, and each will receive a $500 cash prize and a certificate of recognition.

Teresa Boegler, who is studying historic preservation at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, won an honorable mention for her HABS drawing of the St. James’ House, which was built around 1768 and is one of the few 18th-century frame houses still standing in Fredericksburg. The house was originally home to James Mercer, an attorney, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, first judge of the General Court in Fredericksburg, and the attorney who drew up the will for Mary Washington, the mother of George Washington. The house continues to be a private residence.

Amber Anderson and Sara Sanders, students in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at Clemson University/College of Charleston, won an honorable mention for their HABS drawing of Pon Pon Chapel of Ease in Adams Run, South Carolina. Though in partial ruins, this chapel and graveyard serve as a reminder of early 18th-century Anglican beginnings and particularly the proliferation of "chapels of ease" throughout the Low Country to address the religious needs of remote plantation inhabitants who could not conveniently reach their parish church.

For information on how to participate in the Leicester B. Holland Prize: A Single-Sheet Measured Drawing Competition, visit www.nps.gov/hdp/competitions/holland.htm.

The prize is intended to increase awareness, knowledge and appreciation of historic sites, structures and landscapes throughout the United States, and to encourage the submission of drawings by professionals and students. All the drawings accepted for the competition will be added to the permanent HABS, HAER and HALS Collection in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Images of many past and present Holland Prize competition drawings are available online. (For maximum detail, open the TIFF files.) Visit: www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=Leicester+B.+Holland+Prize&sp=2&co=hh&st=gallery.

The prize honors Leicester B. Holland (1882-1952), Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA), chairman of the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on Historic Buildings, head of the Fine Arts Division of the Library of Congress and first curator of the HABS collection, a co-founder of the HABS program in the 1930s, and the first chair of the HABS Advisory Board.

The Center for Architecture, Design and Engineering in the Library of Congress, established by a bequest from the distinguished American architect Paul Rudolph, preserves and makes accessible to the public the Library’s rich collections in those subject areas. For more information, visit www.loc.gov//rr/print/adecenter/adecent.html.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s first-established federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 160 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.