Ghost houses

When the National Park Service in 1971 took over the blocks of Eighth and
Jackson streets around the Lincoln home, it ruthlessly cleared them of any structures that had
not been standing when the Lincolns lived there. The resulting grassy lots
surrounded by wood fencing look like pastures or paddocks that  suggest a country village more than the
industrializing state capital that Lincoln knew.

The continuing failure of the NPS to
realize the original vision for the Lincoln Home National Historic Site reconstructing the missing period
structures owes to lack of money and lack of
documentation about the appearance of the vanished originals.

In a 1990 column (“Ghost houses,” Nov. 21, 1990, not available online) I tried to helpful.

Strict authenticity being apparently
impossible, why not opt for history of a more imaginative type? Why not borrow
a page from an award-winning design done by the architectural firm Venturi,
Rauch & Scott Brown at Philadelphia’s Franklin Court, part of the Park
Service’s Independence National Historical Park? Ben Franklin’s long vanished
house was not rebuilt. Instead, its presence on the site is suggested by a
timber frame of the structure that outlines the walls and roof line, even the
chimneys of the original. It is a sketch in wood whose insubstantiality is a
tease. It conveys a sense of bulk without having any,

Thanks to the art
blog Colossal, I discovered the other day that an Italian artist has done
the ghost houses of Venturi, Rauch & Scott Brown one better. Edoardo Tresoldi built a
representation of the early Christian church that once stood at what is today the
Archaeological Park of Siponto, Italy, using wire mesh. With the help of experts at the Ministry
of Cultural Heritage and Activities and local archaeologists, Tresoldi’s
creation recalls detailed architectural elements including tiered columns,
domes, and statues that stand within the structure. 

© Blind Eye Factory

Says Colossal, “The sculpture stands on the former
church’s site with a ghostly presence, looking almost like a hologram
illuminated in the park.”  

This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2016.