09/25/2024
Congratulations to Henry Glassie!
Professor Emeritus Dr. Henry Glassie was recently honored for preservation leadership with the 2024 Williamson Prize from Indiana Landmarks, the nation’s largest statewide preservation organization!
“I have spent a life that has incorporated a lot of things but mostly I’ve spent my life with people of modest means in backcountry places, and my work in vernacular architecture has had some influence on historic preservation,” notes Glassie. “I take pride in this award being given to someone who has committed himself to that kind of work, attending primarily to forgettable buildings which are more creative to me from an artistic standpoint than big fancy buildings.”
“More than anyone else, Henry has contributed to our knowledge of vernacular architecture and material culture, vastly broadening the scope of historic preservation,” says Marsh Davis, president of Indiana Landmarks. “He understands buildings the way an anthropologist would, using clues in buildings’ forms to point to their cultural and geographic origins. Many historic buildings would have been otherwise lost if Henry had not taught us what they are and why they are important.”
He played a hands-on role promoting preservation in Bloomington, where he helped restore six houses, served on the Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission, and chaired the board of local historic preservation nonprofit Bloomington Restorations, Inc. In the 1970s, he also helped survey the city’s historic structures, identifying buildings in need of preservation and laying the foundation for zoning ordinances to establish a downtown historic district. As a professor, he led students on walking tours to show them historic patterns of housing and industrial architecture.
