As building heritage specialists, Barbara Campagna and Craig Sims scour
old buildings in search of ways to preserve them. But there's nothing
stuffy or musty about their passion for the job.
Campagna is principal of historic preservation at an architectural firm.
"I divide my time between running projects, overseeing and hiring preservation
staff and marketing for new projects."
Her current slate of jobs includes the restoration and recreation of the
St. Guilhem Gallery at the Cloisters Museum in Manhattan, the stabilization
of six hospital buildings on Ellis Island, the restoration of two mansions
in New Jersey and the adaptive reuse of a historic 700-acre farm in Pennsylvania.
She's also in discussions to do work on the Kentucky and New Jersey state
capitols.
"Through it all, I am in continual contact with clients and staff to answer
questions and give direction," she says. "My staff e-mail me reports and drawings
to review when I'm traveling."
Sims works as an independent. "A tendency for self-employed consultants
like myself is to have one or two areas to specialize in," he explains. His
specialty is glass and windows.
Sims traces his passion for preservation back to his childhood and family
outings to historic sites. "In school," he says, "my two main interests were
architectural drafting and...history."
After graduating, he went to work with a regional conservation authority.
One day, a former teacher of his dropped off information on a civil engineering
program, specifically geared toward preservation of historic resources.
Sims jumped at the chance. He completed the program and has been working
as a building heritage specialist ever since.
Campagna became a building heritage specialist by way of architecture.
She recalls that when she was 14, "I became obsessed with becoming an architect
and convinced my parents to let me transfer from my all-girls Catholic high
school to a really excellent public school so I could take mechanical drawing,
physics and all kinds of art classes. Then I went to the State University
of New York at Buffalo and took a four-year program in architecture."
While Campagna "never particularly liked designing new buildings," she
"loved the assignments when they were related to existing buildings."
Then she came across a magazine on historic preservation in the library.
"Once again, I was obsessed. I found out everything I could about historic
preservation, applied to Pennsylvania and Columbia's master's programs,
got into both and chose Columbia."
In the course of her career, she has worked in private practice, in a partnership,
as the executive director of a nonprofit society, in a small five-person firm
and in giant architectural engineering firms like her current company.
Campagna describes her job as "part psychologist, part architect, part
scientist, part salesperson, part motivational speaker." Reinforcing people's
confidence in her firm is just as important as the more technical
aspects of her work, she says.
All projects come with baggage. "Some have great clients, but no budget,"
Campagna comments. "Some have neither, or vice versa. There's never enough
money or enough time."
There's also a constant give-and-take between preserving the past
and serving the needs of the present. "Often, the problem is caused by the
way something was built, and so you're not going to repeat the mistake,"
says Sims.
"Some of the biggest compromises tend to get made when a building's
function changes -- for example, if it was initially designed as a warehouse
and is being turned into a seniors' residence."
With the benefit of experience, Sims now steers clear of the residential
sector. "Generally speaking, the homeowners don't mind paying people
to drive nails," he says. "But they don't want to pay for advice."
But he did have a great experience with another kind of house -- Notre
Dame Basilica. He worked on that restoration as part of a large multidisciplinary
team last year.
"A friend of mine jokingly says he figures he's doing God's work,"
Sims says. "I guess we really do think that we're making society a better
place by preserving historic resources. A society that remembers its past
understands itself better and is therefore better able to understand where
it wants to go."
"Most of the time," Campagna says, "I feel that what I do is very important.
Sometimes I'm helping to save a national historic landmark for posterity.
Sometimes I'm helping a small rural community figure out how to save
its only 'old' building. Whatever the size of the projects, they
often have great social and spiritual meaning to groups of people, communities,
or even the nation."