Texas Architecture Survey:

An Inventory of its Photographs and Papers, 1965-1966

Scope and Content of the collection

In 1963, the Board of Trustees of the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art in Fort Worth invited the University of Texas School of Architecture to participate in a survey of nineteenth century historic buildings in Texas. With funding provided by the Amon Carter Museum, the University of Texas assisted by establishing criteria and guidelines to record the historic structures of the state with John C. Garner, Jr. serving as field director. The state was divided into 8 geographical districts for the purpose of the survey and this system provides the basis for the filing system of the resulting materials. Field operations began in January of 1964 and were completed in 1965.

The first such survey to be conducted in Texas, it produced an inventory that served as the basis for two publications, each of which was accompanied by an exhibition of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum. The first was "Texas Homes of the Nineteenth Century" written by Professor Drury Blakeley Alexander (published by The University of Texas Press for the Amon Carter Museum in 1966.) The second and final publication was "Texas Public Buildings of the Nineteenth Century" by Professor Willard B. Robinson of Texas Tech University (published by The University of Texas Press for the Amon Carter Museum in 1974.) Todd Webb produced the photographs for the books and exhibitions.

The School of Architecture retained the records of the survey and thus the Architectural Drawings Collection became the final repository for the research materials generated by the survey (including field reports, building descriptions, slides and photographs) as well as the other materials produced in the course of the survey. Such materials include: the program for the architecture survey; operations logs and correspondence; budgetary material; manuscript list of building descriptions; contact prints of Todd Webb negatives; and the final report of the Texas Architecture Survey. Three sets of photographic materials were produced: a set of negatives was deposited at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center's Photographic Division at The University of Texas; photographic prints and contact sheets of negatives were placed at The University of Texas School of Architecture (now in the Architectural Drawings Collection); and the original negatives were placed at the Amon Carter Museum, which held all the copyright privileges with respect to reproduction of the photographs prior to 2002. The archival set of slides are now housed at the Audio Visual Laboratory of the UT School of Architecture (copies of the original slides were made for general use.) Duplicates of these slides are in the archive's collection but remain unprocessed. Also not fully processed are the photographic materials in Series C, which consists of reference documentation from the survey.

In 1987, the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art transferred the two exhibitions of mounted photographs to the Architectural Drawings Collection. The "Texas Homes of the 19th Century" exhibition contains 134 mounted photographs, including 6 large murals, and the "Texas Public Buildings of the 19th Century" exhibition includes 145 photographs mounted on masonite.

In 2002, The Amon Carter Museum transferred all remaining documents as well as copyright to the Alexander Architectural Archive.

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Restrictions

Restrictions on Access

Access is by appointment only to any serious scholar. Rolled materials must be flattened before viewing. A three-day advance notice is required to flatten rolled materials. Portions of this collection are not processed and may not be accessible.

Restrictions on Use

Permission for publication is given on behalf of the University of Texas as the owner of the collection and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder which must be obtained by the researcher. For more information please see the Alexander Architectural Archive's Use Policy.

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Texas Architecture Survey collection, the Alexander Architectural Archive, the General Libraries, the University of Texas at Austin

Processing Information

Processing is not completed. Please see archival staff for more information.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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