Virginia Savage McAlester, 'Queen of Dallas Preservation,' dies at 76
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, November 22, 2024


Virginia Savage McAlester, 'Queen of Dallas Preservation,' dies at 76
Virginia Savage McAlester sits in her living room in Dallas, Dec. 18, 2013. McAlester, an architectural historian, author and preservationist who was widely known as the “Queen of Dallas Preservation,” died on April 9, 2020, in Dallas. She was 76. Laure Joliet/The New York Times.

by Penelope Green



NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Virginia Savage McAlester, an architectural historian, author and preservationist who was widely known as the “Queen of Dallas Preservation,” died April 9 in Dallas. She was 76.

The cause was complications of a stem cell transplant in 2013 to treat her myelofibrosis, a chronic form of leukemia, her partner, Steve Clicque, said.

Born and raised in Dallas, McAlester was an early organizer of efforts to landmark her city’s historic neighborhoods. Her delicate looks and soft voice belied the fact that she was a formidable opponent and a powerful activist in a town where demolition and development are still a religion.

“It looked like an episode of ‘This Old House’ crossed with ‘Cops’ with a little civil disobedience thrown in,” is how a local TV station described McAlester’s protests in 2004 to save a dilapidated Sears Craftsman-style kit house in the Swiss Avenue Historic District, the first neighborhood she worked to preserve. Her daughter, Amy Talkington, recalled spending much of her childhood in her mother’s station wagon, parked in vacant lots and blocking flotillas of bulldozers.

Mark Lamster, the architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News, said that McAlester was as much of a Dallas landmark as the neighborhoods she championed. “When she came out and said something, the whole political establishment stopped because of who she was and the esteem the entire city had for her,” he said.

“There was tremendous backbone to her,” he added. “And a profound sense of decency and care for the environment as expressed in its buildings and its history.”

It was her 1984 book, “A Field Guide to American Houses,” written with her second husband, A. Lee McAlester, a geologist, that made her a household name among preservationists and architecture buffs. The “Field Guide” was a joyfully exhaustive, truly egalitarian encyclopedia of the country’s architecture that encompassed stately Victorians, Cape Cod saltboxes and humble ranch houses — a feat of classification in more than 500 pages.

It was revised by McAlester in 2015 to include contemporary styles like Millennial Mansion (her term for a McMansion), and clocked in at more than 900 pages. “If you had the arm strength to carry the ‘Field Guide’ everywhere,” wrote Alexandra Lange, the architecture critic at Curbed, “you could walk down any street in America and identify the style, age and component parts of each and every home you pass.”

To research the book, McAlester loaded the family into a brown, shag-carpeted Good Times van and crisscrossed the country cataloging houses. This often led to confrontations with the police, who tried to stop her from taking photos. More often than not, Clicque said, “You couldn’t say no to Virginia.”

The couple met two decades ago, when she asked him to join a protest against Albertsons, the large supermarket chain. “She said, ‘Come and wear this red badge that says “No” and stand in the middle of this vacant lot with us,’ ” Clicque said. “It was one of her successes.” A developer and contractor, Clicque went on to take photographs for McAlester’s books (in addition to the “Field Guide,” she wrote or co-wrote a number of books on architecture).

A fourth-generation Dallas resident, Virginia Savage was born May 13, 1943. Her father, William, was a lawyer and a former mayor of Dallas. Her mother, Dorothy, was a preservationist in her own right, buying up abandoned properties on Swiss Avenue, where the family lived, to protect them from being razed.

After graduating from Harvard University in 1965 with a degree in architectural sciences, McAlester moved back to Dallas — to a house on Swiss Avenue, as it happened — with her first husband, Clement Talkington, a vascular surgeon. Building on her mother’s efforts, she helped create a fund to buy and renovate threatened houses in the area, and lobbied to make the neighborhood a historic district, which happened in 1973.

McAlester was a founder of Preservation Dallas, which has helped designate more than 4,000 local landmarks, and Friends of Fair Park, which raised $200 million to protect that park’s 277 acres from development and to restore its art deco buildings. In 2014, she was given the key to the city; in 2019, Southern Methodist University awarded her an honorary doctorate.

Both of her marriages ended in divorce. In addition to Clicque and her daughter, McAlester is survived by her sister, Dorothy Savage; her son, Carty Talkington; and two stepchildren, Martine McAlester and Keven McAlester.

Noting that McAlester’s death occurred while much of the world is sheltering in place, Peter Simek, the arts editor of D Magazine, a Dallas monthly, wrote that one way to pay homage to her legacy was to practice what he called “wakeful wandering” and celebrate the architectural details that make each neighborhood unique.

She recognized “that homes do more than shelter us,” Simek wrote. “They reflect and inform who we are.”

© 2020 The New York Times Company










Today's News

April 23, 2020

Study of artifacts enables a better understanding of Etruscan mortuary practices

Sotheby's announces 'Contemporary Showcase' │ A curated series of boutique "pop-up" online auctions

Jaroslava Brychtova, creator of monumental glass art, dies at 95

Sotheby's online sale of Old Masters includes portrait miniatures from the Pohl-Ströher Collection

Bruce Davidson's East 100th Street highlights Bonhams Photographs Online Sale

New Library of Congress app opens the "treasure chest' to mobile users

Christie's to offer English & European 18th & 19th century furniture, ceramics, silver & works of art

Michael Diaz-Griffith named Executive Director of Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation

Sotheby's offers a Cartier Art Deco masterpiece in a dedicated online auction

Marina Abramovic just wants conspiracy theorists to let her be

Fine autographs and artifacts featuring Civil War to be auctioned

London Art Week launches new digital platform for summer 2020

Virginia Savage McAlester, 'Queen of Dallas Preservation,' dies at 76

Galleries and art organisations across Scotland throw open their digital doors

The Florida Aquarium makes history - coral reproduces in human care

Chinese writer faces backlash for 'Wuhan Diary'

Cheryl A. Wall, 71, dies; Champion of Black literary women

In the Netherlands, the dance festivals have gone dark

Record prices for vintage comic books in Bruneau & Co.'s April 4th auction

Christie's Geneva announces a unique private collection of 101 Cartier Mystery Clocks

Eye of the Collector launches curated 'Eye Viewing Room'

Morse Museum announces Dr. Regina Palm to fill new Curator of American Painting position

Virus-hit Marianne Faithfull discharged from hospital

Best watercolor techniques for beginners

Poker Game Website PokerAB

The Miami trip guide

Be Healthier by Using the Best Indoor Grill

The Similarities and Differences of Bandarqq and Adu Q on Android and IOS

Strategy to win playing Bandarqq on Android and IOS

Things to Look Before Setting out for Immigration: a Checklist

Android's Best Apps for 2020




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful