PLAY! ‘And so Now We’re at a Bustling Thirty-seven!’: Preservation by Regeneration in Nicodemus, Kansas
2024Janna Bystrykh and Clemens Driessen in conversation with Angela Bates and Dr JohnElla Holmes
Nicodemus was founded in 1877 by African Americans as the first and only remaining Black settlement in Kansas. Throughout its history, Nicodemus has adapted to changing social, political and economic conditions. Founded as a new town with an agricultural base, Nicodemus became a commuter town in the 1940s and 1950s as land ownership declined due to racist policies. Finally, in 1996, Nicodemus became a National Heritage Site. The article tells the story of Nicodemus through interviews with Angela Bates, Nicodemus descendant, historian, founder and executive director of the Nicodemus Historical Society and Museum, and Dr JohnElla Holmes, president and executive director of the Kansas Black Farmers Association. What emerges from the interviews is a form of rural community regeneration through multidisciplinary preservation and community-based practices. The vision for the future of Nicodemus involves certain practices of heritage, where spatial planning cannot be seen in isolation from the stories that people feel are important to tell.
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OASE 117. Project Village
Author: Stefan Devoldere, Maarten Liefooghe, Sereh Mandias (ed.)
Publisher: nai010
ISBN: 978-94-6208-839-9
Publishing date: May 2024
A surprising historical frame of reference for modern and contemporary village projects.
Does the village still meaningfully function as a model in times of general urbanization? The histor of architecture and urban design has not paid enough attention to the village. Nor has the contemporary architecture debate, which continues to be dominated by the avant-garde, urbanity, institutional building types and urban repurposing. Recently, however, the village has received more attention, partly because of the growing demand for spatial densification, climate challenges and biodiversity. There is a need for a qualitative approach to village densification in the Netherlands and Belgium as well as a growing interest in preserving and restoring the identity of villages and landscapes.
OASE 117 contributes to the debate on the architecture and urban design of villages, examining them not as the antithesis of modernity, but as its complex product. Eight essays analyse images, inventories, idealizations and makeovers of villages in the changing sociopolitical contexts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
https://oasejournal.nl/en/Issues/117
