by Tracy Ostroff
Associate Editor

John G. Waite Associates, Architects’ comprehensive master plan for Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass, will give the village an opportunity to reflect on its heritage and assess the current condition and needs of its 20 buildings and 1,200-acre landscape. This collaboration between architect and client will create the future of this outdoor living-history museum and offer a guidepost for similar venues. The team is drawing from Shaker heritage and the Shaker commitment to living a principled life to address contemporary issues such as building community and sustainability. The project is slated for completion at the end of the year.

Hancock Shaker Village became an outdoor living history museum in 1960 when the last Shaker sisters who lived on the site turned it over to a group of citizens to preserve the buildings and surrounding historic landscape, explains Ellen Spear, president and chief executive officer of the village. Many buildings have already been preserved, but now, as the village looks forward to its 50th year as an outdoor living history museum in 2010, they are developing the first comprehensive master plan for the site to galvanize the next generation and demonstrate how preservation is an ongoing process.

Evolving principles for the 21st century
For inspiration, Spear and the architects will seek lessons from Shakers themselves. Waite’s team, which includes Project Manager Clay S. Palazzo, is combing through more than 22,000 artifacts and extensive documentation at the site.

“To understand better who the Shakers were and what their beliefs were, it all starts with the basic tenet that they led a very organized, structured life, and everything was directed at doing good works,” Waite says. “One of the things that comes through—and this is why their architecture is so well recognized—is that by taking this disciplined approach, they achieved great consistency in their physical surroundings, not only in their buildings, but also in the plans of the communities.”

Spear says she looks forward to bringing the Shaker story to address contemporary issues like peace (the Shakers were pacifists) and building community and sustainability, noting the ways they sited buildings and reused materials, approached construction, and looked at things in a sustainable way. “I don’t think they necessarily knew or named it that, but that’s certainly the approach,” Spear says. “The same with organic gardening and the methods they used. They had tremendous technical innovation that we see within the building and building construction, including a water-power system in the early 1800s. All of those things can address issues that are important to us today.”

The preservation architects are also looking for ways to show how the principles of the Shakers can be brought forward for the 21st century. “It’s an idea of trying to take the way that they approached life and applying the principles to how we approach life today,” Palazzo says. “This idea of using water power . . . how, as we move forward, would we look at other innovated technologies, like wind power.”

Lessons for other historic sites
Spear sees authenticity as one of the keys to Hancock’s success. “We are not a recreated anything. When I talk with visitors here they question us. ‘Are you sure this is real?’” In fact, Spear and Waite agree that Hancock Shaker Village was in the vanguard of the historic preservation movement. “The group of people who came together in 1960 predated the national standards for historic preservation but felt strongly that for a community be vital and vibrant, not only did new development need to occur but there needed to be preservation of things that were iconic to the community. And certainly the round stone barn and many of our buildings are iconic,” Spear says.

Waite adds that he believes authenticity is the key to increasing interest in historic sites and museum villages in general. “I think people are a lot more sophisticated today toward historic buildings than they were when Hancock Shaker Village was set up. One of the huge advantages that Hancock Shaker Village has is that it is an authentic village, a real place. There was a lot of thought given to its layout based on functional requirements as well as aesthetic requirements tied into their religion. It’s not something that should be compared to the other museum villages that are artificially created as museums.”

These notions are also driving the master planning process. “One of the things we are looking at is the question of authenticity—what buildings are original, what buildings have been moved in there, what buildings have been heavily modified, because in the future the question of authenticity is going to be really important,” he concludes. ”We think it very significant that Hancock has survived as a real place.”