(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Since 2020, I’ve worked remotely for the Saginaw Chippewa Nation in Michigan to imagine a new future for the site of the former Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School, a federally run institution founded in 1892 on 320 acres that included a number of classroom, dormitory, and workshop buildings. The place has a complicated history, but for generations it served as a site of federally sponsored assimilation for native children taken from throughout the Midwest. Ten years ago, the Saginaw were given a fifteen-acre parcel on the site, containing seven original buildings, and worked to have the entire district added to the National Register for Historic Places in 2018. The Tribe is committed to transforming it into a place for honoring, healing, and remembering those who were students there. Not all seven buildings on the site are likely to be reused. Left vacant for decades, four of them are likely too far gone for renovation. While there is important history present in all of them, there is also some sense of justice inherent in the idea of their demolition. Some in the community argue that complete removal of all the buildings is the best way to move forward from the past. The project brings up important questions about the value and purpose of historic preservation. Some are highly specific to the legacy of spaces of oppression and intergenerational trauma, and others are more general questions about ethics, sustainability, and how long buildings should last. I propose that by learning from traditional Anishinaabe precedents, we might better be able to preserve old buildings and design new ones in a manner more in keeping with environmental constraints. The key lies in changing perceptions of architectural permanence — a shift in thinking that requires designers and users of buildings to learn to let go.