Letters

The Men Behind the Making

of Gettysburg’s Cyclorama Center

The article “Who Chooses History?” (by Mark Rozzo, June 27) credits the design of the Cyclorama Center in Pennsylvania to Richard Neutra. In fact, the building was designed by Neutra and Robert Alexander, who were in partnership for most of the 1950s. While Neutra maintained control over his residential projects, the partnership combined efforts on public and commercial commissions. In a 1989 interview that Marlene Laskey conducted as part of the Oral History Program at UCLA, Alexander describes the design and construction of the Cyclorama. He recalls receiving alarming news from the contractors during the groundbreaking that soil conditions were not as they were described in the drawings.

On a visit to Gettysburg to resolve the matter, Alexander learned that the site for which the firm had designed the project (and conducted tests at) had been reconsidered by the National Park Service historians and that the building had been relocated without Neutra and Alexander being notified. Due to the time constraints the project then faced, Alexander felt the team was not able to resolve all of the new siting issues, and this led to ongoing problems with the building. One problem he relates is that the large sliding exterior doors began binding because of the uneven foundation settlement.

While the article admirably addresses the controversial preservation issues of who is responsible for deciding what history a historic site should represent and whether we restrict our historic sites to only one history, it also underscores the fact that no historical recounting provides the full story.

Sara Loe

Adjunct Assistant Professor

USC School of Architecture