Written by Beth Bayley, Archivist Assistant People today just love to sing the praises of technology. We especially love to think back to the past, and speculate about how much more our predecessors could have accomplished if they had our technology (Lewis and Clark with GPS! Or Da Vinci with a laptop!). Here in ICFA, … Continue reading
In October, we had the pleasure of meeting Robert Van Nice, Jr. and his wife, Dee, who came to visit ICFA and view the Van Nice archive. You might remember Bob, Jr. from his youthful drawing of Hagia Sophia, which was somewhat more abstract than the precise and meticulous architectural drawings of Robert Van Nice, … Continue reading
We received a charming letter from Robert Van Nice’s daughter, Molly, the other day. It contained this post card: And a note that read: “The first time I saw this post-card…Dad said ‘Mol, your old man posed for this.’ It does look like him. Usually, he would describe himself as looking like a taxicab with … Continue reading
Recently, the ICFA team was lucky enough to host two of Van Nice’s former assistants at Dumbarton Oaks. Evgeni and Mahmut were both assistants to Robert Van Nice at Hagia Sophia during the 1950s, as well as classmates at Robert College. Another classmate of theirs, Yavuz, generously sent us scans from their Robert College yearbook … Continue reading
While we were looking through the slides and negatives of the Van Nice Collection for any stray Artamonoff photographs, Günder and I happened upon some beautiful color slides of Van Nice and some of his assistants. I had only seen a few of these images in relatively low-quality black and white prints floating around in the … Continue reading
Since we began work on the Van Nice Collection last summer, we have been lucky enough to be able to get in touch with many of Van Nice’s former assistants. It has been a great opportunity for us to learn more about the project, and also to correspond with some incredibly thoughtful, interesting people. Yavuz, … Continue reading
Today yielded many more meticulously kept and paperclip-ed expense reports and time sheets, as well as an interesting bulk of correspondence between Van Nice and many of his assistants and workers that he hired in Istanbul to help with the Hagia Sophia project. These take the form of quick notes from the workers to let … Continue reading
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