A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Richard Friedman

Lecturer

Contact

Bio

Adjunct Professor, Historic Preservation (1994). BS, political science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; J.D., University of Chicago Law School. Concurrent Position: Member of the managing group, Neal & Leroy, LLC, Chicago. Publications: "Practice and Procedure of the Condemnor," in Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, Eminent Domain Law.

Experience at SAIC

Historic Preservation Law is the foundation for protecting our cultural heritage. This course provides the tools for understanding why we protect our heritage and the methods for doing so. In addition, the course lets student understand the interests and rights of property owners and other who may not share our interest in preservation.

My course adapts the Socratic method, the teaching method used in law school. This is a dialog between the instructor and student. By exchanging ideas, students learn to find the answers themselves and analyze the issues involved.

Another law school technique is moot court. Students learn to prepare a preservation issue for presentation in court or to a government body. In our case, students present their case in an actual courtroom. In the presentation, students discover how to identify essential issues and present them persuasively with testimony and exhibits.

 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

Preservation Law concentrates on the legal framework of American cultural preservation. All professionals in the field should know the local and national laws protecting our cultural heritage and how to advocate on behalf of heritage preservation. The course explores such topics as the constraints under which local landmark commissions operate, the rights of property owners and the strengths and failings of federal protection laws. In addition, we will study the increasing acceptance of diverse views and how context affects our understanding of cultural artifacts.

The classroom work incorporates the question and answer method, in which students and professor discuss the day?s topic and assigned readings. As much as possible, original documents and materials will be included in the assigned readings, such as the seminal United States Supreme Court Penn Central decision. Chicago is a center of cultural preservation activity, so we are able to invite a variety of outside speakers for practical and diverse viewpoints.

There will be a long-term project in which each student selects a controversial cultural artifact, investigates its history and analyses the controversy. Students then give a class presentation of their findings and conclusions.

Class Number

1921

Credits

3