On Monday, April 18, Dr. William R. Chapman, Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and Professor in the American Studies Department at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, was awarded the 3rd annual Frank Haines Award for lifetime achievement, dedication and devotion to the field of historic preservation at the 2011 Annual Preservation Honor Awards.
The Historic Preservation Honor Awards, which have been awarded annually since 1975, are Hawai‘i’s highest recognition of preservation, rehabilitation, restoration or interpretation of the state’s architectural, archaeological and cultural heritage. The event was hosted by the Historic Hawai’i Foundation at Queen’s Conference Center located in downtown Honolulu.
Said Chapman, “I was surprised, honored and humbled by the award. This award also honors the many students from the Historic Preservation Program.”
Chapman has been a professor at UH Mānoa for 18 years. Previously, he was with the School of Environmental Design at the University of Georgia. Educated at Columbia (MS in Historic Preservation, 1978) and at Oxford University in England (DPhil in Anthropology, 1982), he specializes in architectural recording, the development of historic districts, and materials conservation. A former Fulbright scholar and American Candidate at the International Center for Conservation in Rome, and most recently a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Thailand, he has a special interest in international preservation, particularly in the Pacific and Asia.
He is the author of numerous scholarly articles, books and book chapters, technical reports, and professional publications. A frequent consultant to state, national and international historic preservation organizations, Chapman received national attention for his reports to the National Trust for Historic Preservation on Hurricane Hugo’s damage to historic structures in the Caribbean and the Southeastern United States.
Chapman is widely recognized as a leading authority in recording historic architecture and in policies and procedures for historic preservation at both the local and national levels.
With his international expertise, he has been a study tour leader for numerous organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Smithsonian Institution. He has also led study tours on behalf of the State Department (USIA) and in 1992 presented a two-week series of USIA-sponsored lectures in Bombay and New Delhi, India. Most recently he has been involved in both conferences and conservation projects in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries and the Pacific islands, serving as a consultant to the U.S. National Park Service, UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund.