The Toomer's Oaks may be gone for good, leaving a void in the Auburn community, but a drawing created by former Auburn students will preserve their memory in the National Archives forever.
Ivan Vanchev and Doug Bacon, 2013 graduates in architecture, earned an honorable mention in the 2013 Leicester B. Holland Prize for their drawing, "The Main Gate and Auburn Oaks at Toomer's Corner," which will take permanent residence inside the Library of Congress.
"I was really surprised that no one had done a mapping of the tree before," said Rebecca Retzlaff, associate professor of community planning. "Usually when they demolish something really significant, like those Oaks, then someone comes out and does that drawing."
Vanchev and Bacon began their independent study during the spring of 2013, when both were enrolled in an integrated design and construction course taught by Retzlaff.
After two months of researching the trees and compiling information about the design, the two used a laser scanner to help create different images they would later draw together, including the Auburn Gates-- both their horizontal and vertical layouts-- and their position within the town of Auburn.
Working together, the two completed the drawing roughly five days before it was due.
"In the most general sense, I did all of the writing and all of the line work," Vanchev said. "Doug [Bacon] did all the hatching, like the dots on the bricks on the left side, all that hatching he did, because all of the shading on the tree, he did the little hatching on the gate down at the bottom. We didn't really plan for it to work out that way but we kind of timed it right."
Now, for the first time, people are able to access the complete description and design plan of the trees on a single sheet, which will be available for everyone on the National Park Service's website.
Though the drawing was not the winner of the Leicester B. Holland Prize, Robert Arzola, the contest's manager, said he considered it, and what it represented, as significant enough to warrant entry into the national collection in the Library of Congress.
"The Holland Prize is just one sheet where you try to synthesize what is the most important aspects of a site and put it onto one sheet," Arzola said. "They actually also contributed a historical report, and the drawing also has text on it where they wrote about the tradition and that the trees were poisoned. That's partially what makes the site so significant, is the fact that this great historic site was ruined, but it was captured and entered into our collection."
The National Park Service enlists architects to document important sites such as Toomer's Corner itself, but also accepts submissions through the Holland contest to add to its collection of more than 45,000 buildings and historic sites.
Vanchev said he was glad the information was put together and complete.
"I'm glad that there's a drawing now that shows the whole corner, with the trees and the leaves and the acorns, so that these are all kinds of little pieces of information along with the history on the right," Vanchev said. "It creates a story about this corner and this gate."
Vanchev also said the available illustrations were not exact, up until now.
"But with this thing, this whole drawing is measured," Vanchev said. "The whole corner is exact, down to the pavers and the trees. We had a scan of the trees from about a year ago, two years ago, so the whole canopy is correct, almost down to the leaves."
Vanchev and Bacon's drawing, "The Main Gate and Auburn Oaks at Toomer's Corner," is available on the National Park Service's website, nps.org.
The rules of the Holland Prize and past submissions are also located on the website.
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