23 Sep 2025

Loch Raven Veterans Administration Medical Center: Historic Context and National Register Evaluation

Abstract: This project was undertaken to provide the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Construction and Facilities Management Office, with a National Historic Preservation Act, Section 110, evaluation of the Loch Raven Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center. The approximately 14.85-acre medical center is located in Baltimore, Maryland. The Construction and Facilities Management Office tasked the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL) with inventorying and assessing the Loch Raven VA Medical Center for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places through the creation of a historic context, a description of current conditions, and an analysis of those elements using the appropriate National Register bulletins. The authors recommend that the Loch Raven VA Medical Center not be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places due to a lack of architectural and landscape integrity of the complex; however, it is recommended that Building 1 be reevaluated for the National Register when it turns 50 years of age in 2046.

28 Jan 2025

“One Grand, Glorious National Cause”: A Cultural Geography of the Veterans Affairs Built Environment

Abstract: The United States government has a long history of providing medical, financial, and burial benefits to American Veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its predecessor agencies constructed much of the built environment that served as a conduit for these benefits. Today, the VA manages and maintains more than 15,000 buildings and structures to serve the Veteran community. To facilitate the transfer of property rights of its vacant and underutilized properties and ensure compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation issued a Program Comment at the request of the VA on 26 October 2018. The Program Comment mitigation requires the VA to produce a readily accessible public-benefit document of interest to a wide audience composed of Veterans and lay people. This book provides that public-benefit document through a cultural geography of the built environment of VA facilities. This book focuses on the sense of place developed by Veterans toward VA facilities and covers three generational periods as defined by the VA: post–Civil War through World War I, World War I through the end of World War II, and post–World War II through 1958.