Prof. Wallace "Mack" Ruff
Professor Wallace Ruff, an American national, had a long and distinguished career in teaching and research. His teaching career started soon after studying landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1948.
He has won numerous awards for his architectural and landscape designs. In 1974 he began his long association with the Department of Architecture and Building at the PNG University of Technology (Unitech).
The Ruff Collection was made by Wallace and his late wife, Ruth, over twelve years of research and work in Papua New Guinea. Beginning in 1958, the Ruff's used their summer breaks and sabbatical leaves to collect artifacts, photograph villages and ceremonial houses and conduct research in the villages of PNG.
Professor Ruff's great concern is that the architectural heritage of this country will disappear as it has in other developing countries.
"It is now my life's work to complete the dream of my late wife, Ruth, to develop a Centre for the preservation of the architectural heritage of Papua New Guinea. With great sadness I note that practically all the buildings recorded while Ruth was alive have disappeared, leaving a cultural vacuum".
Mac Ruff, 1994.
Physical artifacts collected by Mack and Ruth were dolated to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington.
Ruth Ruff
Ruth Ruff was born Ruth Eilleen Redmond in Newton, Kansas, USA where she graduated from Kansas State University. In 1955 she married Wallace Ruff. Ruth and Mack made their first trips to the Sepik region in 1968 together. From that time on until her death in 1985 Ruth was the other half of the Ruff team, making notes and sketches in the field while Mack photographed, researching, organising, and editing numerous documents, and compiling an extensive Bibliography of PNG sources.
In addition, Ruth pursued her passion for PNG Art, managing Ruff's Primitive Arts, a gallery attached to their house in Eugene, Oregon, and establishing the artefact collection of the University of Technology, Lae.
Maciej Korzeniowski
During 1997 Maciej spent many hours scanning the several hundred Sketchbook images and then breathing on them in Adobe PhotoShop.
The beautiful images in this work are a joint effort of Mack Ruff and Maciek.
One of Maciej's major tasks has to find the optimum graphics format for holding both the images displayed here, and for archive purposes.
Dr. Mark Leach
Mark Leach, a senior lecturer and Unitech, became involved in the Mack Ruff Sketchbook project due to his joint interests in computer technology and PNG artifacts.
Hazel Blowers
Hazel acted as the director of the Unitech Architectural Heritage Centre in 1997.
During this time she worked closely with Maciej Korzeniowski sorting and cataloguing the materials in the AHC as well as taking care of business matters and correspondance.
Leanne Boulton
Leanne is a New Zealand volunteer currently working in the AHC.
In her position as Archivist she has assisted with the editing of the Sketchbook database, and is currently working on scanning and cataloguing the Ruff Collection of photographs and other materials housed in the Centre.
Samson Nomsing
Samson is a second year Achitecture student. Since the beginning of 1998 he has been assisting Professor Ruff drawing up site plans from field notes and labelling existing plans. He also assisted Hazel Blowers for two months in filing material in the Heritage Centre.
Edwin Wem
Edwin is a third year Architecture student. he has been assisting Professor Ruff to draw up village and building plans from field notes and to label existing plans. He also assisted Maciej in scanning photographs from the collection.
Paul Yakuiga
In 1997 Paul, a second year Architecture student, worked part-time in the AHC for a semester filing and sorting maps, plans and photographs from the Mack Ruff Collection, and scanning some of the photographs into the computer.