Historic Preservation Virtual Open House

Frank Matero | Chair of Historic Preservation, Professor of Architecture, and Director of the Center for Architectural Conservation
Connect here to learn more about the Historic Preservation Program from the Chair, Professor Frank Matero. This introduction includes the department’s approach to teaching historic preservation, an introduction to our faculty, an overview of the program structure and our focus areas, a breakdown of our courses throughout the four semesters, and projects and research currently being conducted by our faculty, often with the assistance of our students. Professor Matero also introduces our peer review Journal Change Over Time as well as the Center for Architectural Conservation (CAC) and its active projects.

Randall Mason | Associate Professor, the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and City & Regional Planning
Connect here to learn more about Professor Mason’s courses in the program including core classes like Preservation Theories and Preservation Studio as well as specialized courses focusing on cultural landscapes, preservation and social justice, and urban conservation. Professor Mason also works on a wide variety of projects outside of classwork including preservation training and implementation at Rwandan genocide memorials; cultural landscape inventories for the National Park Service on parks and public spaces in the D.C. region; urban revitalization in communities in Detroit and Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; conservation management planning at the Miller House and Garden with fellow professors Pamela Hawkes, and Michael Henry; and development of a collaboration between Tuskegee University’s Department of Architecture and UPenn’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation.

Aaron Wunsch | Associate Professor, Historic Preservation
Learn more about Professor Wunsch here. 

Francesca Russello Ammon | Associate Professor, City and Regional Planning and Historic Preservation
Connect here to learn more about Professor Ammon’s courses both with the Historic Preservation and City and Regional Planning departments including the core preservation course Documentation, the History of City Planning, and her changing elective course that most recently focused on Photography in the City. Professor Ammon’s interests include the history of demolition in the post-WWII United States as an approach to modernism and urban renewal, the early roots of the use of rehabilitation as a tool for urban renewal in Philadelphia, and the influence of historic photography on how a city is perceived and its subsequent impact on preservationists today. She often works on projects that focus on the social, economic, cultural, and political factors that influence the built environment such as her ongoing Preserving Society Hill website that documents how the Philadelphia neighborhood changed both socially and materially at over 1500 sites alongside a large collection oral histories from long-term residents.

Pamela Hawkes | Professor of Practice, Historic Preservation
Connect here to learn more about Professor Hawkes’ interest in the intersection of architecture and conservation, her private practice, and the courses that she teaches at UPenn including Contemporary Design in Historic Settings and Historic Preservation Studio which largely address theory and design for the adaptive reuse of historic buildings. Past projects include the John Coltrane House and Richmond Powerplant in Philadelphia, George Nakashima Woodworkers Studio outside Philadelphia, and Powderham Castle in England.

David Hollenberg | Adjunct Professor
Connect here to learn more about Professor Hollenberg’s career as an architect in the Park Service and as the University Architect at the University of Pennsylvania as well as more information on his course Preservation Through Public Policy which focuses on analyzing the intersection of conflicting or helpful policies at the federal, state, and local level to hinder or foster preservation efforts. 

Michael Henry | Adjunct Professor of Architecture
Connect here to learn more about Professor Henry’s career trajectory, his courses Building Pathology and Building Diagnostics and Monitoring, and his work on various projects in private practice including a conservation assessment plan at Georgia O’Keefe’s Home and Studio in Abiquiu, NM; work with the Getty Conservation Institute on the Charles & Ray Eames House as well as the Government Museum & Art Gallery; diagnostic monitoring of building performance on the Michigan State Capitol; moisture transport analysis for stone deterioration at the Alamo in San Antonio, TX with fellow Penn lecturer, George Wheeler; and relocation & remounting of a 5 meter mirror blank for the Palomar Telescope into the Corning Museum of Glass.

Donovan Rypkema | Lecturer
Connect here to learn more about Professor Rypkema’s course Preservation Economics as well as his work with both of his firms, Place Economics and Heritage Strategies International, which respectively practice in the United States and Internationally. His current projects include an analysis of the impact of historic preservation on the city of Los Angeles, a report on the impact of forty years of the Main Street program in North Carolina, a training on the economics of heritage for the Dutch Cultural ministry in Rotterdam, an analysis of the effectiveness of a local property tax credit for historic properties in Baltimore, and production of a second report on tools for preserving modern heritage for the Abu Dhabi Department of Cultural Heritage.

John Hinchman | Senior Research Associate and Lecturer.
Connect here to learn more about the Center for Architectural Conservation (CAC), a training and research center devoted to the technical conservation of the built environment. Projects at the CAC focus on sustainability, documentation, recording, field survey, material analysis, condition assessment, risk assessment, and development and evaluation of new treatments for culturally significant buildings, monuments, and site across the world. You can also find more information about their current and past projects here.

Kecia Fong | Lecturer and Managing Editor, Change Over Time
Learn more about The Pennsylvania Hospital Conservation Management Plan (CMP) project as well as our peer reviewed Journal Change Over Time here. 

Katie Levesque, MSHP ’19 | Urban Heritage Project/PennPraxis​ Research Fellow
Connect here to learn more about PennPraxis from Katie, a graduate of the Historic Preservation and City Planning programs, and her work as a research associate there. Katie’s projects in Philadelphia include civic engagement for the park at Penn’s Landing and Strawberry Mansion home repair as well as a project in Rwanda to document and conserve significant memorial sites of the 1994 genocide. 

Jake Torkelson, MSHP ’19 | Urban Heritage Project/PennPraxis​ Research Fellow
Connect here to learn more about Jake’s work with PennPraxis on the Urban Heritage Project. Currently Jake is working on a cultural landscape inventory of all of Washington D.C.’s tiny parks as well as the substantial Anacostia Park in order to help the National Park Service make informed management decisions and develop preservation strategies for their historic parks.

Amanda Leigh Stevens | Receivership as a Tool for Revitalization and Preservation
Learn more about Amanda's Research  here. 

To search for past thesis visit our database or  scholarly commons.

1:00 – 2:00: Student Life: Q&A with Current Students
Please see email for video conference details. 

2:00 – 5:00: Virtual Class
HSPV-621-Social Justice Seminar with Professor Randall Mason
Please see email for video conference details. (make sure to mute your mic unless you are talking)

2:00- 6:00: Faculty Meetings
Please add your name, phone number, and email to the desired office hour time slot on this google form. 

Frequently Asked Questions
6 Reasons to Study Preservation at Penn
Institutions Employing HSPV Alumni