Historic Preservation

Aerial view of Eastern State Penitentiary

Photo Darryl Moran courtesy Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site

Excerpt: Randy Mason on Valuing Traumatic Heritage

In an essay for Values in Heritage Management: Emerging Approaches and Research Directions, Randall Mason, an associate professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, explains how Philadelphia’s iconic Eastern State Penitentiary is both an archive of past events and agent of contemporary social change.

Fellowships at Weitzman: Meet Greg Maxwell

Before Penn, Greg Maxwell was employed at a small architectural firm, where he especially enjoyed working on older buildings that needed extra care. The interdisciplinary nature of the graduate program in historic preservation, and a fellowship from the Weitzman School, brought him to Penn.

Integrate transit stops with public spaces to establish major HUBs as community gathering center. Improve streetscapes with uniform trees and planters. Install street amenities such as banners on light poles to establish and reinforce sense of place. Encourage outdoor seating to enhance street vibrancy and sense of security.

Current Students Xue Fei Lin & Zhen Ni Win Second Place at The Big Picture: Revealing Germantown’s Assets Competition

Two second-year students, Xue Fei Lin & Zhen Ni, from the Stuart Weitzman School of Design Graduate Program in Historic Preservation won the second-place prize at Edmund N.

Multicolor mural depicting a smiling woman holding animated figures

Photo Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, LC-DIGhighsm-21891,
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2013632351/

Excerpt: Change Over Time on LGBTQ Heritage

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots that helped jumpstart the gay-rights movement in the United States, Change Over Time published an issue dedicated to LGBTQ heritage in which public historian Susan Ferentinos presents a way of “categorizing the LGBTQ historical landscape,” from sites of support and social life to sites of protest and political organizing, LGBTQ businesses and organizations, sites of spirituality, sites of persecution and violence, sites of separatism, and sites of art and architecture.

Man restoring detail on stone carving on building

Photo courtesy of Eric J. Nordstrom of Urban Remains Chicago

Lecturer Ingraffia Works to Save Chicago Building on National Register of Historic Places

Roy Ingraffia, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation lecturer alum works with the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers' (BAC) Administrative District Council 1 of Illinois (ADC 1 IL) to help restore Chicago’s Cook County General Hospital, an 105-year old Beaux Arts building – made of brick, granite, and terra cotta – that has been sitting vacant and neglected for over a decade, despite its historical significance in both the architectural and medical communities.

A bronze bust of Stuart Weitzman is unveiled by Dean Fritz Steiner (left) and President Amy Gutmann, while Weitzman (right) looks on during the Stuart Weitzman School of Design naming celebration.

Photo Eric Sucar for Penn Today

Celebrating a New Name and the Promise of Design

Designer and footwear industry icon Stuart Weitzman was honored in a ceremony Thursday celebrating the naming of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and Stuart Weitzman Plaza. President Amy Gutmann thanked Weitzman for a “lifetime of engagement with Penn,” saying he “believes in the power of design to immeasurably improve the human experience.”

Terra 2021 earthen architecture world congress Santa Fe, New Mexico june 8-11 2021

Co-Organizing TERRA 2021

ANNOUNCEMENT: Terra 2021 13th World Congress on Earthen Architectural Heritage will take place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA from June 8 – 11, 2021.

Bisotun, in western Iran’s Kermanshah province, is notable for its inscription carved on a limestone cliff. "It is unique, being the only known monumental text of the Achaemenids to document a specific historic event, that of the re-establishment of the empire by Darius I the Great," according to UNESCO. Image Bisotun AG-ChapelHill, Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Stuart Weitzman School of Design Statement on the Preservation of Cultural Heritage During Armed Conflict

The material legacy of humankind is our common heritage; it contributes to the identity and inspiration for all humanity. Protecting and preserving cultural heritage is a core value of all civilized societies, including our own.

Podcast banner featuring City Hall's Tower

New Philadelphia-focused Podcast by HSPV Alumna Lori Aument

Historic Preservation alumna and self-declared Philadelphia history nerd, Lori Aument, has started a podcast in cooperation with The Athenaeum of Philadelphia and Drexel University's MAD Dragon Community Recording Studios to tell you all about the history of Philadelphia and how that history shaped what the city is today. Found in Philadelphia features well-researched studies alongside interviews with residents from various neighborhoods around the city in order to better understand how the past plays a role in our daily lives.

Fort Union National Monument, New Mexico

Long rectangular voids in the adobe walls once served as doors and windows. Now there are no roofs, there is no shelter, these ruins are exposed to the elements all around them. Photo Courtesy of Evan Oskierko-Jeznacki.

Simple RFID technology helps save Fort Union National Monument from collapse

By using RFID moisture sensors readable with commercially available RFID equipment —the same technology used in everyday store antitheft systems—Oskierko-Jeznacki is able to monitor shelter coat leaks and moisture intrusion in the largest 19th century earthen ruin in North America.

The Gonicks and two Weitzman faculty are gathered around a table with archival documents

Preservation Graduate’s Gift Supports New Space for Center for Architectural Conservation

Until last summer, the CAC operated out of 1,000 square feet in Duhring Wing it had long ago outgrown. But starting in May, Matero and his colleagues packed up the old center — founded as the Architectural Conservation Lab in 1991 — and moved it to a newly renovated 2,000 square-foot space across campus, at 4201 Spruce Street. Now, the CAC, which gives students expanded opportunities to work on professional conservation projects, can host meetings of professional researchers and public-facing events to raise the profile of preservation work at Penn.

Miller House and Garden, Columbus, Indiana.

Photo courtesy of Newfields.

PennPraxis Team to Help Preserve Iconic Modernist Home in Indiana

The Miller House and Garden is considered one of the finest examples of Modernist domestic design—a midcentury masterpiece in Columbus, Indiana, brought to life by a trio of renowned designers at the top of their fields. A PennPraxis team will help to chart the future course of that work.

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