Randall F. Mason

Biography

Professor, Historic Preservation / City & Regional Planning / Landscape Architecture
Director, Urban Heritage Project
Senior Fellow, PennPraxis
Senior Fellow & Founding Faculty Director, Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites

B.A., Bucknell University
M.S., Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D., M.Phil., Columbia University

Randy Mason is a Professor in the Departments of Historic Preservation, City & Regional Planning, and Landscape Architecture. His courses focus on historic preservation planning, urban conservation, social justice, and cultural landscape studies. Mason's research and practice interests include history and theory of preservation, preservation planning, the economics of preservation, historic site management, and the history and design of memorials. He served as Program Chair from 2009-2017 and Executive Director of PennPraxis from 2014-2017.

Mason leads PennPraxis’ Urban Heritage Project, which undertakes planning, preservation and cultural landscape projects for the National Park Service and other clients. Dozens of cultural landscape project reports are available here. From 2020-2023, he co-created and led the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites, which conducts research, teaching and fieldwork related to Black heritage places marking civil rights histories.

His publications include several books: The Once and Future New York: Historic Preservation and the Modern City (University of Minnesota Press, 2009, winner of SAH’s Antoinette Forrester Downing award) and Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States (edited with Max Page; Routledge, second edition, 2019); Values in Heritage Management (edited by Erica Avrami, Susan Macdonald, Randall Mason, and David Myers; Getty Publications, 2019).

Currently, Mason is working on two book projects—a history and critique of cultural landscape ideas, and a collection of essays on contemporary theories in historic preservation. 

Before joining the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design faculty in 2004, Mason worked as Senior Project Specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute, researching economic and social issues relating to heritage conservation. He contributed to several Getty publications including Economics and Heritage Conservation, Values and Benefits of Cultural Heritage Conservation, and Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage. Previous positions included Assistant Professor and Director of Historic Preservation at the University of Maryland, and adjunct faculty in landscape architecture at RISD. His professional experience includes several years of consulting practice and co-founding the nonprofit research group Minerva Partners (which developed projects to strengthen the connections between heritage conservation and social development). He served on the Board of Directors of Eastern State Penitentiary Inc. for ten years was on the board of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia from 2006-2013.

Mason was awarded the 2012-2013 National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize, and during his residency at the American Academy in Rome researched the Roman architect, planner and conservationist Gustavo Giovannoni. Earlier in 2012, Mason was granted an Honorary Doctorate, Honoris Causa, from Gothenburg University in Sweden.