Call for Proposal ABSTRACTS

Open until September 15, 2024

On March 19一22, 2025, in Boston, Massachusetts, the Preserving the Recent Past 4 (PRP4) conference will offer a national forum to share the latest strategies for identifying, protecting, and conserving significant structures and sites from the recent past.

Thirty years after the inaugural Preserving the Recent Past conference, PRP4 will build upon its groundbreaking legacy with a new conference of concurrent presentation sessions, plenary talks, workshops, and tours. Since PRP’s first meeting in Chicago in 1995 (and its follow-ups in 2000 and 2019), many new resources have reached fifty years of age; innovation continues in the treatment of postwar materials and assemblies; and new survey and documentation techniques have emerged. Buildings and sites from the recent past reflect the dynamism, creativity, and tensions of the society that created them. They tell stories—of culture and community, of environmental change, of multiple and successive modern styles, design practices, innovative products, and movements of social consciousness and activism.

Prospective speakers are encouraged to submit abstracts of no more than 250 words for individual presentations or complete multi-speaker sessions on topics related to recent past preservation. A typical conference presentation length will be 25 minutes. Proposals related to structures and sites less than sixty years old are encouraged. Paper sessions will be organized based on the following tracks:

  • Subjects might include:

    • History of recent past buildings, sites, and landscapes

    • Confronting the contentious legacy of urban renewal

    • Thematic identification within "Mid-Century Modernism": Googie, Brutalism, New Formalism, Expressionism, etc.

    • Developing a context for Postmodernism and 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s architecture

    • 1973 Energy Crisis impact on architecture new and old: lessons learned

    • Outdoor patios of the postwar era, compatibility with the landscape/why the deck won

    • Historic sites of postwar of social movements

    • New institutional models (schools, retirement communities, hospitals) from the recent past

    • When owners become designers and builders - implications of the Do-it-Yourself movement

  • Subjects might include:

    • Advocacy challenges and strategies for the recent past

    • Techniques for surveying recent past neighborhoods and commercial districts

    • Preserving significant sites of marginalized and under-served communities

    • Digital humanities approaches to documenting/interpreting recent past sites (3D recording,  drones, data mining, virtual reality)

    • Conserving distinctive roadside heritage in an era of increasing commercial homogenization

    • Reusing open-classroom school plans from the 1960s/1970s

    • Split-level and split-entry housing: does the plan work today?

    • Nominating recent past resources to the National Register of Historic Places

    • Preserving the large-scale office plaza complex and institutional campus

    • How to save the suburban department store from extinction

    • Early loft-to-apartment conversions in the 1950s—1970s—preserving historic character

    • Recent past cultural landscapes and landscape features

    • Strategies for sensitive upgrading of postwar resort and tourist facilities

    • Revisiting National Park Service Mission 66 architecture

    • Adaptive reuse of Cold War architecture

    • Public housing—sensitive rehabilitation for a new era

    • Case studies of postwar intangible heritage conservation

    • Prefabrication and manufactured housing—unforeseen problematic issues

  • Subjects might include:

    • Technical conservation issues, sustainability, and solutions for post-World War II resources

    • Historic signage: maintenance, repair, rehabilitation

    • Architectural plastics and synthetics of the recent past

    • Maintaining and conserving T1-11 siding, plywood, and other engineered wood products

    • The rise of accessibility and its influence on design and preservation

    • Recent past transportation infrastructure –gas stations, bus stations, highway administration buildings, bridges, airports, parkways and parking garages

    • Repairing historic aluminum windows and siding

    • Maintaining historic fixed and operable aluminum awnings and storefront canopies

    • Curtain walls, modular systems, and assemblies – evolving preservation approaches

    • Beton Brut and other textured concrete finishes – rehabilitation considerations

    • Renewing post-war metallic finishes

    • Difficult to repair materials and systems: issues of replacement, questions of integrity and eligibility

    • Composite panel assemblies, skins, systems, and veneers: assessing integrity of layered alterations

To propose a presentation, please submit an abstract no later than September 15, 2024, using the submission form below. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Program Manager.

SUBMISSION FORM