Save It? Modernism, Preservation, and Housing

About the event

The School of Design and Construction Lecture Committee and the Energy Conscious Construction Program is pleased to announce an upcoming lecture titled: “Save It? Modernism, Preservation, and Housing”

Cold, inefficient, and brutal: many of us love to hate modernist housing. Yet if the “greenest building is the one that already exists,” as historic preservationists like to say, should we consider that even the ugliest and most environmentally destructive buildings might be worth saving?  This talk asks us to consider how far we are willing to go in order to reverse the climate crisis.

This lecture will be delivered by Dr. Phil Gruen, associate professor in the School of Design and Construction (SDC) at WSU Pullman, where he currently teaches courses for the SDC in modern architecture, historic preservation, and discrimination and design, and a course called the Global Palouse for the Honors College. His research broadly concerns the architecture and urbanism of the United States and is focused upon marginalized and underrepresented buildings and landscapes, including those of the vernacular and ordinary. An ongoing project regards the history of WSU’s built environment, including a recognition of its all-too-neglected legacy in modernist housing.