Landscape ArchitectureShelby Schrank

Postwar Institutional Architecture: Unpacking Thoughtful Conservation Practices

This Ph.D. research addresses the urgent need to create and provide thoughtful conservation guidance for revitalizing postwar institutional structures and sites. This is an era of architectural design and construction that came at a time of great social and economic development around the world, leaving a lasting mark on the American landscape. These structures and sites have now reached a critical age where they can either be rightfully acknowledged for their importance and conserved for future generations or find themselves in a state of neglect and at risk of demolition. The research questions of this study investigate how thoughtful conservation practices can positively affect public perception of postwar architecture, which has overwhelmingly been negative, and how the complex task of thoughtfully conserving them can be made easier to navigate given the right resources.