Save As: NextGen Heritage Conservation

Robert A. Kennard, FAIA (1920 - 1995) led an extraordinary life as an architect, mentor, and humanitarian. The son of a Pullman car porter, Kennard defied steep odds to build a successful career, design more than 700 structures, and create one of the longest-running African American-owned architecture firms in the western U.S. He “believed that people were more important than the spaces they occup...

Cemeteries mean many things to many people. In this episode, we talk with alum Rachel Trombetta about her thesis, Beit Olam: A Home Everlasting--The Jewish Cemeteries of East Los Angeles . Rachel shares the history of Jewish congregations in Los Angeles, how they moved away from the central city over the years, and what that means to the burial grounds established as their “forever homes.” She dis...

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San Francisco is a preservation-minded city, but as we hear in this episode, not all parts of the city get the same amount of preservation love. Alum Andrea Dumovich Heywood talks with us about her research into Clement Street, a diverse neighborhood in the city’s Inner Richmond area, that is considered the city’s second Chinatown.  You’ll hear what makes this neighborhood vibrant, the few places...

At the Alcoholism Center for Women (ACW), women regain their lives and claim their space in the world. They also take care of two century-old homes in one of L.A.’s oldest neighborhoods. Brenda Weathers founded  ACW in 1974 to give women—primarily lesbians, mainly women of color—a place to heal. Miracles have taken place there for nearly half a century. Recent grad Lindsay Mulcahy has spent the pa...

In this grab bag of SoCal history, we talk with alum Sian Winship, an architectural historian with her fingers in many, many pies. She explored the world of modernist tract homes in her master’s thesis, Quantity and Quality: Architects Working for Developers in Southern California, 1960-1973 . Quantity and quality also characterize this wide-ranging conversation about mid-century modernism, women’...

When M. Rosalind Sagara entered the world of heritage conservation, she brought along a deep passion for, and background in, community organizing. At USC, she researched heritage advocacy through the lens of two contentious campaigns -- both led by local stakeholders working not just to save places, but to build power and community. Hear what Rosalind learned about community-led conservation then,...

In 2003, the majority of the beloved Holiday Bowl in L.A.’s Crenshaw district was demolished. Although the bowling alley--a big box profoundly important to the community--was lost, the coffee shop--a Googie gem designed by Armet and Davis--remains standing and is now a Starbucks. Today's guest Katie Horak analyzed the efforts to save the Holiday Bowl in her 2006 thesis. Listen as Katie reflec...

At the turn of the last century, Black entrepreneur Arthur L. Reese convinced developer Abbot Kinney to hire Black workers for Kinney’s seaside resort and amusement park, Venice of America. Reese had a hard time recruiting Blacks to the area because, even though Venice was one of the few neighborhoods without racially restrictive covenants, no one would rent or sell to them. Thus was born the Blac...

Should the Brady Bunch House be in the National Register of Historic Places? Why not? asks alum Jonathan Kaplan. In his master’s thesis, the TV writer-turned-heritage conservationist makes a case for designating sites specifically for their use in movies and TV shows. Along with literary precedent dating back to Chaucer, Jonathan cites the deep meaning and shared cultural experiences these places...

As a teenager, Ingrid Peña saw a struggling part of Pasadena morph into the poster child for the revival of historic business districts in Southern California. Little did she know that years later, she’d revisit this period for her USC master’s thesis, Saving Old Pasadena: Where Locals Took on City Hall and Won . The story of Old Pasadena is the story of the early days of the SoCal preservation mo...

How do you preserve the heritage of a place you have to leave? Find out from Ani Mnatsakanyan, who just finished her master’s thesis on the Central Valley town of Yettem. Armenian for “Garden of Eden,” Yettem is a tiny town with a huge impact. Learn how it came to be, how it helped Armenians rebuild their lives after fleeing genocide in their homeland, and how heritage can both reflect and transce...

As L.A.’s Watts neighborhood reeled from the 1965 Rebellion against systemic injustice, Black architects and civil rights activists Art Silvers and Robert Kennard designed a place of healing and hope. The Watts Happening Cultural Center opened in 1970 as the home of the Mafundi Institute (“mafundi” is Swahili for artisans or craftspeople), which provided a vital creative outlet for self-expression...

Bunker Hill looms large in the collective memory of Los Angeles. Once a tony enclave of Victorian homes, the downtown neighborhood became a vibrant and diverse community before being razed in the urban renewal/removal of the 1950s. Much has been made of the architectural loss. But who were, and what came of, the thousands and thousands of people displaced? A very cool USC project called Bunker Hil...

Alumna Sara Delgadillo grew up in the working class ethnic enclave of Pacoima in the San Fernando Valley. The heart of the community, the Van Nuys Boulevard commercial corridor, is home to several legacy businesses that serve as centers of community and cultural continuity. In this episode, journey with us to this corner of Los Angeles and see it through the eyes of a local. Hear about how growing...

The allure of abundant work and fertile soil drew many to California, and in particular, the rich rural areas of the state. Punjabi workers came in small numbers to Yuba City in the early 1900s,  but after Indian independence in 1947 when Punjab was split in two, that trickle became a steady stream. Now this rural area known for its peach orchards is the heart of a vibrant South Asian Punjabi comm...

In mid-century Los Angeles, public housing was designed to house the many workers flooding to the city seeking jobs in the booming industrial economy. Taking advantage of the climate, the various developments used the popular garden apartment model and employed some of the area’s most prominent architects. A lack of maintenance and serial disinvestment led to decline, and now these civic resources...

The decade-long civil war in Syria has decimated the country’s infrastructure, killed more than 400,000 Syrians, and created the world’s largest displaced population of around 13 million. Heritage sites play a big role in war as targets of destruction, and they're typically an early focus of rebuilding efforts. With an optimistic take on a devastating situation, alumna Dalia Mokayed talks abo...

What comes to mind when you think of Compton? If it’s gangs and rap, think again. This small city is one of the oldest in L.A. County, with a history of agriculture, self-reliance, and resilience. It has a farm, a space-age civic center, the tennis court where Venus and Serena learned to play, and more (including, yes, cowboys). Compton’s history mirrors that of many cities across the U.S.; it jus...

How did a 1960s master-planned suburb use its century-old rancho heritage to form a new vernacular? The story of Mission Viejo spans so many issues--the founding families of modern Southern California, the transformation of our built environment, historical romanticism and cultural appropriation, the overlooked heritage of Orange County, and the need to preserve it. Recent alum Krista Nicholds sha...

In 1974, Brenda Weathers came across a century-old home in Pico-Union, an early Los Angeles neighborhood that had seen better days. She decided to use the rundown residence to help people like her: lesbians with alcoholism. Ever since, the Alcoholism Center for Women has served as a treatment center for women in recovery--most of them lesbian; many of them women of color, living in poverty and/or...

Pandemics, climate change, natural disasters, inequity, the perils of urbanization: cities worldwide are working to build resilience against these and other existential threats. Resilience planning may include protecting historic places, but it typically overlooks the role of heritage conservation in helping communities prepare for, and recover from, the hazards they face. How does telling a commu...

How can heritage conservation help end homelessness? USC grad students in heritage conservation, architecture, and urban planning sought to find out. Using the city of Pasadena as their laboratory, the students and their instructor worked closely with Union Station Homeless Services and Pasadena Heritage. These partners came away with creative strategies and design concepts they can put to use rig...

Los Angeles has a rich LGBTQ heritage that's been largely hidden. Recent graduate Rafael Fontes talks with producer Willa Seidenberg about why sites of LGBTQ significance are relatively hard to find, research, and designate. He discusses three case studies from his master's thesis, Gaining a Foothold: Conserving Los Angeles's Queer Eden(dale) : the Harry Hay Residence, The Black Cat...

Have you ever considered sound a character-defining feature? Musician and recent USC grad Kasey Viso Conley certainly has. She knows why Nat King Cole, Janis Joplin, Van Halen, and countless other recording artists insisted on using specific studios to get a certain sound. It’s the physical environment of the studio, from acoustic tiles to echo chambers. Yet the transformation of recording technol...