Note: This talk is available live and in-person only. There will be no webcast and no recording.
About the talk
My academic and professional path began in geography and (at mid-career) has settled in the design fields of urban planning and historic preservation. This talk draws on work from two different points in my career: research begun in the early 1990s on the urban history of NYC at the turn of the 20th century, very much inspired and informed by the mentorship of Deryck Holdsworth; and work (ongoing since 2014) on the conservation and interpretation of Rwandan genocide memorials. The links between these projects center on interpreting and practicing historic preservation and urban design as cultural and social practices. These, and my other scholarly and professional projects, continue to be informed by the basic insights about societies and built environments I learned first in cultural and historical geography.
About the speaker
Randall Mason ('90g) plays several roles at Penn’s School of Design: Associate Professor of City & Regional Planning; Chair of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation; Senior Fellow at PennPraxis.
His published work includes: The Once and Future New York, on the origins of historic preservation in New York City (University of Minnesota Press, 2009, winner of the Society of Architectural Historians’ Antoinette Forester Downing Award), and North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City (with photographer Christopher Payne, Fordham University Press, 2014).
Mason’s professional practice includes projects at many scales, addressing planning, preservation and public space issues, commissioned by organizations including the Brookings Institution, Getty Conservation Institute, William Penn Foundation, the City of Philadelphia, and the National Park Service.
His education includes a Ph.D. from Columbia University (urban planning/urban history), M.S. from Pennsylvania State University (geography), and B.A. from Bucknell (geography). He worked previously at the Getty Conservation Institute, University of Maryland and Rhode Island School of Design, and was the recipient of the 2012-13 National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize.