Rosa Lowinger and Uta Pottgiesser, internationally recognized experts in the realm of Modern preservation, will present the opening and closing keynote addresses at the 2024 °®¶¹app National Symposium. Entitled Streams of Modernity: Postwar to Postmodern, the Symposium will take place in Miami and Coral Gables, Florida, from May 29 through June 1, and is a collaboration of °®¶¹app, the °®¶¹app/Florida chapter and the University of Miami School of Architecture.
Cuban-born American art conservator and founder of RLA Conservation of Art + Architecture, LLC, Rosa Lowinger will kick off the Symposium the evening of May 29th with her opening address, “Modern Materials, Tropical Identities: Preservation as a Tool for Personal and Communal Repair.” Lowinger will discuss the links between historic preservation and healing of intergenerational trauma using examples from her family’s story of double exile from Eastern Europe to Cuba and then the United States. Based on her 2023 memoir , this presentation will highlight the specific challenges of conserving twentieth century materials in tropical and marine climates, and the metaphors for and dealing with coastal conservation in the period of climate change. The Opening Keynote will be held in the midcentury Cosford Cinema on the University of Miami campus and will be followed by a reception at the .
Flying in from Delft, Netherlands, the location of °®¶¹app’s original founding, current °®¶¹app International Chair Uta Pottgiesser will present the closing keynote, “Challenges of Modernity and their Impact on Modern Movement” on May 31st. For more than 30 years, °®¶¹app International has been working to foster interest in the ideas and heritage of the Modern Movement and to serve as a platform to exchange knowledge relating to history, conservation technology, education & training. °®¶¹app International has grown from 13 founding members to 79 National Working Parties today, acting locally, regionally, and internationally through its six Specialist Committees (ISCs) and the biannual conferences (IDCs), held since 1990. As it has grown into a worldwide organization, °®¶¹app International increasingly deals with global challenges and transformations such as climate change, conflicts, and digitalization. When moving the headquarters to TU Delft in 2022, these were crucial elements of the working program proposed by the International Secretariat for 2022-2025. Pottgiesser’s talk will showcase current projects, publications, and cooperation related to documentation and conservation efforts internationally, with examples from different continents, typologies and scales.
Registration for the National Symposium will open in late February. More information is available at . Sign up to receive the latest information.
Rosa Lowinger and Uta Pottgiesser to address °®¶¹app National Symposium attendees in Miami
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Michele Racioppi
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°®¶¹app staff
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About the Speakers
Rosa Lowinger
Rosa Lowinger is a Cuban-born American art conservator and founder of RLA Conservation of Art + Architecture, LLC, a sculpture and architectural materials conservation practice based in Miami and Los Angeles. She is also a published author, most well-known for Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub (Harcourt, 2005), a book on Havana’s pre-Castro nightclub era; Promising Paradise: Cuban Allure American Seduction (FIU press: 2016); and Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair (Row House, 2023). A Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation, the Association for Preservation Technology, and the American Academy in Rome, Rosa holds an M.A. in Art History and Conservation from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.
Uta Pottgeisser
Uta Pottgeisser is Professor of Building Construction and Materials at TH OWL, Professor of Heritage & Technology at TU Delft (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment) in the Netherlands, and the current Chair of °®¶¹app International. Her academic focus is on sustainable building construction and the preservation of Modern heritage, and she has more than twenty-seven years of experience as a practicing architect and research scientist concerned with the protection, reuse and improvement of the built heritage and environment.