Katherine Ridgeway, Dr. Dell Upton, Burt Pinnock
Friday February 26th, 11:00am – 12:30pm (PT)
Conservation and Confederate Monuments preserve and protect what and how
The question of how Americans should address public monuments to the Confederacy, problematic symbols of white supremacy, received significant re-examination in the summer of 2020, sparking fresh discourse on how these monuments contribute to our understanding of history, cultural values, and identity and what actions can and should be taken in response.
This panel will explore how professionals in the fields of architecture, conservation, and history are currently addressing these topics and their visions for the fate of these works.
Katherine Ridgeway
Katherine Ridgway has been the State Archaeological Conservator for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) for eight years. In this position, she has recently provided advice on the conservation and preservation considerations involved when communities and agencies in the Commonwealth are working with Confederate and other contested monuments. She helped to write the DHR Guidance Regarding Confederate Monuments document and participated in the AIC Contested Monument Working Group.
Katherine is a William and Mary graduate and received her Master’s degree from Durham University in Northern England in the Conservation of Historic Objects. She has over 20 years of conservation experience, including working as an Assistant Conservator at the Field Museum in Chicago and as the Fine and Decorative Arts Conservator for George Washington’s Mount Vernon. She is also a Fellow in the AIC and the President of the Virginia Conservation Association.
Dr. Dell Upton
Architectural historian Dell Upton is Distinguished Research Professor in the Art History Department at UCLA where he taught for twelve years before retiring in 2020. He previously taught at Berkeley and the University of Virginia. Upton is the author of What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift and Monument Building in the Contemporary South (Yale, 2015), as well as numerous articles about contemporary monument debates in the United States and Italy. Among his other books are American Architecture: A Thematic History (Oxford, 2019) and Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic (Yale, 2008). During the current academic year, he is serving as Kress-Beinecke Professor at the Center for Advanced Studying the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Burt Pinnock
FAIA is a principal and chairman of the board at Baskervill, a 123-year-old design firm. For Burt, architecture and design isn’t a job; it’s his personal contribution to the wellbeing and vitality of our communities. Over his 30-year career Burt’s commitment and passion has created impactful work for neighborhoods, cultural institutions and forward-thinking companies, including the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, Civil Rights Memorial Plaza at the Virginia Capitol, Colbrook Affordable Housing masterplan and more. A founder and board member of the nonprofit Storefront for Community Design, Burt currently serves as Chairman of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Art and Architectural Review Board and is a board member of the Legal Aid Justice Center, amongst numerous other board and committee engagements. Burt is a graduate of Virginia Tech and calls Richmond, Virginia home.
