Getty ‘Keeping it Modern’ programme

In July C20 Society were pleased to host a group of international architects and building owners who are working on projects funded by the Getty Foundation for a seminar on conservation management planning. All were recipients of grants in 2014, the first year of the Getty’s Keeping it Modern programme, which aims to support projects on C20 buildings of outstanding architectural significance that will advance conservation practices.

Representatives from Centennial Hall (Poland), Luce Chapel (Taiwan), Paimio Sanitorium (Finland), Max Liebling Building (Israel), the Salk Institute and Robie and Eames Houses (USA) came to London for a series of talks and site visits, thanks to sponsorship from the Getty Foundation.

As well as sharing details of their projects, we had arranged a talk and tour of the refurbishment of the National Theatre, with manager John Langley and project architect Paddy Dillon, and site visits to Golden Lane and Barbican, after a fascinating talk from John Allan about the challenging process of developing the management guidelines for these complex sites. Peter Inskip spoke about his work conserving Louis Kahn buildings, and kindly allowed us to end the seminar with the splendid view from his Barbican apartment. Other conservation experts joined us a visit to the Royal College of Physicians.

The second round of grants have just been announced, and this year will go to fourteen different projects, all of the highest architectural significance, in eight countries around the world. C20 Society warmly welcomes these awards and agrees with Deborah Marrow,  director of the Getty Foundation, that “the grant projects address challenges for the field of architectural conservation and will have impact far beyond the individual buildings to be conserved” . Many of them address the understanding and proper treatment of concrete, which presents particular challenges to conserving modernist structures

The buildings that have received grants are:

Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning Center, João Batista Vilanova Artigas and Carlos Cascaldi, 1969, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Einstein Tower, Erich Mendelsohn, 1921, Potsdam, Germany

Hill House, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1904, Helensburgh, Scotland

Gandhi Bhawan, Pierre Jeanneret, 1961, Chandigarh, India

Saint John’s Abbey and University Church, Marcel Breuer, 1961, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA

Arthur Neiva Pavilion, Jorge Ferreira, 1942, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Gropius House, Walter Gropius, 1938, Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA

Rietveld Schroder House, Gerrit Rietveld, 1924, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Het Schip, Michel de Klerk, 1921, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Strutt House, James Strutt, 1956, National Capital Area, Canada

Arts Building and Cloister, George Nakashima, 1967, New Hope, Pennsylvania, USA

Unity Temple, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908, Oak Park, Illinois, USA

“Collegi” buildings, Giancarlo de Carlo, 1962-82, Urbino, Italy

Jewett Arts Center, Paul Rudolph, 1958, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA

Full details of the projects are available on the Getty Foundation site.