AIA Historic Resources Committee Taliesin West Colloquium 2026
Historic Preservation in an Age of Disruption
February 27–28, 2026 | Taliesin West | Scottsdale, Ariz.
Join the AIA Historic Resources Committee (HRC) and an invited panel of experts for a dialogue on Historic Preservation in an Age of Disruption at Taliesin West, a UNESCO World Heritage site and National Historic Landmark nestled in the desert foothills of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Here's a taste:
Keynote Address: Distributed Monuments
In an age increasingly defined by disruption-political, environmental, technological-our monuments are also experiencing profound and literal breakage. Policies that decommission, privatize, or sell off public buildings have reshaped the material landscape of modern heritage. From the dismantling of U.S. modernist embassies to the reconfiguration of civic infrastructures, these transformations leave behind fragments scattered across scrapyards, auction houses, archives, and construction sites. Yet in their displacement, these fragments reveal complex afterlives, carrying with them suppressed environmental, cultural, and diplomatic histories.
In this keynote lecture, artist and preservation architect Jorge Otero-Pailos argues for a renewed understanding of "disruption" within preservation-not solely as rupture from the past but as the literal breaking apart of monuments through policy decisions, geopolitical shifts, and changing societal values. Drawing on recent works including Analogue Sites, Distributed Monuments, and Treaties on De-Fences, Otero-Pailos shows how fragments of architecture can travel the world as emissaries of forgotten narratives, shaping new preservation attitudes and public engagements.
Through the artistic reuse of recovered material-such as the Cold War–era steel security fence of Eero Saarinen's former U.S. Embassy in Oslo-Otero-Pailos proposes an expanded preservation practice that places contemporary art at its center. This art-driven methodology treats displaced architectural elements not as debris but as vital records, whose recontextualization can surface the policy documents, diplomatic treaties, environmental conditions, and cultural forces embedded within them.
By following the dispersed trajectories of these materials, Otero-Pailos reframes preservation as a global, distributed network of afterlives-one that asks practitioners to reckon with the ethical complexities of fragmentation, state policy, and stewardship today. At a moment when the field must pivot and adapt, this lecture offers a provocative vision of how creative practice can illuminate the unseen consequences of disruption and craft new futures for the monuments we inherit, dismantle, or choose to transform.
For Agenda, details and to register: National Events
Jorge Otero-Pailos, PhD
Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation Professor and Director of Historic Preservation
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Robert Burns, AIA
2025 Chair
Historic Resources Committee Advisory Group
Richmond, VA
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