Symposium

Architecture in the Raw: The Past, Present and Future of Brutalism

Co-hosted by Thomas Jefferson University, Center for the Preservation of Modernism & Docomomo-phl

February 27, 2026

1 p.m-6 p.m.

$40 for full Symposium

$50 for Symposium and Tour of Architecture and Design Center (limited availability)

Free to Students, but you must register

Program Agenda

Noon – tour of the Architecture and Design Center at Jefferson University,

$10 charge limited number 20 people

1:00 – Welcome

suzanne Singletary, Director, Center for the Preseration of Modernism, Thomas Jefferson University & Dan Macey, president, Docomomo-phl chapter

1:15-2:00 Keynote: Brutal TRuths: Architecture’s Last Hopeful Forms

Aaron Betsky, Architecture critic, Author and Professor

2:00-2:45 – Brutalism, Corbusier and Color

Barbara Klinkhammer, Executive Dean, College of Architecture and the Built Environment, Jefferson U

Break  – 2:45-3:00

3:00-3:45 Brutalism on Campus

Emma Connelly, New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office

3:45-4:30  Case Study, Marcel Hotel, New Haven, CT 

Bruce Becker developer/architect Marcel Hotel

4:30-5:15 – Pondering Utopia at Pepper Middle School, Philadelphia

Michael Bixler, Hidden City Philadelphia

5:15 – 5:45 –What is the future of Brutalism? a panel discussion

moderated by Liz Waykus, Executive Director, Docomomo-us

Panelists – 

Aaron Betsky

Barbara Klinkhammer

Paul Steinke, Executive director, Preservation alliance for greater philadelphia

Bill Whitaker, Director and Curator University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives

5:45-6:30 Reception