Arfaa Lecture Series Presents - Bruce Laverty

Monday, September 29, 2025

6:00 PM-7:30 PM

Abstract -The approach of the 250th anniversary of American independence is a fitting time to reflect on the ways our Philadelphia ancestors chose to celebrate achievement and commemorate sacrifice. Bruce Laverty will examine the integral role Philadelphia’s builders, engineers and architects played in these milestone events. In 1774, they hosted the First Continental Congress at Carpenters Hall. In 1788, they built the Federal Edifice, a circular, portable, 10-columned, domed, classical temple-an architectural allegory of the newly created United States of America. He will discuss the architectural and engineering triumph of the 1876 Centennial, an enterprise so successful it planted the seeds of failure for both the 1926 Sesquicentennial and the 1976 Bicentennial – or so it seems. He will explore the significant good that emerged from these apparent failures and the challenge we face as we look forward to 2026.

Bruce Laverty has been an adjunct instructor teaching courses in architectural history and Philadelphia at the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design since 2010. During his forty years (1983–2023) as the Athenaeum of Philadelphia’s first curator of architecture, he oversaw a collection of hundreds of thousands of architectural drawings and historic photographs. He is the founding director of the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project and the Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network. Laverty received the 2021 James Biddle Award for lifetime achievement in historic preservation from the Preservation Alliance.

Contact Information

Daniel Coslett
dec85@drexel.edu