Awards
CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
Don Kalec and John Thorpe
The CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation recognizes an outstanding contribution by one or more persons who, individually or jointly, have enhanced the understanding of art through the application of knowledge and experience in conservation, art history, and art. This year Don Kalec and John Thorpe have been selected to receive this award for their sensitive approach to architectural preservation and specifically for their roles in the groundbreaking restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois.
Kalec is the cofounder and first director of the Historic Preservation Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he teaches in the Restoration Design Studio. He has published on Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his contemporaries and on Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in Madison, Wisconsin.
Thorpe is a widely respected restoration architect and a principal in the award-winning firm of John Thorpe and Associates. He has been a prominent practitioner in the field of historic preservation in Chicago since the 1970s. He is the architect of record for the restoration of many important buildings in the Midwest, including houses by Frank Lloyd Wright in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Nebraska. He served as an advisor for restorations of H. H. Richardson’s Glessner House in Chicago and Ernest Hemingway’s boyhood home in Oak Park. Thorpe was also a consultant on the recent restoration of Wright’s Fallingwater in Bear Run, Pennsylvania, and is involved in the restoration of the architect’s Frederick C. Robie House in Chicago.
Kalec and Thorpe first joined forces in the early 1970s to oversee the restoration of Wright’s earliest home and studio, one of the most important architectural landmarks in the United States. Using historical photographs, drawings, written records, physical evidence, and interviews, the two architects, along with a team of other volunteers, painstakingly documented the numerous changes that had been made to the property. Wright, who used the structure as an architectural laboratory, carried out many of these alterations himself. Kalec and Thorpe’s innovative work led to the publication of several books, most notably The Plan for Restoration and Adaptive Use of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), which served as the master plan for the thirteen-year restoration of the property. As the architectural historian Kevin Harrington has noted, Kalec and Thorpe’s “publication documenting the restoration of the Home and Studio remains the standard of excellence for such work around the world.” Their meticulous approach to the restoration has been so thoroughly integrated into the curriculum of historic-preservation programs that most people have forgotten where it originated.
Kalec and Thorpe continue to support the preservation of Wright’s architecture. They were closely involved in the creation in 1989 of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, a national nonprofit organization that supports the preservation of the remaining structures designed by Wright through education, advocacy, easements, and technical services. To generate broad support for the preservation of America’s architectural landmarks, Kalec and Thorpe generously share their knowledge and expertise beyond the academy by presenting public talks and serving as lecturers for docent training programs.
Jury: Jay Krueger, National Gallery of Art, chair; Andrea Kirsh, University of Oregon; Rustin Levenson; Lisa Schrenk, Norwich University; Rebecca Rushfield
