Nik Kruger (Ball State University, Dual Masters in Historic Preservation and Architecture)

Boston City Hall, Boston, MA. Photo Credit: Nik Kruger. 2025.

From the moment I first heard of Preserving the Recent Past 4 last summer, I knew that it was something important. I was between undergraduate and graduate school, having come off of a capstone project that injected me directly into the issues of preserving Modernist and Postmodernist architecture. That previous semester I had gone through an arc of discovering that I was not alone in my concern for these unique structures, and discovering that there would soon be a place where those interested could congregate to discuss the pressing issues came at a perfect time for me.

I am incredibly thankful to have been selected as a student poster presenter and for being able to make my aforementioned capstone project a part of this conference; a homecoming for my museum dedicated to this cause. It was a blessing to travel to Boston to share my ideas, but it was the information I took in that was the key experience that will stay with me forever. I concede that I am still young and in the process of formal education, with lots to learn.

And learn I did at PRP4. From new building typologies to the challenges of preserving installed art in public schools, many new doors were opened to my young self so that I could see the accumulated knowledge present here in Boston for four days.

I learned as much in the few short days of the conference as I do in an entire semester of school. The knowledge is fresh, ripe from the source, and the conversations those conditions foster is something that’s hard to find outside of a place like PRP4.

Where that shared knowledge truly shined was on the tours attached to the conference. I didn’t truly understand just how rich Boston’s Modernist heritage was until I got to see the inside of the government buildings by Rudolph and Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles. Those spaces are the same as the grand cathedrals of yore, unable to be understood until seen with one’s own eyes.

The conclusion of the conference was a worthy one. I confess myself to be a Saarinen fanatic, so to be given a chance to wander through two quite different works of his could have been worth the trip in itself. The light cascading down into the chapel along Bertoia’s sculpture, like the grand concrete structures across the river, required seeing to believe. Socializing in the lobby of Kresge Auditorium, seventy years after its construction, with a focus on how to save its kin felt only right. I developed the adage that I’m surprised I didn’t need to be pried off of the building with a crowbar, trying to experience the detail of the work down to the last minute.

MIT Kresge Auditorium, Cambridge, MA. Photo Credit: Nik Kruger. 2025.

MIT Chapel, Cambridge, MA. Photo Credit: Nik Kruger. 2025.

HPEFMay 2, 2025