The Historic Preservation Lecture: David Dowell

David Dowell will deliver the annual Historic Preservation Lecture on Feb. 26. Dowell has been a partner at architecture firm El Dorado for more than 25 years. He founded the Design+Make Studio at Kansas State University 12 years ago, the latest iteration in a teaching career that spans back to 1991 at institutions from the University of California, Berkeley (MArch, ’94); the Technical University in Dresden, Germany; Kansas City Art Institute; Washington University in St. Louis (BA in Architecture, ’89); and the University of Kansas.

Established in Kansas City in 1996, El Dorado is an integrated architecture, urban design, curatorial, educational, and fabrication practice. Their ethos is born of the Midwest: its frugality, its pragmatism, and its commitment to allowing and cultivating risk. But they go where projects and people take them, which is why they opened a second studio in Portland, bringing their accessibility and penchant for big ideas to a new market.

El Dorado’s earliest works in the late 1990s were opportunistic rehabilitations of dozens of turn-of-the-century as well as art deco and midcentury modern buildings. These early experiences formed an unexpected foundation of respect for and curiosity about historic buildings. This sense of becoming accidental preservationists persists to today and is the focus of this talk.

El Dorado’s work has been broadly published in Places Journal, The New York Times, DWELL, Architect Magazine, Metropolis, Vogue, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, Landscape Architecture, and Aeroflot Inflight. Their projects are routinely posted on Architizer, ArchDaily, Treehugger, Dezeen, Slate, and Inhabit.

Awards and peer-reviewed accolades include A/N’s 2022 Best Small Firm-Midwest; #5 Design Firm, 2019 Architect 50; Curbed Groundbreakers; Emerging Voices, Architectural League of New York; four 2023 PLAN IT Awards finalists; multiple AZ Awards, a handful of American Architecture Awards; numerous local, regional and national AIA Awards; multiple Interior Design Best of Year awards, one SCUP Award; one SEED Award; two Les Grube Memorial Design Awards; one Canadian Architecture Award; one National Historic Preservation Honor Award; and multiple ACSA Design Build awards.

One AIA continuing education credit available.