The University of Oregon Historic Preservation program – the oldest such program west of the Rocky Mountains – returns to the Eugene Campus after seven years in Portland.
Faculty Spotlight: Meet Amalia Leifeste - Associate Professor and New Director of Historic Preservation
Amalia Leifeste began her architectural education here at the University of Oregon. She credits the school's teaching philosophy, particularly in human-centered and context-sensitive design, as providing the foundation of her interest in preservation architecture. Working at an architecture firm in Missoula, MT, she was drawn to remodel and adaptive reuse projects.
She earned a post-professional Master of Architecture degree, as well as certificates in historic preservation and sustainable design, from the University of Texas at Austin. She has used this training and her research interests at the compelling intersection of architecture, preservation, and sustainability throughout her career as a historic preservation professor. Leifeste has developed a wide range of courses while serving as an Assistant and now Associate Professor at Clemson University's Historic Preservation program in Charleston, SC. Her favorite course topics have included the history of building construction, graphic communication (measured drawing), adaptive reuse, Historic Structure Reports, and preserving modernism.
She believes in a preservation education pedagogy of engaged community learning- one that pairs students and their learning objectives with people stewarding 'real world' historic places. In research and through her teaching, she is interested in how we educate preservation practitioners, how place fosters group identity, and in defining how much and what kind of change can keep buildings useful for current needs without erasing essential touchstones of meaning for people who care about their historic places.
She is thrilled to be returning to the Pacific Northwest, and is humbled and energized to take on the exciting charge of directing the University of Oregon's legacy historic preservation program in its next chapter.
The Student Experience
Eugene hosts a very active preservation community that offers many opportunities for both internships and permanent employment for UO students. UO also offers a specialization in historic preservation for master’s degree students in architecture and a minor in historic preservation for undergraduates at the Eugene campus. Graduates of our Historic Preservation Program are employed in a wide range of preservation-related fields, including private architectural firms, city planning departments, state historic preservation offices, federal cultural resources divisions, and nonprofit agencies.
Hands-on Environment
Our program emphasizes experiential learning in which students apply their academic study to field-based preservation work. This commitment starts with our field school, in which students learn practical skills in building materials and construction on historic sites throughout the Pacific Northwest and continues with a variety of partnerships with preservation organizations, such as state and national parks agencies, the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, the Oregon Historical Society, and the City of Eugene.
Examples of projects that UO preservation students have worked on in recent years include conservation of a 1930s CCC complex at Mt. Rainier National Park, identification and interpretation of historic properties in a historically African-American neighborhood in Portland’s Albina neighborhood, and proposals for reuse of Multnomah County’s 1914 courthouse.
Research Spotlight
Detail of a Portland mural by artist Mehran Heard that depicts Portland's African American heritage including the Albina neighborhood.
Historic Preservation Receives Mellon Grant to Tell Story of Portland’s African Americans
The Historic Preservation (HP) program received a three-year research grant to explore the history of Portland’s African American community as part of the new Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for Racial and Climate Justice. Some of the $4.52 million award to the UO from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is designated for HP to support a digital mapping project using existing historical archives and residents’ oral histories to tell the story of the historically Black community of Albina, from wartime boom to urban renewal to a community facing the rapid gentrification of a neighborhood in the 21st century.
Enrich Your Academic Experience
In addition to classroom learning opportunities, students can take advantage of opportunities at the Watzek House and the Shire, part of the John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape. During the summer participate in a field school in the Pacific Northwest at a location chosen annually.
Connect with Us
Learn More
Students interested in our graduate program can tour the UO campus, and students interested in our undergraduate offerings can tour our Eugene campus to learn more about what we offer.
