The Colloquium

As Founder and Board Chair of Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles (FORT: LA), Russell Brown has built an award-winning nonprofit that reimagines how Angelenos experience their city. Dedicated to energizing, educating, and connecting Angelenos through the dynamic stories of Los Angeles’s homes, neighborhoods, and architecture, FORT: LA has developed five interlocking programs that bring together historians, artists, architects, scholars, and audiences in unexpected ways. These include richly researched, self-guided architectural trails; fellowships supporting original scholarship and creative projects; artist-led collaborations that reinterpret residential architecture through film, literature, and other creative forms; live events and public conversations; and special initiatives that extend the organization’s reach, including participation in the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Under Brown’s leadership, FORT: LA has received major preservation awards from both the Los Angeles Conservancy and the California Preservation Foundation, attracted coverage in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR, KCRW, NBC Los Angeles, and other media outlets, and built a newsletter audience of more than 11,500 subscribers. The organization has forged partnerships with a wide range of cultural and civic institutions, including the Los Angeles Public Library, the Eames Foundation, Hollyhock House, the Gamble House, the John Lautner Foundation, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Pasadena Museum of History. Through its combination of rigorous research, creative experimentation, and community engagement, FORT: LA has become a vibrant hub for celebrating architecture, civic identity, and the shared imagination of Los Angeles.

Kenneth A. Breisch, Ph.D., architectural historian, received his doctorate from the University of Michigan and is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California where he served as Founder and Director of its Programs in Heritage Conservation from 1997 to 2011. Breisch previously taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the University of Delaware and the University of Texas at Austin and served from 1981 until 1986 as Director of Survey and Planning in the Texas State Historic Preservation Office in Austin, Texas. He writes and lectures on American architectural history, especially in the areas of American library design, vernacular building, and Southern California architecture and landscapes. His books include Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America (MIT, 1997); The Los Angeles Central Library: Building an Architectural Icon, 1872-1933 (J. Paul Getty Trust, 2016); and American Libraries: 1730-1950 (Library of Congress and W. W. Norton, 2017). He is the co-editor with Kim Hoagland of Constructing Image, Identity and Place: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, IX and Building Place: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, X, both published by the University of Tennessee Press. He is a past President of the Society of Architectural Historians and has served on the boards of the Vernacular Architecture Forum and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. Breisch was a Santa Monica Planning Commissioner from 1993 to 2000 and served on the Board of the Santa Monica Public Library from 2001 to 2014, and the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission, 2018-2022.

Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, FAIA founded her eponymous architectural practice in 1988. KSMA’s designs for new construction, adaptive reuse, and preservation encompasses institutional, commercial, residential, and cultural projects. Preservation projects include many of the most important 20th century design masterworks in Southern California. Kelly elevates heritage conservation into the mainstream of international architectural discourse, through award-winning projects that advance best practices and excellence in innovative, value-based design. KSMA’s projects have been recognized by the AIA, DoCoMoMo, Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, the LA Conservancy, California Preservation Foundation, and cities throughout Southern California. A nationally recognized leader in heritage conservation, Kelly promotes awareness and understanding of the preservation of culture, tradition, and place through her professional, personal, and public advocacy. Kelly has been a contributing participant of the Getty Conservation Institute’s Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative since the program was launched. Kelly serves as co-chair of the Association for Preservation Technology International’s Technical Committee on Modern Heritage and is an adjunct professor at the USC School of Architecture. Kelly serves as chair of the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens’ Building and Grounds Committee and as chair of the LA Conservancy’s Board of Directors. In 2015 Kelly received the USC School of Architecture Distinguished Alumni Award. Kelly’s commitment to supporting architectural education has spanned her career through publications, exhibitions, and lecturing at professional symposia and institutions around the country, as well as mentoring students of all ages.

Heather Goers is an architectural and landscape historian with over fifteen years of experience in the field of historic preservation. Heather was educated at the University of Chicago, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Humanities, and at the University of Southern California, where she received a master’s degree in historic preservation. At Chicago, she was a recipient of the Jeff Metcalf Fellowship for Summer Study, supporting her research at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House. At USC, she developed her master’s thesis on Howard Oshiyama, a Japanese American landscape contractor known for his collaboration with architects Buff and Hensman. In 2013, Heather joined a Southern California–based preservation consulting firm, where she spent a decade developing cultural landscape reports, historic context statements, historic designation nominations, historic structure reports, and environmental master plans. Her contributions extended to some of Southern California’s most significant historic properties, including the Ennis House, the Freeman House, the Gamble House, Hollyhock House, and Hollywood Forever Cemetery. During her tenure, Heather cultivated a mastery of archival research, specializing in synthesizing and interpreting complex development histories and historic contexts for various properties and landscapes. After a decade working in the private sector, Heather launched her own preservation consulting practice in 2023. Her most recent projects have involved the designation of the Marilyn Monroe Residence and the Brady Bunch House as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments.