Timothy T. Orwig

What have you been doing since you graduated from BU? Details about your Current and Past Employment? Accomplishments you’re proud of? Challenges you’ve encountered?

Since graduating from the Preservation and AMNESP programs at BU, I have continued to teach art and architectural history, including at Northeastern University and Lesley University. I have helped build the new architecture program at Boston College, where I teach Modern, American, and global architecture courses.

More recently, I have been developing and teaching online courses in art and architectural history for the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. I’ve published books on local history, including Historic Photos of Boston and Cape Cod’s Canal. I continue to research the work of Preservation Architect, Joseph Everett Chandler.

How has your time in the Preservation Studies Program shaped your professional and personal lives? 

I came into the Preservation Studies program as a community activist in Preservation. I served on the first municipal preservation commission in my home city in Iowa, and then worked with others to form the city’s first preservation non-profit, Sioux Landmark, which still operates today. Preservation Studies showed me the whole breadth of preservation practice. I wrote surveys for the Myrtle Baptist church neighborhood in Newton, a historically Black settlement. I archived the papers of the Daniels Farm. I worked on a preservation plan for an early Providence skyscraper. I worked a paid internship with the historic properties division at the Massachusetts DNR. Since graduating, I have continued to write National Register nominations (over two dozen) and work as an archivist for projects at Historic New England, including the drawings and office files of Modernist architect Tad Stahl. Several of these projects have culminated in articles in the Historic New England magazine.

What advice would you give to students in the program looking for careers in Preservation? What do you wish you had known when you were first entering the field?

Do as much as you can during your time in the program. Challenge yourself in areas that you are unfamiliar with. Get involved with the local chapters of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Vernacular Architecture Forum. Build a network. Get out in the field.