Art, Architecture and the Jews: A Story of Modernism and the Diaspora

This conversation, in memory of beloved Professor Gerald Bernstein, showcases Brandeis's leadership in the world of mid-century modernist art and architecture, movements intimately connected with the Jewish diaspora and the promise of the future that coincided with the founding of our university by the US Jewish Community in 1948.

The event will feature art and architecture conservator and author Rosa Lowinger in conversation with architect and scholar David Fixler as they explore their responsibilities to the material world as it intersects with the dynamic forces of time and memory. The event will include a book signing for Lowinger's latest book, Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair (Row House, 2023), where intergenerational trauma and healing are narrated through the unique lens of a Cuban-born entrepreneur, trained to maintain artistic and architectural integrity by intimately understanding the object's origin story and then making it viable and relevant in the present. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Rosa Lowinger is a Cuban-born American writer and art conservator and the founder of RLA Conservation, LLC, one of the largest woman-owned art and architectural conservation firms in the United States. Lowinger is a fellow of the American Institute for Conservation, the Association for Preservation Technology, and the American Academy in Rome.

David Fixler is an architect and lecturer at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the Association for Preservation Technology (APT), Peer Review Architect for the United States General Services Administration, and leader in multiple global conservation organizations.

This program is presented by Brandeis Initiative on the Jews of the Americas, and co-sponsored by New England Conservation Association, JFS Metrowest, and the Rose Art Museum.