Lecture: Demolition of the Largent House

A case study in preservation, development, and city planning

Matthew Hyland
Senior Architectural Historian
TRC Companies

Thursday, Oct. 22
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

This virtual lecture will be held via Zoom Conference. Purchase a ticket to RSVP and you will receive a login e-mail at 5:00 p.m. on October 22. Please login at 5:45 p.m. to allow us enough time to let you into the lecture.

When a San Francisco developer demolished one of the few remaining examples of Richard Neutra’s domestic architecture in 2018, shock waves rumbled through the city’s preservation community. The developer’s illegal action, the demolition occurred without a permit, shook fundamental assumptions held regarding permitting, integrity, significance, and the local planning process.

Calls for punishment of the developer ranged from large fines to rebuilding the house as it was in 1935. This presentation offers this illegal demolition as a case study of historic preservation in the early twenty-first century.

About the presenter: Matthew Hyland is an architectural historian and an educator. Over the last 18 years, he has worked on a variety of historic preservation projects including large surveys and published articles on preservation in Florida, focusing on New Deal housing in Key West. He is also working on an architectural biography of U.S. President James Monroe.