Enjoy 2022’s ARCH lectures

at your own pace

with these recordings

ARCH’s 2022 Fun & Free Lecture Series will always be available for your enjoyment!

The entire series will be recorded, and the recordings will available here thanks to our friends at The History Center. We will post each lecture as it becomes available.

Here’s what’s available for your viewing (and learning!) pleasure:

  • “Edwin Gibson: A Distinguished Career Begins,” presented by Connie Haas Zuber. Find it here. Zuber, ARCH Executive Director, introduces the life and local work of Edwin A. Gibson, Indiana’s first registered black architect who went on to be the Indiana state architect and found his own firm in Indianapolis before serving as Methodist Hospital’s Facilities Department Head and Director of Long Range Facility Plan. He retired in 2002 and died in 2011. A graduate of Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architectural engineering at the University of Illinois, he spent 17 formative years of his professional career in Fort Wayne as architectural engineer, designer and eventually partner and treasurer of A.M. Strauss & Associates, Inc., a leading architectural firm here. His resume says he specialized in institutional, religious and healthcare design, but he also leaves a legacy of at least three high-styled homes featured in the lecture.
  •  “Our Community Album”presented by Randy Harter. Find it here. Harter, the historian who has been instrumental in collecting, contributing and organizing significant parts of the Community Album of historic images made available to all of us through the Allen County Public Library, led an exploration of the wealth of images and information contained in the Album and shared stories connected with them.
  • “The Economics of Historic Preservation and Revitalization in West Central” presented by Tyler Bowers, West Central Neighborhood Association president. Find it here. With development accelerating at Electric Works, in addition to downtown’s revival and Riverfront development, West Central is a hotspot in the local real estate market. Bowers will present research he has completed that digs into the data and reveals what is really happening there.

Still to be presented (and posted here) is:made possible

  • May 21: “Urban Farmhouses”presented by Karen Richards, a regular on ARCH’s lecture series and one of our most popular speakers. Our neighborhoods are sprinkled with houses that were the homes of the farm families who were there before the neighborhoods were platted. Richards will tell the stories of several of them and likely inspire you, too, to start noticing these historic treasures in our midst.

All the lectures will begin at 11 a.m. in the Shields Room at The History Center, 302 E. Berry St., Fort Wayne. Free parking is available at the center. In-person attendance will be available for each lecture, unless public health authorities advise otherwise because of COVID-19 pandemic conditions. The History Center and ARCH are requiring masks for all visitors to the lectures, especially when Allen County is in the red category according to the State Department of Health and likely also when we are in orange.

ARCH’s community education programming is made possible by ARCH’s members and donors and supported by funding from the Indiana Arts Commission, Indiana Humanities, Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne and the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.

If you want to join in the good work of historic preservation, go to ARCH’s home page and click on the Become a Member button. Thank you!