Keeping It Modern 2020

John Hill

17. July 2020

Swimming Pools in Leça by Álvaro Siza, 1966 (Photo: Christian Gänshirt/Wikimedia Commons)

The Getty Foundation has announced the thirteen recipients of grants in its seventh — and final — round of Keeping It Modern, the initiative created in 2014 to aid in the conservation of modern architecture.

With its final year of Keeping It Modern, the Getty Foundation will have awarded a total of 90 grants. That same number of inquiries were received for 2020 grants, which the Getty is calling "the initiative’s largest and most geographically diverse year of applicants." The thirteen winners of the competition are found on five continents, with three of the buildings appearing as repeats from earlier grant cycles.

Keeping It Modern does not award money to privately owned buildings, and it aims at supporting conservation projects that "advance the long-term preservation, protection, and maintenance of outstanding 20th-century buildings." Although the grant program is finishing this year, the Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative that it is part of will continue. Furthermore, the Getty makes available conservation reports from previous recipients of Keeping It Modern grants on its website, where this year's winners should eventually appear.

Visit the Getty's website to read more about the 2020 recipients of the Keeping It Modern grants.

The thirteen buildings receiving funding and the amount of their grants, presented in chronological order:

White Tower, Moisei Reisher, 1929-1931, Ekaterinburg, Russia ($180,000)
Tecton Buildings at Dudley Zoo and Castle, Berthold Lubetkin and Tecton, 1937, Dudley, West Midlands, United Kingdom (£120,000)
*First Presbyterian Church, Wallace K. Harrison, 1958, Stamford, Connecticut, USA ($240,000)
*Gandhi Bhawan, Pierre Jeanneret, 1962, Chandigarh, India (₹14,000,000)
Obafemi Awolowo University, Arieh Sharon, 1962-76, Ife-Ife, Nigeria ($180,000)
Rietveld Academie, Gerrit Rietveld, 1963, Amsterdam, Netherlands (€175,000)
Monasterio Benedictino de la Santísima Trinidad de las Condes, Brother Martín Correa and Gabriel Guarda OSB, 1964, Santiago, Chile ($180,000)
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium, Charles Correa, 1966, Ahmedabad, India ($230,000)
Swimming Pools in Leça, Álvaro Siza, 1966, Porto, Portugal (€100,000)
Centre International du Commerce Extérieur de Dakar, Jean-François Lamoureux and Jean-Louis Marin, 1974, Dakar, Senegal ($190,000)
Abraj Al-Kuwait (Kuwait Towers), Malene Bjørn, 1976, Kuwait City, Kuwait ($180,000)
Oberstufen-Schulzentrum Wedding, Pysall, Jensen, Stahrenberg & Partner, 1976, Berlin, Germany (€120,000)
Buzludzha Monument, Georgi Stoilov, 1981, Hadzhi Dimitar Peak, Bulgaria ($60,000) (This building received a 2019 grant, with this year's grant focusing on interior artwork.)

*These buildings, per the Getty, "received earlier Getty grants for conservation research and planning and are now receiving implementation grants to support treatment efforts."