About
I am a Chicago-area architectural historian and educator specializing in the history of the U.S. built environment from the 1780s through the 1980s. I also have an award-wining professional background in historic preservation project management as well as a demonstrable record of proactive equity-focused decision-making.
I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of the designed environment for the College of Architecture + Design at Lawrence Technological University. I am also a qualified Architectural Historian under the
United States Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualification Standards 36 CFR Appendix A to Part 61(c). And, as a public service to my community, I am a member of the
City of Evanston’s Preservation Commission.
Read/listen to me discuss how I have used the Humanities Commons platform to share my research and connect with other humanists:
HC User Spotlight: Sarah M. Dreller.
I also own a landmarked farmhouse and spend much of my free time trying to make careful stewardship decisions about the building and its related landscape. I enjoy being active outside and discovering creative combinations of art and science. I am determined to attend NASA Space Camp one day.
Other Publications
Selected scholarship: Guest Editor, Special Virtual Issue: Skyscrapers, and “Introduction: Thoughts on Two Generations of Skyscraper Scholarship in
JSAH.”
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (October 2019). Introduction republished in its entirety as “Aspire Higher: Exploring the History of the Skyscraper.”
UC Press Blog. October 28, 2019.
https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/46859/aspire-higher-exploring-the-history-of-the-skyscraper/.
Review of
Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers, by Jason M. Barr.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no.4 (December 2017): 562-64.
http://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/76/4/562 “Curtained Walls: Architectural Photography, the Farnsworth House and the Opaque Discourse of Transparency.”
ARRIS: The Journal of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians 26 (2015): 22-39.
— CORE persistent link:
https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:18089 — #MeToo/#TimesUp-inspired companion website:
The Vanishing Porch in Perspective “
Architectural Forum, 1932-64: A Time Inc. Experiment in American Architecture and Journalism,” Ph.D. diss. University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015. CORE persistent link:
https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:18087 “Henry R. Luce: The Personal and the Professional.” Review of
The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century, by Alan Brinkley. Jhistory, H-Net Reviews. February, 2011. CORE persistent link:
https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:18097 “Architectural Photography.” In
The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Architecture Vol. 1, edited by R. Stephen Sennot, 59-61. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2004.
http://bit.ly/2DOYv4r “Bertram G. Goodhue’s ‘Alexandrian’ Style: The National Academy of Sciences Building, 1919-24,” Master’s thesis. University of Virginia, 1999.
[contact Sarah for complete list]
Selected preservation planning documents: Primary Author/Architectural historian for award-winning rehabilitation and adaptive reuse project, including a National Register of Historic Places nomination, a Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit application and a California Mills Act Property Tax Abatement Program application. “Old Engine Co. No. 2.” Carey & Co. Architecture, Preservation & Planning, San Francisco: 2002-03.
Co-Author/Architectural historian for “Hawai’i National Park Discontiguous District” National Register Nomination. Prepared for the National Park Service Western Regional Office. Carey & Co. Architecture, Preservation & Planning, San Francisco: 2001-05.
Primary Author/Architectural historian for “IBM/Hitachi Campus Historic Resource Evaluation” Vol 1 & 2. Prepared at the request of the City of San Jose, California. Carey & Co. Architecture, Preservation & Planning, San Francisco: 2003-04.
Primary Author/Architectural historian for award-winning “San Jose Japantown Historic Context and Reconnaissance Survey” Vol 1 & 2. Prepared for the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California and the City of San Jose, California. Carey & Co. Architecture, Preservation & Planning, San Francisco: 2003-04.
Dreller, Sarah M. “West Grounds.” In “Evolution of the University of Virginia Grounds, 1917-31” University of Virginia Historic Cultural Landscape Survey. Office of the University Architect, Charlottesville: 1999.
Dreller, Sarah M., Fiona Robertson and Martha Teall. “Meriwether House, Keswick, Albemarle County, VA” (a.k.a. Cloverfields). Historic American Building Survey, Number: HABS VA-1358. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.: 1998.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/va1821/ [contact Sarah for complete list]
Projects
Digital humanities projects: Contingent Talk, a limited-run podcast series about precarious academic labor produced for the College Art Association’s
CAA Conversations initiative [launched February 2019, project role: producer, web site designer, author]
The Vanishing Porch in Perspective, a #MeToo/#TimesUp-inspired companion website for “Curtained Walls” hosted by Humanities Commons [launched February 2018, project role: author]
— COMING SOON! watch Sarah’s talk: “
The Vanishing Porch in Perspective: A Case Study of Public Architectural History Scholarship” (Architectural History at UVA: Richard Guy Wilson + Our Community of Scholars, 15-16 November 2019, Charlottesville, VA,
RGW Symposium website)
Afterimages, an online exhibition about the intersection of democratic free expression and historic preservation in Chile, hosted by Humanities Commons [launched November 2017, project role: digital humanities advising & editing]
— Sarah’s
Platypus blog post about
Afterimages FONDEF Built Heritage Reference Collection, an online presentation of historical information about four Chilean national monuments, hosted by Humanities Commons [project role: web site designer and editor]
