On March 14^th, 2019, Maria Mosquera and Gunny Harboe, presented an overview of the InnovaConcrete Project at the Preserving the Recent Past 3 (PRP3) conference held in Los Angeles, California. PRP3 is the third in a series of ground breaking conferences that focus on the issues related to the conservation of cultural heritage from our more recent past. The first conference that was held in 1995 had a major impact on the field that still resonates today. Preserving the Recent Past 2 was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and continued the important discussion of the rich and diverse heritage of the second half of the 20^th century.

PRP3 was attended by over 350 architects, engineers, conservators, and other heritage professionals from all over the United States and a number of foreign countries. The paper topics presented ranged from the conservation of mid-century Interior spaces, to the material conservation of aluminum and stainless steel and many other topics in between. There were also papers on cultural landscapes and even some related to intangible heritage such as the “American Suburban Barbecue”. A whole session on concrete technologies included individual presentations by Paul Gaudette and Jack Pyburn, who are both members of the ICOMOS ISC20C’s InnovaConcrete Working Group. Paul Gaudette shared his expertise in concrete repair techniques and Jack Pyburn’s focus was on the history of precast concrete production. The ISC20C Working Group’s Kyle Normandin, was one of the main organizers for the entire conference and was a moderator for some of the sessions. For a full review of the conference program check this link: https://www.prp3.org/program

For the session on InnovaConcrete, Maria Mosquera presented an overview of the whole project, what the main objectives are, who the partners are, and what has been accomplished to date. Gunny Harboe’s presentation concentrated on the heritage awareness aspects of the project including the selection of the case studies, the 100 of the 20^th, and the benchmark document. By all indications, the InnovaConcrete presentation was well received by the attendees and the overall conference was a huge success.