Speakers

Photo by Josh Miller

The International Docomomo Conference welcomes esteemed speakers from around the world to present a variety of modern preservation research, subjects, and projects.

Sessions take place Thursday and Friday at the University of Southern California, School of Architecture. Opening keynote on Wednesday evening and a closing plenary on Friday afternoon. 

Opening Keynote

Wednesday, March 17

Thom Mayne in Conversation with Frances Anderton

Docomomo is pleased to announce Thom Mayne, Pritzker Prize-winning architect and founder of Morphosis and acclaimed writer and broadcaster Frances Anderton will open the 2026 IDC with a dynamic conversation that will set the stage for four days of programming exploring the conference’s central themes of climate, community, and creativity through the unique lens of Los Angeles and its modern movement.

As the conference welcomes participants from around the world, Mayne and Anderton will open with a reflection on Los Angeles as both a muse and a mirror for modernism’s evolution. The city’s sprawling, car-centric fabric, its complex social and cultural diversity, and its vulnerabilities to drought, wildfire, and heat all make it an ideal backdrop for examining how modern architecture adapts to new environmental and social realities. The keynote will invite attendees to consider how modernism’s promises of innovation, flexibility, and humanism might continue to inform the city’s and the world’s architectural future.

The conversation will also delve into the legacy of Los Angeles modernism – from the Case Study House program and Ray Kappe’s experimental domestic architecture to the daring new directions forged by Mayne and his peers in the late twentieth century. Mayne’s own trajectory embodies the tensions and possibilities of this moment: rooted in Southern California modernism yet evolving into something radically distinct. His practice, Morphosis, founded in 1972, has consistently challenged conventions of form, function, and sustainability while maintaining a deep engagement with the urban and environmental context.

Under Mayne’s leadership, Morphosis has produced an extraordinary body of work spanning civic, educational, and cultural projects across the globe and exemplifying the interplay between architecture and climate, community, and creativity, the very themes of this year’s conference. A founding figure of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Mayne is also co-director of The NOW Institute, which collaborates with cities and institutions to design more resilient urban environments. His accolades include the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2005), the AIA Gold Medal (2013), and service on the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities under President Obama. Morphosis’s work has been exhibited internationally, including a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Guiding this opening dialogue will be Frances Anderton, one of Los Angeles’s most respected voices on design and urbanism. Known for her decades-long role as host of KCRW’s “DnA: Design and Architecture,” Anderton has shaped public understanding of the city’s evolving built environment. Her recent projects include the award-winning book Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles and The Angeleno Porch (featured in the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale) and exemplify her commitment to exploring how architecture fosters social connection and equitable housing. She has received the Esther McCoy Award from USC’s Architectural Guild for her contributions to architectural education and discourse.

Together, Mayne and Anderton will inaugurate the conference with a spirited exploration of Los Angeles’s place in global modernism – its influence, contradictions, and future. Their conversation will anchor a week of sessions addressing topics such as Late Twentieth-Century Modernism, Mobility and Sprawl, Modernism in the Sun, Community Adaptation and Repurposing, and Creativity and Collaboration.

The Opening Keynote Conversation: Thom Mayne in Conversation with Frances Anderton promises to be a defining moment of the 2026 International Docomomo Conference and a fitting welcome to a city that continues to shape, challenge, and inspire the modern movement.

  • Thom Mayne founded Morphosis in 1972 as a collective practice engaged in architecture, urban planning, and design. Working globally, his work represents a wide variety of scales and typologies. Mayne cofounded the Southern California Institute of Architecture in 1972 and has held teaching positions at UCLA, Columbia, Yale, Harvard GSD, Bartlett School of Architecture, and many other institutions.

    He co-heads the NOW Institute, a division of Morphosis that collaborates with communities, cities, and academic institutions to research and enhance urban environments. Mayne was awarded the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the AIA Gold Medal (2013).

    He served on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities under President Obama from 2009 to 2016. Morphosis’s work has been featured in over 30 monographs, and the firm has received over 120 AIA Awards. They have been the subject of various exhibitions, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2006. 

Additional keynote and speaker announcements coming soon…