Kathleen S. Kilpatrick has been selected to receive the Architecture Medal for Virginia Service. The Society’s most prestigious public award, the Medal honors an individual or organization that has made an unusually significant contribution to Virginia’s built environment or to the public’s understanding and awareness of our built world. The Society presents this award jointly with the Virginia Center for Architecture at the Visions for Architecture gala on Friday, Nov. 7, 2014, at the Jefferson Hotel.
With more than 20 years of dedicated service and leadership as an official of the Commonwealth, Kilpatrick’s contributions to Virginia’s built environment have had a tremendous impact. Her service with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources from 1995–2013 and her leadership as current Executive Director of the Capitol Square Preservation Council have included measurable and lasting accomplishments. Through diligent efforts working with the Governor and the Virginia General Assembly, she has influenced the passage of tax rehabilitation incentives, developed effective processes to support owners’ donation of protective easements and urged the successful appropriation of funds for the purchase of threatened battlefields. Her programs have enhanced historic preservation activity to be recognized as engines for economic development, and she has helped to create an environment for architects to provide new life for old buildings through their preservation projects.
In addition, Kilpatrick’s focus on elevating and broadening the understanding of the significance of historic buildings, places and sites has enhanced the public’s view of the cultural values of Virginia’s built environment.
“Ms. Kilpatrick’s influence has been felt in virtually every community of the Commonwealth,” says Elizabeth Kostelny, Executive Director of Preservation Virginia. “A few years ago, Ms. Kilpatrick was quoted as saying, ‘When things are lost, they’re lost forever.’ That statement reflects Ms. Kilpatrick’s underlying motivation. Her tireless work has saved historic buildings, battlefields, important Virginia Indian sites, neighborhoods and more—all to employ those places for our future.”
