Chris Bell is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Historic Preservation at the University of Oregon. He holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Oregon and a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies from Williams College, where he focused on architectural history and design.
Chris is also the Architectural History Program Coordinator at the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), where he has worked for more than twenty years. His work has taken him to communities throughout Oregon—first evaluating historic resources in relation to transportation projects and now leading ODOT’s architectural history program. He has extensive experience with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act.
Before joining ODOT, Chris worked with Dave Pinyerd of Historic Preservation Northwest and helped develop adaptive reuse projects with a commercial developer in New England. He also spent a formative year in Finland studying architecture and architectural history on a Fulbright.
Chris’s interests include understanding Oregon’s past through the experiences of immigrants and outsiders; exploring how transportation systems have shaped the state; and deepening appreciation for vernacular architecture and design, from strip malls to sidewalks. He is also interested in how the built environment reflects social change and bias, and what its physical clues reveal about the evolution of building materials, methods, and technology.
Chris has served on numerous thesis and terminal project committees since beginning his university teaching career in 2009. He developed the course Transportation & Preservation, now taught by his colleague and former student Larissa Rudnicki. At the University of Oregon, he teaches historic preservation and place-based courses, including A Sense of Place: Oregon and Introduction to Historic Preservation. Chris lives in Eugene with his wife and two sons.
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