Founded in 1967

Named after Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), America's first professional architect, the Latrobe Chapter is the metropolitan Washington affiliate of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH).  Since its founding in 1967, the Latrobe Chapter has served as a forum for the local academic and professional community of architectural historians and architects interested in history. Membership is open to anyone interested in architecture and the built environment.  

The Latrobe Chapter benefits from the presence of many academic, history, and arts institutions in the Washington area and because of this is able to structure its annual programming around a series of public lectures and member-only guided study tours. These events highlight architectural topics that range from the colonial period to the recent past and a global array of architects, buildings, and landscapes.  We encourage anyone--whether a visitor or a temporary or permanent resident--to contact us about speaking opportunities. 

Over the past two decades, the chapter has hosted a biennial symposium with one day of paper sessions and day of related tours centered on a specific theme in the historic development of metropolitan Washington, DC.  In 2012, the chapter began offering an annual travel fellowship to assist a graduate student or emerging professional in architectural history, landscape history, urban studies, or historic preservation attend the Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, an initiative that has been a great success and has become a model for other chapters.  The chapter has more recently also made better communication and integration of its activities with the national organization a priority.  The Latrobe Chapter's board of directors currently numbers thirteen, including officers, and the present membership is around 180.