Philadelphia: Our Nation's First World Heritage City 

Co-sponsored by Friends in the City

and the Philadelphia City Institute Library

How did Philadelphia become the only World Heritage City in our country? Come and learn the fascinating story.

Please join us for a film screening, followed by a talk and Q&A session with Dr. David Brownlee of the University of Pennsylvania. The film, which was written and narrated by David Brownlee and produced and directed by Sam Katz, explains how Philadelphia earned this designation and makes the case that our city has been a place of globally significant thinking and doing in every era of its history.  It argues that our achievements have been born of our diversity and that tangible reminders of our story can be found in every neighborhood.

David Brownlee is a historian of modern architecture who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.  He has written widely on European and American topics, from the eighteenth century to the present.  His writings on Philadelphia include books on the making of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the architecture of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Foundation (old and new), the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia architects Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown.