About Uta and Angel
Angel Ayón, AIA
An award-winning citizen architect and preservationist, Angel Ayón has dedicated his 30+ year career to not only preserving significant historic architecture but improving it—using contemporary technologies, more sustainable approaches, and resilient strategies. Committed to professional advocacy in practice, he leads AYON Studio, a values-driven, MBE-certified firm founded on this mission.
Angel co-authored the award-winning book Reglazing Modernism - Intervention Strategies for 20th Century Icons, influenced and supported by his international project work and research. Locally, his continued advocacy work as Vice President and Co-founder of Save Harlem Now! and on the Board Advisory Committee of the Historic Districts Council has achieved meaningful influence at the neighborhood scale. He is also a member of the Commission on the Restoration of the New York State Capitol and currently serves on the Historical Preservation Committee of The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS), and on the boards of the Preservation League of NY State and the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation.
Uta Pottgiesser, PhD
Uta Pottgiesser is Professor of Building Construction and Materials at the Detmold School of Design at TH OWL (Germany) and Professor of Heritage & Technology at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft (Netherlands). She has more than thirty years of experience as an academic in education and research, and as a practicing architect. In both roles, she is concerned with analyzing, protecting, adapting, and improving the built heritage and environment with a focus on 20th-century architecture. To advocate and promote awareness, she has been a member of DOCOMOMO Germany and, since 2008, of DOCOMOMO International. She served as Chair of the DOCOMOMO International Specialist Committee of Technology (ISC/T) from 2016-2022. Since 2022, she has been President of DOCOMOMO International representing more than 85 national working parties.
As a co-founder and member of the European Facade Network (efn) - now Building Envelope Alliance (BEA) - she actively promotes international exchange, and has co-founded the international facade specialization within the Master of Integrated Design (MID) program at TH OWL in 2008. Pottgiesser continues to be a reviewer and (co-)author of several international journal articles and publications with a focus on construction and conservation topics. She holds a professional degree as architect and received her Diploma in Architecture from the TU Berlin (Germany). Her doctoral dissertation was on the topic of “Multi-Layered Glass Constructions. Energy and Construction” awarded from TU Dresden (Germany).