Aaron Wunsch, award-winning architectural historian and preservationist, and associate professor at Penn, has died at 53

Aaron Wunsch, 53, of Philadelphia, award-winning architectural historian and preservationist, and associate professor in the graduate program of the Department of Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design, died Friday, Sept. 20, of gastric cancer, at his home in Germantown.

An expert on landscape architecture and the documentation of historic architecture, Professor Wunsch made detailed on-site inspections and took deep dives into public and private archives of all kinds to establish the nature and value of old structures. His family called it a “fierce, tireless, and nimble advocacy for historic sites,” and he teamed with other preservationists to document the histories of hundreds of places and sometimes battle developers and others who sought their destruction.

He worked with energy and urgency, he told The Inquirer in 1998, because “the great American industries of the 20th century are fast disappearing. Buildings are being knocked down all the time.”

He focused much of his attention on abandoned industrial buildings, old cemeteries, Quaker meeting houses, unique rowhouses in South Philadelphia, and churches all over the city. He was quoted in The Inquirer and other publications about his scrutiny of the Church of the Atonement and Woodlands cemetery in West Philadelphia, the 19th Street Baptist Church in Point Breeze, and dozens of other places in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Virginia.

His nomination made Laurel Hill one of the first U.S. cemeteries to receive National Historic Landmark status, and he made it clear in 2016 why appreciating historic sites is important. “It doesn’t require a degree in architectural history for people to know that they like living in a place because of the building’s age, or design, or the way they’re set back from the street,” he told The Inquirer. “They’re upset when they see it get dismantled. It makes you feel like your neighborhood is disappearing.”

He was a preservation prodigy and worked summers at the Cambridge Historical Commission in Massachusetts as a teenager. His mother had roots in Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr, and they spent hours together exploring dusty abandoned buildings when he visited family as a youth.

» READ MORE: Professor Wunsch: It's not too late to reverse trend of razing parts of city's history

In the 1990s, he worked at Eastern State Penitentiary and the Philadelphia Zoo on projects for the National Park Service’s Historic American Buildings Survey. As manager of a project in 1998 that documented the history and function of a Peco plant in Chester, his team sent cutaway diagrams and three-dimensional drawings to the Library of Congress in Washington so visitors could see “how the architecture of the building was related to its engineering,” he said.

He got so involved with some restoration projects that he chipped in to patch a roof or nail back a hanging board. A colleague called those jobs his “guerrilla repair projects.”

He joined Penn’s Department of Architectural History as a visiting assistant professor in 2008, lectured for the graduate program on historic preservation at the School of Design, and later became an associate professor for the graduate program. “He was incredibly rigorous but accessible,” said his wife, Jillian Galle. “He knew what it was to be a student.”

Penn colleague Kecia Fong said: “Aaron understood the integral relationship of buildings, history, and community vibrancy. … His thumbprint is all over this city.”

Professor Wunsch sent letters to the editor of The Inquirer about preservation issues and wrote dozens of papers and articles for Hidden City Daily and other publications. His book, Palazzos of Power: Central Stations of the Philadelphia Electric Company, 1900-1930, was published in 2016, and his extensive research on historic Philadelphia cemeteries is due to be published later.

He won awards, including in 2023 from the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects for “significant contribution to the preservation of Philadelphia’s built environment.” He also consulted, served on boards, earned grants, ran seminars and conferences, and served fellowships at Penn, Swarthmore College, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and other places.

Longtime friend and colleague Hal Sharp noted Mr. Wunsch’s “universal values of preservation and public education” and praised his “passion, dedication, and pointed wit.”

Aaron Vickers Wunsch was born Dec. 22, 1970, in Cambridge, Mass. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Haverford College in 1992, master’s degree in architectural history and certificate in historic preservation at the University of Virginia in 1996, and doctorate in architectural history at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2009.

» READ MORE: Hidden City: Celebrating Aaron Wunsch, Champion of Historic Preservation

He met Jillian Galle in 1996, and they married in 2002, and had a son, Elias. They lived in Washington, Charlottesville, Va., and Philadelphia.

Mr. Wunsch liked to read books with his son, and they explored streams and ravines, and poked around old structures wherever they went. He had two cats and could assemble a bicycle from scratch. He collected books, maps, and lithographs, and dived into Dumpsters for discarded treasures.

He enjoyed music, studied Quakerism for years, and joined the Germantown Monthly Meeting in 2022. “For him, nothing was lost as long as it was given the love and attention it deserved,” said his brother, Oliver, “and he proved the point through the care that he put into the world.”

In addition to his wife, son, and brother, Mr. Wunsch is survived by his parents and other relatives.

Services are to be held later.

Donations in his name may be made to the Keeping Society of Philadelphia, c/o Culture Works Greater Philadelphia, 1315 Walnut St., Suite 320, Philadelphia, Pa. 19107; the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104; and the Natural Resources Defense Council, 40 W. 20th St., 11th floor, New York, N.Y. 10011.