Camp & Retreat Center Architect to Present Plans

The architect who led the design team for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and designed numerous Episcopal camp and retreat centers will be the featured speaker at a special Saturday luncheon during the diocesan annual convention in February.

Kent Cooper of Washington, D.C., will unveil his plans for the diocese’s camp and retreat center that is located near Kingston. Cooper has been working with the camp and retreat center’s board of managers for more than a year.

An architect with 45 years of experience and projects such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial to his credit, Cooper now focuses his work primarily on “the design of environments for religious camps and conference centers.”

Seeing his work as a ministry, Cooper has designed the Roslyn Conference Center for the Diocese of Virginia, the Trinity Center in the Diocese of East Carolina and the Peterkin Conference Center in the Diocese of West Virginia. His leadership in the design of religious retreat centers has been cited as prototypical of an affordable residential environment in which “instant communities” can form to undertake spiritual development and training.

In an address to the tenth annual convention of Episcopal Camps and Conference Centers in January 2000, Cooper told the gathering of camp directors that religious camp and conference centers provide the kind of program activity that helps people turn inward to gain insights about their spiritual lives and to renew them.

“A week of youth camp offers the possibility of more meaningful program hours than an entire year of Sunday School. What a bargain!” he said.

The Camp and Retreat Center luncheon will be held Saturday, Feb. 9 at noon at the Radisson Hotel. The cost of the luncheon is included in the registration fee for parochial clergy and delegates to convention. Others who would like to attend must make a reservation and pay $10. For more information, contact the Diocesan House at 865-521-2900.

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