News and Announcements

Dean Mark Wigley of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation is pleased to announce that effective July 1, Andrew S. Dolkart will serve as the Director of the Historic Preservation Program.

Andrew is a graduate of the Historic Preservation Program, and has been teaching in various capacities in the program for ten years. He has made a name for himself as an architectural historian and activist preservation practitioner in New York City. He has been a full-time member of the faculty of GSAPP since 2002 as the James Marston Fitch Associate Professor of Historic Preservation. He had previously taught as an adjunct in the Historic Preservation Program and the New York/Paris Program. Andrew will bring fresh professional ideas to the program and the field, and I am enthusiastic about working with him as Columbia's pioneering Historic Preservation Program moves into the future.

GSAPP welcomes Andrew to the directorship, and bids a fond farewell to outgoing director Paul S. Byard. Paul will continue as an adjunct professor, and will be spending the fall working on a new book.

Andrew can be reached at asd3@columbia.edu.

Historic Preservation Professor Jorge Otero-Pailos and three students - Lizzie Olson, Carlos Huber, and Patrick Ciccione - will be participating in the MANIFESTA INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART BIENNIAL in Bolzano, Italy this summer. Manifesta takes place in varying locations across Europe every two years to showcase regional art and culture, and to provide a forum for exchange of ideas about the role of the arts. The site of MANIFESTA 7 is a former factory building; the "work" of the Columbia Historic Preservation students and faculty will be to present conservation of the exhibit hall as a work -in-progress during the exhibit, and to provoke thoughtful discussion on the role and value of architecture conservation.

February 26: Come hear the latest results of the Tarim Documentation Project in Yemen...

Join Lacey Bubnash, Negin Maleki, Ali Rajpur, and Will Raynolds as they discuss their winter break spent documenting mud-brick mansions in the Hadramaut valley, a project led by Columbia HP grads Pamela Jerome and James Conlon. There will be mind-boggling photos! There will be mostly-lucid anecdotes! There will be strong refreshments!

When: 6pm Tuesday, Feb. 26
Where: the VMC lounge (826 Schermerhorn)
Hope to see you there!

Mersedah Jorjani (Historic Preservation, class of 2007) is presenting a paper based on her Master's Thesis at a conference in London, being held at the British Museum the weekend of February 21-23, 2008.

Mersedah's thesis explored materials for repair of marble in architectural applications, so it should be no surprise to see her presenting at a conference titled "Holding It All Together: Ancient and Modern Approaches to Joining, Repair and Consolidation". She will also give the paper at the American Institute of Conservation's upcoming conference in Denver.

Françoise Bollack, who has taught in HP Studio I and Studio II for over 14 years, has received a Graham Foundation grant to support a research project on the confluence of new and old architectural work…. ….This independent research project will look at architectural works, built in the past 10 years, that incorporate old buildings into new "assemblages" and represent new directions. Old Buildings – New Forms examines such architectural projects not as unfortunate hybrids but as provocative works of modern architecture made possible by contemporary ideas of sustainability, by new attitudes to buildings as transmitters of cultural and architectural meanings and by 20th century artistic developments, such as Conceptual Art.

Françoise is the principal of Françoise Bollack Architects, here in New York.

e-mail: fb@francoisebollackarchitects.com
web site: http://www.francoisebollackarchitects.com