Dear Columbia Preservation Community,

It is a pleasure to share with you the achievements of the historic preservation program during the Fall semester of 2022.

This was an exciting semester for all of us, as we experienced the return to what felt like “normal” academic life. It was wonderful to be able to host the first indoor, unmasked welcome back reception since 2019, to share a bite to eat, and to see everyone’s smiling faces.

After the pandemic’s disruptions, we are slowly re-learning what it means to be part of an academic community. What sustains our academic community is not only the rigorous work that happens in the classroom, but also the informal sharing of knowledge, relationship building and friendships that happen outside of class. This social life does not, and indeed cannot take place online. The years of online learning took a toll on our sense of community because it eroded the habits of working in studio, showing up for events and attending lectures where we might serendipitously meet each other and encounter new ideas. So it was particularly thrilling to see us getting back to inhabiting our spaces of learning: from the studio to the lab, the classroom to Avery Library, and the campus to the city.

In addition to in-person teaching, we were able to resume travel, both locally in the form of field trips that define Studio 1 and most of our courses, as well as nationally and internationally as part of the cross-cultural pedagogy that defines the second-year studio 3. Prof. Michiels led inspiring field trips in their classes to heritage sites to teach about building technology, and Prof. Pieper led eye-opening visits on the hunt for metals buildings, parks and manufacturing plants.

I was particularly impressed with the work the students presented in the context of studios. The projects in Studio 1, co-taught by Prof. Dolkart, Prof. Reggev and Prof. Jaramillo, demonstrated not only excellent archival and historical research skills, but also incredibly creative thinking about the consequences of that research and how it might challenge us to think critically about how preservation could be done differently in the future. The joint HP-UP Studio 3, co-taught by Prof. Avrami and Prof. Dublin, traveled to Alabama. Their collective student work illuminates the ways in which preservation can advance more socially equitable engagements between the film industry, tourism, historic sites, and the communities they serve. The joint HP-Arch Studio 3, co-taught by Prof. Rakatansky and myself, traveled to Venice as part of a multi-year collaboration with the Cini Foundation to research design solutions to adapt heritage sites to climate change.

The lifting of travel restrictions also allowed us to welcome faculty to teach new courses, such as Prof. Balaban’s new Machine Learning for Preservation course. This is part of our ongoing curricular effort to introduce students to the cutting edge of preservation technology. This effort goes hand in hand with exploring the aesthetic and experiential effects of new technologies on heritage, a focus of the new course “Visualization Techniques for Preservation” co-taught by Prof. Jauregui and Prof. Ramos. We were also able to restart in person lectures, and to welcome distinguished speakers from Barcelona, Berlin, Montreal, Philadelphia, Rome and Santiago de Chile back to campus for our Preservation Lecture series. A highlight of the series was the event “On Public Monuments” which brought together leading artists and policy makers from Chile to reflect on the ways artists are helping to rethink heritage in the context of massive social protests in that country. These events gave students privileged access to some of the world’s leading preservationists, and I was so happy to see many of you take advantage of these opportunities.

Another highlight of the semester was our students’ participation at the APT conference in Detroit, where they won the APT Bridge Competition. Prof. Michiel’s leadership in this yearly competition is unmatched, as he has managed to inspire two consecutive cohorts of students to earn the laurels of victory. The commitment and dedication of Columbia students was the talk of the APT conference, and something we are all proud of. At APT, Winnie Michi won the “Most Promising Preservationist Award,” a much deserved recognition. Winnie is an over-achiever who also gave birth to Carlitos while working on her thesis and serving as a TA. Not all is good news, however. As you all probably know by now, Winnie was recently diagnosed with cancer. She has asked me to share this news with you, and told me how much it is helping her to feel supported, cared for and loved by our preservation community. I want to thank each of you for the warmth and support you are giving Winnie during this trying time.

Many other students also received important awards and recognitions this semester, all of which you will find below.

Out of the many initiatives underway in the program, I want to lift up the video series “One Professor, One Material” being produced in the Preservation Technology Lab. I want to thank the many faculty members that have participated in this multi-year project this semester, as well as Mika Tal, and the Lab’s student technicians Dana Lieber and Elaf Alsibyani. I invite you all to view some of these videos here.

Some important research in the program is underway but not yet visible. Second year students were hard at work this semester developing their theses under the expert guidance of Prof. Bentel and Prof. McEnaney. Many students are traveling over winter break to archives and historic sites to gather information and necessary documentation. Their patient work will be a highlight of the Spring semester, and we can all look forward to seeing it soon.

In the meantime, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate our students, faculty and staff for their remarkable accomplishments.

Sincerely,
Jorge Otero-Pailos

The M.S. HP program welcomed the first year students:

Andres Santana-Miranda, Blanca Balbuena, Brooke Marinovich, Cassidy Kraft, Charlotte Boulanger, Daniela Martinez, Di Zhu, Dingyi Zhang, Drew Citron, Eleanor Phetteplace, Esteban Cardona-Alberty, Esther Wagner, Gray Danforth, Guy Marie Wroy, Jieli Zhao, Madeline Hagan, Naomi Dressler, Pitchaya Kointarangkul, Roberto Villasante, Sophia Haynes, Stephanie Snell, Weijie Sun, Xiao Rui An, Yaozhi Liu, Yuan Chen


…and welcomed back returning students:

Adam Brodheim, Clara Yip, Damiana Yousef, Dana Lieber, Elaf Alsibyani, Emily Conkiln, Hongye Wang, Kemuning Adiputri, Kerrian France, Michelle Leach, Mimi Vaughan, Nina Nahitchevansky, Schuyler Daniel, Shannon Trono, Shivani Rajwade, Shuya Zhao, Wenjing Xue, Winnie Grace Michi Trujillo, Xiyu Li, Yinjie Tian, Andrew Cronson (Dual Degree), Chris Kumaradjaja (Dual Degree), Isabella Libassi (Dual Degree), Jacqueline Danielyan (Dual Degree), Jerry Schmit (Dual Degree)


PhD students:

The PhD in Preservation welcomed Robert Edwards as a first year student. He joins Anna Gasha and Shuyi Yin in the PhD cohort.

Robert Edwards:
Robert is a historian and preservationist whose work focuses on the relationship between architectural and automotive design, and race. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural and Historical Studies, a Master’s degree in Architectural History, a Certificate in Historic Preservation, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Historic Preservation at Columbia University. Robert is also a Scholar-in-Residence at Voices Underground, an organization that focuses on racial healing, honest storytelling, and creative memorialization.

Prof. Andre Jauregui and Prof. Halley Ramos joined the faculty. They co-taught the class “Visualization Techniques for Architectural Preservation”

André Paul Jauregui is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP. A preservationist and trained architect, he co-founded Special Operations Executives (S.O.E.), a preservation studio with a mission to advance the field of historic preservation through the innovative application of emerging technologies. He previously served as laboratory manager of the Preservation Technology Lab (GSAPP) and as a Fabrication Fellow at the New Museum’s experimental incubator space New Inc. His work focuses on the practical applications of high-resolution facsimile technologies for the documentation, creation, and investigation of cultural heritage.

Halley Ramos is the Co-Founder of SOE a historic preservation studio focused on developing and testing emerging technologies for preserving historic buildings and artifacts. She develops augmented/virtual reality applications, 3D scanning and modeling methods, and implements computer-based fabrication techniques for restoration and rehabilitation projects.

Prof. Özgün Balaban taught the masterclass “Machine Learning For Preservation”

Özgün Balaban is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP and a postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. He is a computational design researcher and an electrical engineer. He received his Ph.D. from the Architecture and Sustainable Design Pillar at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in 2019, with the dissertation titled “Understanding Urban Leisure Walking Behaviour: Correlations Between Neighbourhood Features and Fitness Tracking Data”.

In November, a group of our HP students and one MArch student, led by Prof. Tim Michiels, defended our title as reigning champions of the APT PETC competition. This year students recorded and analyzed a historic timber bridge, built a new timber truss bridge and load tested it at the conference in Detroit. Students reclaimed a salvaged old-growth white pine wood joist from a NYC row house and reworked it into a timber truss.

Big congratulations and recognition of the team’s creativity, resourcefulness, and tenacity! The team worked tirelessly in the Preservation Technology Lab for months to perfect their design.

Once at the competition venue in Detroit the GSAPP team could be seen working late into the night building their bridge design.

This is the second year in a row that Columbia GSAPP wins this national competition. The trophy will return to the Preservation Technology Lab where it will be proudly displayed.

Adam Oscar Brodheim - MSHP ‘23
Elaf Alsibyani - MSHP '23
Eleanor Phetteplace - MSHP '24
EunJin Shin - M.Arch
Jerry Schmit - dual MSHP and M.Arch
Michelle Leach - MSHP '23
Winnie Michi Trujillo - MSHP ‘23
Prof. Tim Michiels - faculty advisor

Congratulations to second year student, Winnie Michi Trujillo for being awarded the “Most Promising Preservationist Award” at APT 2022

Congratulations to second year student, Schuyler Daniel for being awarded the Fitch Prize!

Paper Summary:

“As preservationists, we can not only be concerned with the preservation of a material in and of itself. In considering the intervention toward a material, we must also understand the ways in which it is tethered to adjacent social, material, industrial, or cultural histories. In doing so, we may find that each material is also accompanied by a complex history of global exchange, innovation, social, political, and/ or environmental impact. In the case of tungsten, its application across industries positions it as both protagonist and antagonist in its social and material interrelationships. Moreover, the control of the refinement process, access to its mineral deposits, and ability to manipulate its qualities contributed to new perspectives on the autonomy of the “indoors,” the strength of an empire or army, and the ability to build taller, faster, bigger, and with more impressive presence at all hours of the day and night. Tungsten demonstrates the scales at which a single material may ultimately impact the built environment and historical record, becoming both time piece and catalyst for future innovation simultaneously. Ultimately, Tungsten, among other modern materials, positions itself uniquely in the present as a material that, like preservation, binds the complex relationships between past and future.”

Amanda Trienens

Adjunct Professor Amanda Trienens presented “Concrete Traffic: a Fluxus Relic’s Journey” at APT Detroit.

Andrew Dolkart

This semester, Professor Andrew Dolkart gave a lecture at the Neue Galerie entitled “1048 Fifth Avenue: from Mansion to Museum”, as well as presented “The Philadelphia Row House Reborn” at the “Rowhouse City: History and Adaptation in Philadelphia” conference held at the University of Pennsylvania.

The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, a nonprofit Prof. Dolkart co-founded and co-directs, won the prestigious Award for Organizational Excellence from the National Trust in recognition of its “superlative and continued achievement in historic preservation.” The Project also won a grant from the National Parks Service.

Click here to view the two page spread in the New York Times in which Prof. Dolkart is interviewed about the LGBT history of Greenwich Village.

Bilge Kose

Adjunct Assistant Professor Dr. Bilge Kose presented "A Story Map of Diverse History and Complex Data” at the Politecnico Di Torino in Italy. Prof. Kose shared the process of creating the story map “Preserving Significant Places of Black History” by LPC.

Carol Clark

George McAneny (1869-1953) was one of New York City’s towering civic figures during the first half of the twentieth century. In 1911, McAneny played a leading role in the movement to create a grand Civic Center, including Foley Square and the New York County Courthouse, and secured funding to restore City Hall. New York needed a regulated approach to urban planning, and from 1910-1916, McAneny spearheaded the movement to develop and enact New York City’s Zoning Resolution, America’s first municipal zoning code. From his post as Chairman of the Board of the 1939 World’s Fair, McAneny organized a Federal Hall preservation campaign to coincide with the 150th anniversary of George Washington taking his oath of office as President at that site. Perhaps McAneny’s most well known public battle was against Robert Moses and his plan to build a massive bridge from the Battery in Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn. McAneny galvanized friends from New York and the White House to stop the bridge and arrange to build a tunnel instead. When Moses then moved, perhaps in retaliation, to demolish a historic fort from the War of 1812 called Castle Clinton, McAneny, his fellow preservationists, multiple organizations and the media dealt Moses a second blow. On July 18, 1950, at a testimonial dinner for McAneny, the National Park Service announced Castle Clinton as a national historic site, thus ending a decade-long battle.

A forthcoming book to be published by Fordham University Press will include ten chapters written by authors who will describe different stages of McAneny’s career. Prof. Clark’s focus is on the period from 1942-53 when McAneny served as President of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society and worked with other leaders to establish the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Erica Avrami

Assistant Professor Erica Avrami spoke at the Save Harlem Now! Conference at the Ford Foundation about three years of social justice-oriented Studio II work in the Harlem/Morningside Heights/Manhattanville neighborhood. Prof. Avrami also spoke as the keynote speaker at the 2022 New Jersey History + Historic Preservation Conference: "Reckoning and Reimagining: Justice Imperatives in Preservation Policy”. This coming year, Prof. Avrami will deliver the keynote at the Taliesin Colloquium 2023: The Evolution of Preservation Standards and Guidelines

Francoise Bollack

Adjunct Associate Professor Bollack will be releasing a new book this coming year. The book traces the history of 1500 years of architectural transformations. Architectural histories typically focus on “the new”, this book instead focuses on architectural works, from the Middle Ages to the present, which transform existing buildings, or urban contexts and, by doing so, build a way forward, through adaptations, additions and visual shifts sometimes modest, sometimes revolutionary. Prof. Bollack is interested in the formal inventions born of these adaptation and additions – as a survival strategy and as a strategy of artistic development. The book will be published by the Royal Institute of British Architects, RIBA Publishing, in 2023.

Heather Hartshorn

Adjunct Assistant Professor Hartshorn co-authored a paper for ASTM International entitled “The Broader Use of ASTM C1324 as a Framework for Historical Mortar Analysis”, which discusses modifying standard test methods for modern mortars to address the more complex array of materials and mixes found in historical masonry.

The paper was presented at the ASTM Masonry Symposium in June 2022, and the selected technical paper will be published in a forthcoming STP volume to be published in January.

Halley Ramos & André Jauregui

SOE recently completed a project with the International Committee of the Red Cross to train teams in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine to document damaged historic sites in urban conflict zones using 3D scanning. An upcoming ICRC exhibition and virtual experience will feature their 3D models. During the Summer of 2022 Prof. Jauregui and Prof. Ramos completed a 3D scanning project at the Tenement Museum where they documented the 97 Orchard Street building before it was temporarily closed to the public. They are continuing their work with the Museum on virtual programming and exhibit design. They recently also completed a 3D scanning/documentation project in Gettysburg, VA in collaboration with the American Battlefield Trust.

Jorge Otero-Pailos

Director and Professor Otero-Pailos contributed a long-term installation at the American Academy in Rome following his residency there last Spring. His works Distributed Monuments (American Academy in Rome) were exhibited in Abu Dhabi.

As well, Professor Otero-Pailos’ work Ethics of Dust (Alumix) was the subject of an exhibition at the Museion in Bolzano, Italy. A collection of essays by leading Czech intellectuals in response to Professor Otero-Pailos’s experimental preservation artworks and ideas was published as a book titled “Living Monument”.

Professor Otero-Pailos was honored to deliver keynote addresses for the European Capital of Culture closing conference in Kaunas, the Royal Danish Academy’s “Built Action: Architecture and the Time of Making” conference, and Pratt University’s “Interior Provocations” symposium. His examination of the role that the experimental preservation of monuments is having on the social, political and environmental transitions taking place around the world appeared in the book Sobre Monumentos Públicos alongside co-authors Michele Bogart, Cecilia Vicuña, Fernando Pérez Oyarzun, Pilar Quinteros, Luis Montes, Andrés Durán and Emilio De la Cerda (you can watch the US release panel discussion here.

His book Fragmentos De-escritos / Limpieza Ritual [De-scribed Fragments / Ritual Cleaning] was published by ARQ Editions. This semester also saw the release of his long awaited Historic Preservation Theory: An Anthology, Readings from the 18th to the 21st Century.

Kyle Normandin

Adjunct Associate Professor Kyle Normandin was a session Chair at APT Detroit, and has been formally promoted to Principal at Wiss Janney Elstner Associates Inc (WJE). The announcement was formally made in early December and is now official.

In addition, Prof. Normandin was informed by the American Institute of Conservation that he was elected to Fellow of AIC. He considers this quite an honor to be acknowledged in both capacities.

Liz McEnaney

Adjunct Assistant Professor Liz McEnaney and Naomi Hersson-Ringskog (M.S. UP ’09) are the recipients of a 2022 NYSCA Architecture + Design Independent Projects Grant for “Look! Mira! Building Design Literacy in Newburgh, NY”. This spring they are launching the NEA-supported “Building Shells: Building Community” project that explores how art and design can be used to galvanize interest and participation in historic preservation. The pilot project designed by architect Joshua Jow will be installed at a vacant building shell in Newburgh. Liz and Naomi recently presented their work on preservation and neighborhood stabilization at the 2022 NYS Statewide Preservation Conference.

Norman Weiss

In mid-January Adjunct Professor Weiss will be attending World of Concrete 2023 (WOC), in Las Vegas, in coordination with representatives of a European chemical company.

In early February, Prof. Weiss will be speaking in two days of technical presentations on Zoom, for staff members of the General Services Administration (GSA) based throughout the country. The sessions are on the conservation of concrete buildings, and are co-sponsored by the Association for Preservation Technology. Prof. Weiss’s presentation is on the historical development of paints and water-repellents for concrete.

Paul Bentel

Adjunct Professor Bentel, partner of Bentel & Bentel, designed The Webb Institute Couch Academic Center, a 30000 sf classroom and laboratory building. This project received the Award for Project Excellence in Historic Preservation from Preservation Long Island, as well as the Award for Outstanding Design of a Post-Secondary School Project from American School and University Magazine. The building is a sensitive addition to the campus and to Stephenson Taylor Hall, the former “Braes”, residence of Herbert L. Pratt located on the North Shore of Long Island, designed by James Brite and completed in 1912. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In October 2022, Bentel & Bentel Architects/Planners received the “Legacy Award” from New York Institute of Technology in recognition of the firm’s contribution to the physical and urban environment of the region as well as the principals’ continued involvement in architecture education over its 60 years of service.

In 2023, Bentel & Bentel will issue its second book, Collaborations: Life + Work (Images Publishing, 2023), a reflection on the firms’ work and the lives of its principals across two generations, three families and 60 years. The book combines a look back at many of its projects and forward to upcoming work of a third generation as well as related activities in sculpture, painting, furniture design, architectural history and education. The book is edited by John Morris Dixon.

Richard Pieper

Adjunct Associate Professor Pieper wrote an article entitled “The Stylistic Evolution of Historic Cast Stone” in the upcoming “materials” issue of the APT Bulletin. Prof. Pieper as well recorded a video for our Preservation Technology Lab’s new video series “One Professor, One Material” soon to be released on our GSAPP YouTube channel.

Theodore Prudon

Adjunct Professor Prudon Elevated to the Order of Orange Nassau by the King Willem Alexander with the title of Knight. He also received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Connecticut Foundation for Architecture.

This semester, Prof. Prudon published an article titled “Putting Public Back into the Public” in the design magazine OZ published by Kansas State University and a chapter in a book published by Brill Scientific and edited by Jean Louis Cohen.

Prudon & Partners completed the conservation management plan for North Christian Church in Columbus Indiana designed by Eero Saarinen, as well as started construction on the first phase of the restoration of the First Presbyterian Church in Stamford CT designed by Wallace Harrison dealing with the early precast and the replacement of the dalle de verre panels as designed by French artist Gabriel Loire.

Tim Michiels

Prof Tim Michiels co-led and organized a workshop on Guastavino vault construction at APT Detroit. Participants took a deep dive into the creative engineering means and methods of Guastavino tile structures with the opportunity to build a self-supporting vault with the same materials and construction methods that the Guastavino’s company employed.

Also at APT, Professor Michiels won the APT Oliver Torrey Fuller Award for the most outstanding article demonstrating technical excellence and innovation published in the APT Bulletin in 2022.

The paper titled “Retain, Reinforce or Reclaim: Best Practices for Structural Wood Floors”, provides life cycle analysis and quantifies the embodied carbon costs for renovation alternatives of structural wood floor buildings in New York City, such as rowhouses and tenement buildings. The paper can be found in the forthcoming issue of the bulletin.

The Preservation Technology Lab launched a new video series “One Professor, One Material”. Funded by the Mellon Foundation through ANAGPIC, this materials-focused video series focuses on the research methods that faculty employ to derive preservation knowledge from the collection of historic building materials and fragments housed in the lab.

Material Order is now LIVE

After years of work, the online catalogue of Historic Building Materials and Fragments Library in the Preservation Technology Lab is now operational. A collaboration with Harvard University and RISD, this catalogue allows researchers anywhere to access information about our collection.

Search the online catalogue here.

Preservation Technology Lab now owns two new cutting-edge microscopes: MiScope Megapixel MP3 and ZEISS Stemi 508

MiScope Megapixel MP3 is a very reliable microscope since it is a portable digital lab-quality microscope with over 3 megapixels, a resolution of less than 1.7 microns, and 10x-180x magnification. It can be used by scientists, art conservators, educators, manufacturers, entomologists, and others. It is a very small microscope and easy to use and carry to sites. Connect to the USB 3.0 port of your desktop, laptop, or mobile device to retrieve still pictures or movies. The sample can be annotated, measured, or drawn on using the microscope software.

ZEISS Stemi 508 is a stereo microscope for everyday lab work and heavy workloads. The apochromatic optics with 8:1 zoom can bring the smallest details and tiny structures with a magnification up to 50x, with interchangeable optics even up to 250x. It is sharp in focus and provides outstanding image contrast and color accuracy. In addition, the user-friendly microscope, with its high-quality optics, allows quick and easy documentation at resolutions.

The Preservation Technology Lab began accepting donations of “hand held” size materials and fragments. The first donations, a terracotta lion head from the recently reconstructed Berlin Schloss, and a section of the hand-painted canvas that covered the scaffolding during construction, is on its way to the Lab. Thank you to Architect Thomas Albrecht!

The Preservation Technology Lab is thrilled to expand its sample material collections with recent donations from Françoise Bollack.

Click here to check out the Preservation Technologies newly uploaded 3d scans!

These buildings were scanned using our Faro scanner and processed using the Preservation Technology Lab’s powerful computers.

The Studio II report from this past Spring semester was officially published in September. Led by Erica Avrami and Morgan O'Hara used Harlem as a lens of interrogation. The studio explored the historic perspective of environmental racism and environmental justice in NYC through place-focused research, to better understand the land use-related dimensions of these histories, how injustice is embedded and repeated in built environments and policies over time, and how preservation’s methods of inquiry can be brought to bear on this legacy and climate justice-oriented planning.

TA’s: Anna Gasha & Ziming Wang

Future Anterior approaches historic preservation from a position of critical inquiry, rigorous scholarship, and theoretical analysis. The journal is an important international forum for the critical examination of historic preservation, spurring challenges of its assumptions, goals, methods, and results.

Volume 18, Issue 1 Retrofit–Energy Crises & Climate Exigencies from Preservation’s Perspective Guest Editors: Fallon Aidoo and Daniel A. Barber

For this issue of Future Anterior, we welcomed papers that examined historical or contemporary retrofitting practices and theories in relation to climate crises and energy challenges. Although “‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” served as a catchy public education tool for American environmental activists and American practitioners in the 1990s, adaptation of the built environment to the climate has deeper, broader roots than recent efforts to reduce new construction, reuse existing building stock, and/or recycle building materials. Retrofit, a theory of preservation practiced globally in accordance with diverse disciplines, politics, cultures and resources, is a crucial aspect of the world’s low carbon past and future.

We sought papers that fell into three categories - Retrofit’s Roots, How “Other” Retrofits Measure Up, and Retrofitting Conservation. We were interested not only in research-based texts appropriate for academic peer review in multiple disciplines (historic preservation, conservation, architecture, landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, real estate development, community/economic development), but also project, policy, and program evaluations appropriate for peer review by practitioners in these fields.

To read the volume, click here.

Profs. Andrew Dolkart, Kate Reggev & Aura María Jaramillo

Teaching Assistants: Schuyler Daniel & Hongye Wang

Studio I is the central focus of the first semester of the Historic Preservation program, and a foundational course within the program. It is simultaneously broad in reach and narrow in focus. Studio I both complements and benefits from other first semester coursework; it is the space for engaging overarching historical and contemporary issues in preservation.The goal for Studio I is to equip students with skills, techniques, and critical thinking so that each student can gain the ability to exercise judgment as to the historical significance of a building or site.

Studio I will engage students in questions of preservation and its role in the context of the built environment and its larger cultural manifestations.The course will focus on developing skills primarily using NewYork City as our classroom.This year, we will spend much of the semester studying housing, especially socially-progressive housing throughout NewYork City.The skills learned by using NewYork City-specific resources will be applicable wherever you are working or undertaking research and analysis.The Studio will encourage students to think about existing preservation tools, work with a variety of methods for exploring the field, and develop the ability to assess what has been learned in order to come to a conclusion about significance.The Studio will offer models for approaching preservation questions and for considering the diverse roles of the preservationist in contemporary practice.We do this through collective study as well as through individual student study of historic resources.

Profs. Erica Avrami and Jenna Dublin
Case study area: Alabama, US

Teaching Assistant: Andrew Cronson

The Joint Historic Preservation & Urban Planning Studio for Fall 2022 engaged an exploration of the policies and best practices in place surrounding the use of heritage places like historic buildings, streetscapes, settlements, and cultural landscapes in on-location film production. The studio sought to develop new approaches to encourage positive changes towards preserving the integrity and environmental qualities of historic places, minimize risk while equitably benefiting communities, and respecting the related socio-spatial relationships of place. The studio offered students an opportunity to reflect on global case studies related to the challenges and benefits of heritage filming. Students later applied their findings in a visit to Alabama in cooperation with the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium to examine representation for sites related to the American civil rights movement.

Prof. Mark Rakatansky and Prof. Jorge Otero-Pailos
Study area: San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

Enacting our Environmental Entanglements: Climate Adaptation of Venice’s Green Theater

This studio engages with the climatic and cultural entanglements of Venice, Italy through the adaptive redesign of the Green Theater (Teatro Verde) on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

In collaboration with students from the Historic Preservation Program and the GSAPP Preservation Technology Lab, the studio proposed experimental designs for climate mitigation, including new retractable canopy for stage and seating, accessible emergency evacuation circulation, and the integration of technologies for on-site production of renewable energy. At the same time, changes in artistic climates also necessitate new facilities for contemporary and future forms of multimedia and transmedial performances, and involved the design of a visitor center (reception, ticketing, bar, caffe, gallery), back-of-house facilities for actors and crew, and new control booths and lighting systems. The course began by collectively creating an experimental preservation plan for the long-term management of the site that suggests potential areas and techniques for design intervention and addition, followed by individual project development.

This fall, many of the classes were able to return to sites and field trips that had not been possible since fall 2019…

Meritxell Inaraja Lecture

Meritxell Inaraja is an architect trained in Barcelona, with a postgraduate degree in Museography and Design. She has worked on numerous heritage rehabilitation projects. Inaraja joined us in the Preservation Technology Lab for a lecture on Thursday, September, 8th, 2022.


Stephen Snow Lecture and Workshop

Stephen Snow, Ph.D., RDT-BCT, is a drama therapist, a performance theorist and a theatre practitioner. He joined us at the Preservation Technology Lab on Friday, October 21st, 2022 for a workshop entitled “Ethnodramatherapy: Exploring Performance Ethnography in a Therapeutic Context”.

Click here for the event page.


Thomas Albrecht Lecture

Co-organized with Collins/Kaufmann Forum at the Department of Art History and Archaeology

Thomas Albrecht (b. Munich, 1960) is an architect educated at the Munich Technical University. After completing his master’s degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago under Myron Goldsmith, he began working as an architect at Hilmer and Satter in 1986, where he has been a partner since 1994. Albrecht joined us on Thursday, November, 3rd, 2022 for his lecture titled “The Reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss Reinventing the Center of a City with Modern Technology and Baroque Façades”.

Click here for the event page.


Professor Alessandra Capuano Lecture

Professor Capuano is the Director of the Department of Architecture and Projects, Sapienza Università di Roma, and is a graduate of the MS HP here at Columbia in ‘84.

Having virtually visited on Friday, November, 11th, 2022, Professor Capuano gave a lecture titled “The City of Care and the Care of the City”.

Click here for the event page.


Lynn Meskell Lecture

This lecture by Lynn Meskell, the Richard D. Green Professor of Anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, Professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, and curator in the Middle East and Asia sections at the Penn Museum was held in the Preservation Technology Lab on Friday, November, 18th, 2022. Meskell titled the lecture “Saving the World? Reflections on UNESCO’s Mid Century Mission in Conflict”.

Click here for the event page.


On Public Monuments: Contemporary Art and Social Protest in Chile

This lecture and panel discussion focused on how monuments have been at the center of Chile’s social upheaval, and instrumental in the national conversation that led to the recent Constitutional Convention. Join us to mark the US release of “Sobre Monumentos Publicos.” Five of the book’s authors will explore the recent Chilean debate surrounding public monuments.

SPEAKERS

Cecilia Vicuña is a Chilean artist, poet and filmmaker. She recently was awarded the Golden Lion at the 59th International Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

Luis Montes is an academic, an artist and a restorer of urban monuments. His recent exhibition in the National Museum of Arts of Chile explored the critical place public monuments play in Chilean society.

Emilio De la Cerda is an architect and Professor at the Universidad Católica de Santiago. He is the former Vice Minister of Heritage and President of the National Council of Monuments.

Michele Bogart is the Professor Emerita of History at Stony Brook University. She is a specialist in public art, memorials and their role in collective memory.

Jorge Otero-Pailos is an artist, architect and preservationist. He is a professor and the Director of the Historic Preservation Program at GSAPP.

Click here for the event page.

​​Congratulations to Adam Lubitz ’18 MSHP/MSUP and Katherine Taylor-Hasty ’18 MSHP: two HP 2022-2023 GSAPP Incubator Prize Recipients

Their project is titled “Black Beaches: Establishing Reparations from Belmar to Bruce’s Beach, California” and involves working with community partners in Santa Monica and Venice.

This project aims to leverage urban and architectural histories as well as community partnerships as a means through which reparations to displaced Black households and businesses can be established in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Fortunately, there is already precedent for reparations due to the recent return of beachfront property seized by Los Angeles County in 1924 to the descendants of the prior owners, Charles and Willa Bruce. While this is a major step in the right direction, there remain legal caveats to this decision, and the full extent of justified reparations to the affected Black communities has hardly been met. Since these reparations are insufficient and evolving, our project adds to the historical record which, in turn, contributes to ongoing discussion of appropriate means to redress harm done to the Black community in these beach communities. Together, this growing archive will inform a better understanding of the shared persistence of the Black communities of Santa Monica, Venice, and Bruce’s Beach.


Alumnus, Alberto Sanchez M.S.HP'16: Featured in Monocle Magazine

Journalist Ed Stoker talks about Alberto’s work to revert rural depopulation in Spain through historic preservation, which was also the topic of his master’s thesis from 2016, “Behind the Ecce Homo,” Rural Development Policy and the Effects of Depopulation on the Preservation of Spanish Heritage.

Used-native and Asociación Fuset co-founder Alberto Sánchez, ran a three-day plastering workshop. “The aim of this get-together[…] is to teach traditional building techniques. But there’s also a much larger objective. If people could appreciate the cultural heritage of buildings in Spain’s countryside – and learn how to restore them – maybe more would take a punt on buying one. In turn, they would be doing their part to halt rural population decline and even create new jobs.”

Click here to read the full article.


Alumnus James E. Churchill M.S.HP'20 presented at APT Detroit

James Churchill presented in Track 1: Pink Cadillac: The Composite Effect of Building and Industrial Design. His research on Monel metal has garnered articles in both the Journal of Metals and the Advanced Materials & Processes journal, leading to his nascent membership to the archaeometallurgical committee at ASM International. Working alongside both the National Park Service and the technical committee at APT International, he has given AIA-accredited presentations on architectural materials and has recently worked on the restoration of The Athenaeum of Philadelphia and Lucy the Elephant in Margate, NJ.

His presentation, entitled: Technology and Vision in the Modernist Age – Wirt C. Rowland and the Union Trust (now Guardian) Building speaks to how “Detroit not only served as an epicenter of the automobile industry, but its citizens also championed industrial design and its intersection with architecture from the early 1920s until the early 1970s. Designers of all professions experimented with new materials and processes, such as concrete mixes, ceramics, plastics, metal alloys, and paints. This track explores the preservation, adaptation, interpretation, and enhancement of “modern” materials (both the historic Modern Movement and the new century’s design advancements) used at all scales around the world.”


Emily Kahn M.S.HP ‘21: The new President of Preservation Alumni

Emily Kahn is a 2021 graduate of Columbia’s Master’s program in Historic Preservation and joined the PA board that same year. While at Columbia, she wrote two successful National Register nominations and was awarded PA’s 2020 Fitch Prize. She also won an Outstanding Thesis Award for her research entitled “Beyond Memorialization: Washington Heights as Case Study for Commemorating Holocaust Refugees.” Prior to Columbia, she received a Bachelor’s in History with a minor in Museum Studies from Colgate University and attended the Preservation Institute of Nantucket. Emily has a background in non-profit advocacy as well as storytelling, museum interpretation, archival research, fundraising, and archaeology. She currently is based in New York City and works at the National Trust for Historic Preservation as the Program Coordinator of the National Fund for Sacred Places.


Gwen Stricker M.S.HP'20: Joined the Board of Directors for the Calumet Heritage Partnership

The Calumet Heritage Partnership is a diverse bi-state partnership of environmental organizations, historical societies, arts organizations, libraries, educational institutions, government agencies, businesses, and individuals working together across political and cultural boundaries in the Calumet Region of Illinois and Indiana.