A Legacy of Mies and King

UPDATE: Tonight’s Byard lecture by Francine Houben will be rescheduled for later this Spring, date TBD. This evening, her film A Legacy of Mies and King will be screened in Wood Auditorium at 6:30.

Question and Answer session hosted by Sebastiaan Kaal, Associate Architect, Mecanoo and project architect for the Martin Luther Jr. Memorial Library.

The film deals with the modernization of Washington DC’s central library, which is the only public library designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and named for Martin Luther King, Jr.

The film follows architect Francine Houben as she investigates the past and present in order to design a world-class library of the future. Francine delves into the archives, meets contemporaries of Mies and King, speaks to current visitors of the library, and participates in a Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Peace Walk. During her quest, both the building’s namesake and the original architect look over her shoulder critically.

Written, filmed and directed by Nienke Andersson, the documentary was funded by The Society of Arts of The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in collaboration with Mecanoo architecten. Music and sound engineering was done by KH music.

The film’s run time is one hour.

Organized by Columbia GSAPP’s Historic Preservation Program.