The 2024 Fitch Colloquium, “Repairing Architecture Schools,” is a collaboration between the GSAPP Historic Preservation Program and Places Journal. Inspired by the eponymous article on Places, this year’s colloquium will explore how to rebalance architecture curricula to respond to the cascading impacts of climate change. Can we challenge the longstanding pedagogical ideal that the highest service an architect can render society is to design for new construction?

Speakers include Erica Avrami, Nick Axel, Daniel Barber, Deborah Berke, Shumi Bose, Mario Gooden, Olaf Grawert, Josephine Minutillo, Andrea Roberts, and Mireille Roddier.

Preserving the atmosphere is widely considered today as a civilizational imperative, and the central pillar in humanity’s ability to prevent the existential threat of climate change. Yet what is meant by the terms “preservation” or “atmosphere” in this case, and the potential opened up by bringing them into mutual proximity, is seldom seriously questioned or explored. The result is that the most outdated preservation ideas are being uncritically floated as the only solutions, such as returning the atmosphere to its “original” pre-industrial condition. If the consensus in learned preservation circles is that such returns to the “original condition” of heritage are both technically impossible, deontologically questionable, and ethically undesirable, then a serious rethinking of these terms, as well as more creative and inclusive approaches to preserving the atmosphere are sorely needed.

The 2022 Fitch Colloquium critically examined how Chinese architects are engaging with preservation to imagine new forms of creativity and cultural relevance. The event was organized by the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia GSAPP in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Speakers included DONG Gong (Vector Architects), Wang Hui (URBANUS Architecture & Design), Zhang Ke (ZAO/standardarchitecture 标准营造), Xu Tiantian (DnA_Design and Architecture), Lu Wenyu (Amateur Architecture Studio), PEI Weiyi Chloe (Tsinghua Heritage Institute for Digitization), Philip F. Yuan (CAUP Tongii University, Archi-union Architects).

Discussions were moderated by Martino Stierli and Jorge Otero-Pailos.

The 2021 Fitch Colloquium The Art of Preservation: Engaging and Amplifying Underrepresented Heritage, co-sponsored by the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University’s GSAPP and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, explored this intersection of art and preservation. The symposium convened BIPOC artists who integrate heritage – and all its sociopolitical implications today – into their works.

Speakers included Ifa Bayeza, Nona Faustine, Joel Garcia, David Hartt, Monèt Noelle Marshall, Karyn Olivier, Ada Pinkston, Paul Rucker, and Jenenne Whitfield.

Discussions were moderated by Marisa Brown, Justin Garrett Moore, and Brent Leggs.

Can digital technologies for capturing and reproducing reality deepen our understanding and enrich our experience of built heritage? Can these new technologies not only improve the daily practice of preservation but effectively inform a new paradigm of cultural heritage? The 2019 Fitch Colloquium explored the future of Historic Preservation through the lens of experimental approaches to digital documentation, analysis, interpretation, archiving, sharing, visualization and re-materialization of data. The symposium will examine cutting-edge processes involving the development and application of digital tools to projects of all scales, including high-resolution 3D scanning, gaming, computer-based visual pattern recognition, blockchain encryption, behavioral geo-tracking or interactive projection mapping among others. Internationally recognized experts from a varied range of disciplines will unpack their work and speculate on the conceptual changes that might emerge in response to the current upheaval in technology.

Speakers included David Gissen, Dr. Pilar Bosch Roig, Dr. Frédéric Kaplan, Dr. Hannah Lewi, Ian Bogost, Carlos Bayod, Arnaud Baernhoft, Carlos Benaïm, Yves Ubelmann, Emily L. Spratt, Chance Coughenour, Farzin Lotfi-Jam, and Caitlin Blanchfield.

Discussion were moderated by Erica Avrami, David Benjamin, and Jorge Otero-Pailos.

The act of moving historical buildings to new locations has been part and parcel of modern preservation practice since its origins in the early 19th century when fragments of some of the great monuments of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt were relocated to Europe. Although the practice never quite stopped, 20th-century preservationists demoted it to a preservation solution of last resort. Today, various external pressures, from rising sea levels to economic pressure, are making preservationists reconsider the practice of ex-situ preservation.

As a result, a new critical engagement with preservation’s colonial history is emerging. Core concepts, such as the primacy of context, are being reconsidered. Fundamental practices such as the archiving of architectural fragments are being redefined, and new technologies are being developed. The 2017 Fitch Colloquium examines these and other emerging philosophical, social, technical and environmental questions raised by moving buildings.

Speakers included Can Bilsel, Maite Borjabad López-Pastor ‘16 MSCCCP, Mary Ellen Carroll, Mari Lending, Alexander Levi, Krister Lindstedt, Anthony Mazzo, Ryan Mendoza, Janet Parks ‘76 GSAS, Amanda Schachter '93 CC, Constance S. Silver '88 MSHP, Dean Sully, and Mabel O. Wilson '91 M.Arch.

Discussions were moderated by Erica Avrami, Jorge Otero-Pailos, and Andrew Dolkart.

Download the program schedule.

To what degree, we may ask, is preservation thinkable outside of militarization, and its prewar—war—postwar continuum? What is the range of acceptable preservation actions and non-actions in the face of today’s wars, when spectacles are made of the dynamiting of monuments, and the killing of preservationists? The 2016 Fitch Colloquium brings together some of the world’s leading experts in the spirit of dialogue and common pursuit of answers to these urgent questions.

Speakers included Tim Winter, Laurie Rush, Leila A. Amineddoleh, Lucia Allais, David Gissen, Julián Esteban-Chapapría, Zaki Aslan, Laura Kurgan, Zainab Bahrani, Nikolaus Hirsch, Mark Jarzombek, Rodney Harrison, Azra Akšamija, Clive Van Den Berg.

Amale Andraos provided the introduction and discussions were moderated by Jorge Otero-Pailos, Erica Avrami, William Raynolds, and Rosalind C. Morris.

In celebration of its 50th anniversary, GSAPP’s Historic Preservation program convened extraordinary figures to re-imagine the future of preservation. The works of Michèle Pierre Louis, Tim McClimon, Adam Lowe, John Ochsendorf, Ilaria Cavaggioni, Gunny Harboe, and Peter Mullan challenge us to rethink our assumptions about what preservation is and can do. Their unique perspectives on preservation are informed by their deep knowledge and engagement with fields as diverse as politics, finance, art, engineering, design, planning and information technology. Each speaker will explore one idea, a new and unexpected way in which preservation may engage with the urgent challenges of our time, from social inequity to climate change, from the digital revolution to the limits of government. Collectively, they offered a view of preservation’s emerging potential.