Episode #10

Jorge Otero-Pailos, director of Columbia GSAPP’s Historic Preservation Program, speaks with Francine Houben of Mecanoo. They focus on her firm’s ongoing renovation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington DC, originally designed by Mies van der Rohe.

“I felt two men on my shoulders. On the left side is Mies and on the right side is Martin Luther King, Jr. … I said Martin Luther King is more important to make the building more open, more welcoming. In a kind of very subtle way, I balanced Mies and Martin Luther King and if it was conflicting, Martin Luther King won.”
–Francine Houben on the design process of the MLK Memorial Library

Houben delivered the annual Paul S. Byard Memorial Lecture on April 17, 2017. This was the sixth annual lecture to celebrate the lasting legacy of Byard, who was the director of Historic Preservation at GSAPP from 2000 to 2008.

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