Antidotes I

Published by

Editorial and Production Team

The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture City College of New York 141 Convent Avenue New York, NY 10031

Editor in Chief:

Lesley Lokko

Editorial Associates:

Erica Wszolek Nikki Paporello

Faculty Editorial Advisors:

Denise Hoffman Brandt Elisabetta Terragni Viren Brahmbhatt Eliana Dotan

Student Editors:

Mohammed Gueye Giuliana Vaccarino Gearty Alejandra Zapata Soveranez Elene Solomnishvili Tamar Plotzker Krystian Sidorski Isabella Joseph Nicolas Losi Alicia Niebrzydowski

Video Director:

Zaheer Cassim*

Copy Editor:

Hannah Borgeson

Finance:

Camille Hall

Archivist:

Mimi Liebenberg

Social Media Publicists:

Counterspace Erica Wszolek Lesley Lokko

Photography:

Sirin Samman & Gordon Gebert

Graphic Design:

Fred Swart*

Š 2020

*South African partners

Cover image credit: Fred Swart

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Contents

Editor’s Note

Lesley Lokko

Foreword

Nicolas Losi

Hypothetic Constructs

Ali Askarinejad with Catherine Priolet, Benjamin Akhavan Jacqueline Love, Ignacio Nestor-Lopez Jeffrey Schneider, Mohammed Gueye, Olenka Sotero, Nicolas Losi & Pedro Cruz

Selected Projects

Benjamin Akhavan, Pauline Dang & Tanha Tabassum

Community Building Building Community

Elene Solomnishvili and Alejandra Zapata, editors

Introduction

Elene Solomnishvili and Alejandra Zapata

The Grid Project

Anonymous

Selected Projects

Abigail Kaage, Belma Fishta, Josmarlyn Henrriquez, Benjamin Akhavan, Genesis Baque, Gabriela Silva, Gilbert Santana, Bryan Ortega, Chaerin Kim, Karyna Yanovska & Kerry Chan

Six Degrees of Separation

Viren Brahmbhatt and Krystian Sidorski, editors

Introduction

Viren Brahmbhatt and Krystian Sidorski

Assimilation

Ahmed Helal, Benjamin Akhavan, Tatiana Voitovica, Hajar Alrifai & Nadeen Hassan

Selected Projects

Anna Lekanidis, Nikitha Menon, Olivia Skylarova, Juliia Sokolova, Krystian Sidorski, Jasmine Cato, Paola Ruiz, Ngawang Tenzin, Karyna Yanovska, Rebecca Mechanic, Tracy Orend & Alexander Young

10 Reasons

Denise Hoffman Brandt, editor

Editors Biographies Theme 1

Theme 2

Theme 3

Theme 4

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Ambition and Self-Reflection

Alicia Niebrzydowski and Tamar Plotzker, editors

Introduction

Alicia Niebrzydowski and Tamar Plotzker

Selected Projects

Liza Otto, Lorraine Colbert, Chantal Garrido, Valmira Gashi, Ahmed Helal, Anna McKeigue, Matthew Morgan, Benjamin Akhavan, Genesis Baque, Leslie Epps & Danielle Ryba

Viewpoint: The Historian Viewpoint: The Craftsman Viewpoint: The Generalist Viewpoint: The Practitioner Viewpoint: The Presidents

Marta Gutman Christian Volkmann Jacob Alspector Samantha Josaphat President Vince Boudreau, City College of New York President Lloyd Williams, The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce

The Inbetweeners

Eliana Dotan and Isabella Joseph, editors

Introduction

Eliana Dotan and Isabella Joseph

Toward an Archaeology of the Future

Jerome Haferd, Johnoy Gordon & Kari Kleinmann

Selected Projects

Martin Zanoli, Sadie Wegner, Tania Jaquez & Yoo Jin Jang

An Informal Conditioning

Mohammed Gueye, editor

Introduction

Mohammed Gueye

250 Things Every Informal Architect Should Ask

Mohammed Gueye, Julia Lu, Amanda Sarantos, Shola Owolewa, Bethany Hermann & Samantha Ong

Selected Projects

Anabelle Surya, Bhavya Desai, Luisa Janssen, Kimberly Cueto Elene Solomnishvili, Noor Ul Ain & Alejandra Zapata, Joande Hernandez Genesis Soto, Miguel Garcia & Mohammed Gueye

Catalytic Surfacing

Nicolas Losi and Giuliana Vaccarino Gearty, editors

Introduction

Nicolas Losi and Giuliana Vaccarino

Theme 5

Theme 6

Theme 7

Rujuta Naringrekar, Anna McKeigue, Abigail Stein & Jeana Fletcher 5

Image: Students at Breaking Ground event, February 2020

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Editor’s Note

The word “unprecedented” will likely go down in history as the most overused word in almost every language in the first half of 2020. In this unprecedented time, and to coincide with the end of the 2019-2020 academic year, we offer the first in this two-part publication entitled Antidotes, not as an answer or a rebuttal to the pandemic that is still unfolding across the globe, but as an acknowledgement of the fact that things cannot be the same.

As a school, we began this academic year in good spirits. The longawaited appointment of a new dean was over; the stock market was buoyant and with it, our much-valued endowment; student enrollment and anticipation were high. I arrived, as predicted, in the middle of a snowstorm, two days before Thanksgiving. As with any new job, the first few weeks passed by in a blur of new faces, new names, and a cacophony of pent-up complaints.

Working groups were quickly formed, which afforded some insights into an organization struggling to adjust after a prolonged period of interim leadership, but in retrospect, the first couple of months now seem idyllic.

Aside from the ill-timed and ill-managed attempt to consolidate the school’s many names (and more of that on p. 7[HB2]) — Spitzer, SSA, City, CUNY — my first twelve weeks were almost plain sailing.

By the beginning of March, however, the national mood began to change.

News coverage of a mystery illness that seemed to be taking hold in a city that most of us had never heard of began to step up. Italy, marginally closer to home, seemed to be shutting down, although few of us could imagine what that actually meant. And then, almost without warning, the storm was upon us. Over the course of a weekend, we were in triage mode, shutting down the school, dealing with the first confirmed diagnosis at CCNY, and sending the first large group of our students into self-quarantine. With no communications team in place and only a handful of available staff, we found ourselves scrambling to get news and accurate information out to our entire community while adjusting to fluid and often contradictory instructions from every conceivable angle. Within a week, as unbelievable as it seems, the entire faculty, staff, and students switched to remote instruction and administration. Our days were spent on Zoom, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Blackboard, Skype. We learned new tricks. We stayed indoors as the city shut down. The trickle of bad news, overwhelming statistics, and fear became a deluge. On one particularly memorable day, I reached my daily limit of 1,000 e-mails, an “achievement” I hope never to repeat. And the hits just kept coming. On March 26, I received a text message to say Michael Sorkin had died of COVID-19, and it suddenly hit home. The tributes began pouring in, as 8

well as the requests to write a few lines and to respond to journalists and his enormous circle of friends and colleagues. Unable to visit each other or Joan, his wife, Michael’s close circle of friends within the school struggled to find ways to offer the most natural form of consolation:. companionship in grief. It seemed — and still does — the hardest thing of all. We set up a condolences page on our website, and the words kept coming in. Small consolations, but consolations nonetheless. A fragile reminder for me, at least, that where I’d once said, glibly and smugly, that “there’s nothing ‘social’ about social media,” I now say otherwise.

It’s customary in most crises to praise and thank effusively, if only for morale, but, in this case, the praise is genuine. There were bumps in the road, to be sure, but the faculty, staff, and students responded to this crisis magnificently. That you did so in a time of both internal and external change, as we continue to negotiate the deep and structural curriculum changes to the school that began in December, is nothing short of remarkable. It hasn’t been plain sailing — I will be the first in line to admit it’s been hard.

Harder than I ever imagined. It’s still hard. Our graduating classes will, for the first time in a generation, graduate without an in-person ceremony.

Commencement, along with almost every other aspect of daily life as we know it, has been canceled this year. Their achievements will, however, be indelibly linked to the spirit of resilience and survival that has emerged from all corners of the globe as I write. Like any other ground-shaking event, to have graduated in 2020 is a badge of both honor and distinction. These graduates, like all our students, have borne this challenge with courage and aplomb. In spite of the hardships — and there have been many, of many different kinds — our students have kept faith with their own ambitions and dreams and have emerged the stronger, braver, and bolder for it. This publication is theirs, is by them, and is for them.

Lesley Lokko Professor and Dean The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture

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Foreword

The word “antidote” comes to us from the Greek in two parts: anti, against, and dotos, to give. Together, to give against has come to refer either generally to a remedy against an ailment (laughter against stress, for instance) or more precisely as a neutralizing agent against a toxin. These days, its remedial connotation, whether specifically or implicitly, is likely not far from many people’s minds. But in the etymology of “antidote,” we should also remember to give, for it furnishes us with a generosity that must remain vital despite our rush to instrumentalize the word.

We deploy “antidote” here cognizant of each meaning and its shortfalls in an effort to engage with, discuss, and raise questions regarding the work of a school of architecture — especially one undergoing transition and transformation such as Spitzer — and our current situation within the uncertainty and liminality of a global pandemic. In what ways can “antidote” describe these conditions, and in what ways is it inadequate? How might these inadequacies reveal deeper issues at play or suggest further work to be done?

One such issue is that of singularity. “Antidote” by itself has a tendency to flatten, ignoring complexities and reducing a plural world to one of binaries: problem and solution. The work of architecture often falls into this trap, identifying problems in order to position itself as the solution; we try to correct inefficient circulation, cities lacking in public arenas, shortages of green space, environments that are not beautiful enough. The tendency to offer homogenizing solutions for an intensely disjunctive, heterogeneous world results in the language of the intervention, an effort to disrupt rather than understand. One such antidote might be a more diverse, empathic, transdisciplinary approach to architecture, beginning with education. In this regard, the public school of architecture is essential for its mission of accessibility and inclusivity.

Similarly, to offer a single solution — a vaccine — for the pandemic is tempting but ignores the profound intricacies and interdependencies of our current systems. Certainly, many of the hardships being endured right now are the result of forces much larger than a novel virus let loose and would benefit little from a vaccine. What potentialities surface when new methods of architecture and education originate from, and intersect with, the inequities exposed and exacerbated by this pandemic, and how might they suggest or question future antidotes?

Image: Students working in studio prior to the building closure

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Across both of these examples, it is clear that modes of movement and progress cannot be represented by a univalent solution but instead by a collected many that acknowledges and accommodates the mess and multiplicity of the work to be done. Our pluralized title is an effort to recognize this imperative. Antidotes might then be read in this way: a spirited, ambitious, and imperfect attempt to capture the constellations of energy, action, and consequence that describe this world and how we in the built-environment disciplines ally ourselves with it.

Nicolas Losi Master of Architecture, Class of 2020 The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture

Image: Jacqueline Love

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Image: Pedro Cruz

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Image: The lengths (or depths) to which you go

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Faculty and Student Editors

VB Viren Brahmbhatt is an architect and urban designer based in New York City.

He is currently an adjunct associate professor at CCNY and has previously taught design studios at the GSAPP, Columbia University; Pratt Institute; and Sam Fox School, Washington University, in St. Louis. His professional work strives to achieve small but implementable change and incremental regeneration of transitory zones in global cities like New York, Mumbai, and Seoul, among others. Viren has participated in many national and international conferences and presented papers on various themes ranging from social housing in New York to emerging cites of the Global South. He has published frequently and written extensively on architecture and urbanism, including his thesis on “Messy Urbanism” in NOW URBANISM: The Future City Is Here (Routledge and University of Washington, 2014).

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ED Eliana Dotan’s architectural work ranges in size from handheld objects to urban systems. Both her built work and scholarly pursuits interrogate how digital culture has disrupted architecture’s inherent scalar hierarchy. She founded Dotan Gertler Studio with partner Carly Gertler in 2014 and has been teaching at CCNY since 2017. Recent work includes a collaboration with artist Tania Bruguera on a bespoke traveling theater structure for a touring production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, a range of residential and commercial projects in New York, and a speculative habitat for bats in Rhode Island. Previously, Dotan apprenticed with artist Olafur Eliasson in Berlin and studied under Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron at their studio in Basel.

MG Mohammed Gueye is a fourth-year student in Spitzer’s B Arch program.

He served as CCNY Green’s president, Freedom by Design’s project manager, and the editor of Informality’s 2020 reboot. You’ll also see him crafting a variety of boxes while working as a college assistant in the Fabrication Shop. He first arrived on campus in 2012 at the High School for Mathematics Science and Engineering in Baskerville Hall. Moving a couple blocks south in 2016, Mohammed enrolled at Spitzer.

He enjoys cooking, film photography, and figuring out what makes 1980s and 1990s aesthetics so seductive.

DHB Denise Hoffman Brandt is a registered landscape architect and principal of Hoffman Brandt Projects, LLC. She served for many years as the program of landscape architecture and is currently full professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture. Her work focuses on landscape as ecological infrastructure, and her research and practice have been published widely, receiving numerous awards such as a 2009 New York Prize Fellowship from the Van Alen Institute, a 2010 EDRA/Metropolis Great Places Research award, and a 2013 New York State Council on the Arts grant for an exhibition titled Animal Territories.

IJ Isabella Joseph is a graduating fifthyear B Arch student and anthropology minor. Her passion lies in developing cross-disciplinary approaches to the most pressing issues of our time. In the time of COVID, she’s found journaling and writing dark, bad poetry as her “antidote.” She was recently named CCNY salutatorian for the class of 2020, the first student selected for the honor from the Spitzer School of Architecture.

LL Lesley Lokko is an architect, academic, and the author of eleven best-selling novels. She is currently the dean at The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at CCNY. She is the editor of White Papers, Black Marks (University of Minnesota Press 2000) and a contributing editor to Architectural Review. She is editor-in-chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture and is on the board of Architecture Research Quarterly, University of Cambridge Press. In 2004, she made the successful transition from academic to novelist with the publication of her first novel, Sundowners (Orion), a UK-Guardian top forty best-seller, and has since then followed with ten additional best-sellers that have been translated into fifteen languages. She rates the British Airways Lounge at JFK one of her favorite places in the world.

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Faculty and Student Editors

NL Originally from Seattle, Nicolas Losi has spent the last six years living in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, and in 2020 is receiving his master of architecture degree from CCNY. His education, both from school and living in New York, has catalyzed a deep and relentless curiosity in the ecology of the city, the complex forces and invisible infrastructure that affect us, and how architecture can redefine its role in society. But, really, he’s happy to talk about anything.

AN Alicia Niebrzydowski is a fourth-year B Arch student at the Spitzer School of Architecture, where she has been a member of AIAS, serving on the culture committee, as chapter secretary, and as VP-elect for the 2020-2021 academic year. Alicia is highly involved in the school community, participating in events for AIAS and CCNY Green, contributing to Informality, and even giving tours to prospective students. Alicia chose to study architecture because it is a wonderful mélange between practicality and creativity. She has found the Spitzer School of Architecture a wonderful place to grow her abilities and create a group of friends and colleagues that will last a lifetime.

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NP Nicole Paporello completed her undergraduate studies at Berkeley Business School with a degree in business management. She began her corporate career at a book publisher and distributor specializing in the big box home improvement stores. After five years, she was named account executive for one of the biggest U.S. home improvement chains. In 2009, when the housing market took a huge hit, Nicole started her own business. She spent the last eight years as owner and operator of a commercial property management company. Nicole recently came on board at Spitzer as the events and facilities manager, a position that continues to evolve and take shape. She is looking to continue her studies in fall of 2021.

TP Tamar Plotzker was born in the last year of the previous millennium (1999).

She enjoys fresh air, especially in the forests of New York and Pennsylvania.

Her favorite tree is a Betula papyrifera, colloquially called the paper birch. Its bark is always simultaneously shedding and regenerating, adding depth, texture, and color to its elegant, slim trunk. This is emblematic of Tamar’s love of process, evident in her often-unfinished works.

KS Krystian Sidorski began his studies at Baruch College in 2012 pursuing business administration but decided it didn’t resonate with his creative desire and in 2016 transferred to Spitzer to try architecture. He hasn’t looked back since. Whether working in the woodshop, for a residential architect, at SOM, or now with a private client, he has been thrilled by the constant challenges and learning that have deepened his understanding of the world and himself.

He served as treasurer of the school’s AIAS chapter in 2017. He is proud to continue his grandfather’s legacy as a draftsman as well as his family’s entrepreneurial spirit.

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Faculty and Student Editors

ES Elene Solomnishvili is a B Arch student at the Spitzer School of Architecture, graduating in May 2020. Through her studies, she procured extensive skills, and through working at various architectural firms, she has attained diverse experiences. In addition, she has interviewed prominent architects, with work published in Downtown Magazine. An immigrant hailing from Georgia, Solomnishvili has always been passionate about architecture, and she constantly strives to create architecture that has a strong narrative in creating sustainable places for communities.

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ET Elisabetta Terragni is principal of her studio in Como, Italy, since 2001. After serving as an assistant at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich from 1997 to 1999, she moved to Montreal for two years and later taught museography at the Milan Polytechnic. She has been distinguished visiting professor at the New York Institute of Technology (2005-2006) and is currently associate professor at CCNY. She has taught studios and seminars at universities in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.

GVG Giuliana Vaccarino Gearty is a firstyear student in the M Arch program at the Spitzer School of Architecture. She earned an art history degree back in 2016 from the University of Chicago, where she studied early twentiethcentury Scandinavian architecture.

Giuliana is interested in the impact of the built environment on human experience, particularly regarding housing. When not working on studio, Giuliana can be found reading about fermented food or chasing squirrels out of her yard.

EW Erica Wszolek completed her undergraduate studies at CCNY in 2008. A single mother, head of household, and full-time college student, she began working as a college assistant in the Human Resources Department at CCNY in 2005. After completing her degree, she was named director of oncampus student employment, an HR initiative to help student retention. She began working at Spitzer in 2010 and completed her MPA at Baruch College in 2016. Her role at Spitzer continues to evolve; she currently manages external events and communications in the Dean’s Office. Daughter of workingclass immigrants, and first in her family to graduate from college, she is a true daughter of CUNY.

AZ Alejandra Zapata is a fifth-year student in the B Arch program at the Spitzer School of Architecture. Growing up in Mexico, she developed a passion for construction and architecture and moved to New York in 2015 to study architecture. Her experience in school and through working at different architectural firms inspired her to pursue a concentration in technology and sustainability and to become a LEED green associate. She seeks to promote environmental justice and excellence in design in every project she works on. She is currently a research assistant at the J. Max Bond Center for Urban Futures, where she works on interdisciplinary research and innovation to ensure successful urban futures. In her work, she strives to successfully incorporate community insights and sustainability to create meaningful design.

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Theme 1 Ambition & Self-Reflection

Image: Ahmed Helal

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Theme 1

Ambition & Self-Reflection

Image: Lorraine Colbert

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Alicia Niebrzydowski and Tamar Plotzker, Editors

Introduction

Keywords

Every decision you have ever made has led you to this very moment. The world is an interesting place, and in it, we have carved out our habits and rituals. Like stone steps worn away with footprints, we have inscribed our process into existence. Yet there has never been a moment in time quite like this one: we are suddenly aware that even our habits have limitations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a state of isolated simultaneity, a space and time in which individuals are socially connected but physically distanced. This has opened the opportunity for individuals, particularly creators (architects, artists, poets, painters), to work without others — to forget others — causing a new sense of reliance on the individual in the creative process, or, alternatively, to work in modes that are necessarily self-reliant.

This new interpretation of the “solitary” creative process is a paradox.

While creation is always our own, as social creatures we often rely on the input of others for critique, competition, and inspiration. Now, without “typical” studio culture, we can no longer interpret our work in terms of others. In our fervent ambition we must reconjure our personality in isolation. Individuals must now turn to themselves and their unique process to challenge their internal status quo. As the individual becomes individual, two types of work which emerge: introspective, self-aware work, and extrospective, interpretive work.

introspection isolation self-awareness self-critique analysis experience

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The first type of creation is born from internal analysis. It is based on a network of internal processes which create an unending cycle of production, an ongoing reflection of reflection. By carefully examining our thoughts, processes, and production, we can begin to see how ideas are born within us. Gaining this understanding of how our mind works allows for a self-aware, transcendent ability to create. The best work is that in which you’re “just figuring something out”, because you not only see the product, but understand its origin. The second type of creation comes from looking for inspiration from without. By means of an external source, our own thoughts can be examined through intuition’s chosen lens. This allows for an analysis, which leads to work that then can be internalized, re-analyzed, and regurgitated as a processed idea.

By focusing in on a particular subject and using it as a tool to refine thought processes, this work is critically selfaware in its production.

The value of time in quarantine is gauged in terms of self-reflection. It is what pushes us forward as creators, and makes us better human beings.

Inspiration is omnipresent, yet it is only productive if we can process it in a way which is relevant to our own ambitions.

These are works of process, works that have been processed, and works that cater to these processes. They reflect an acute self-awareness and project beautiful ambitions of the proud and of the lonely.

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Image: Jacqueline Love

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Theme 1

Ambition & Self-Reflection

Liza Otto

Selected Projects

Image: Benjamin Akhavan

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Image: Liza Otto

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Lorraine Colbert

Image: Lorraine Colbert

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Valmira Gashi

Image: Valmira Gashi

Images: Annabelle Surya and Mauricio Guidos

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Matthew Morgan

Image: Matthew Morgan

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Danielle Ryba

Image: Danielle Ryba

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Theme 1

Ambition & Self-Reflection

Viewpoint 1: The Practitioner

Description

“I think we needed this.

We really needed this.”

—Samantha Josaphat

Image: Screen shot, May 14, 2020

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A series of interviews with faculty at Spitzer who look at the pandemic through the lens of their specific disciplines. Each faculty member is asked four questions, which may be answered, refuted, re-framed or expanded upon as required. A longer interview with President Vince Boudreau (CCNY) and President Lloyd Williams (The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce) rounds this section off.

Q1 The pandemic has touched almost every aspect of life, from family tragedies to working relationships, to the way we think about the future—right now, while we’re still in the midst of it, so to speak, how do you see the future?

SJ: It’s interesting, you know, because once COVID came along and we realized that we had to go virtual, a little portion of me jumped up and said “yippee”, because, you know, that’s my world. I love that. And in the sense of, you know, the traditional way of how we work as architecture professors, the work we do, the way we work, we have to produce things in person, or by paper and I’ve always been anti-printing, you know, using excessive amounts of paper and so, being able to communicate digitally and being able to talk to students digitally was more exciting for me. A lot of the work that I do is from my brain — aka my “computer” — and so being able to work directly in that way without issues of transportation, getting to class on time, waiting for students to get to class on time, it’s been helpful to, you know, just press a button and there they are. They’re there right away. The fact that class was a bit more immediate and tangible was great and being more available to my students, having them comfortable with saying, “oh, I’ll send her an e-mail and she can schedule a call and I can talk to her directly” and even understanding her gestures — without it 35

being hidden in an e-mail — being able to communicate somewhat in person but virtually has been very helpful.

What was the question again?

Oh, yeah, how do I see the future? Um, well, I think this pandemic has moved the way in which we communicate towards it being a bit more acceptable to communicate virtually. I think in the past, from my own experience, I felt as though more experienced professionals had been more anti-digital world, it seemed too foreign, whereas for me, I had been more used to the digital world from back in school and so more professors are going to be more comfortable. And in fact, it’s not just professors.

You know, when I was working in corporate America, the idea of working from home was just, like, pulling teeth and now I think more firms are realizing that you can be just as productive — in fact, more productive. When I decided to go out on my own, a lot of the work I was doing was done from home and I had to be more productive and say, look, I have to set aside a certain amount of time and say, “this has to get done now” because I could only dedicate a certain amount of hours per day. I think employers and going to be a bit more open now, and not turn a blind eye on the digital world.

Q2 One supposed benefit of formal education is that it equips you with “tools” to navigate the world, personally and professionally. What tools do you 36

have as an architect to help you navigate or make sense of catastrophic change?

SJ: I would say on a basic level, my training as an architect helps me understand the importance of natural light, and, the importance of where you sit in the physical world — this new virtual world we’re in still has to connect to reality in some way and for example, I knew that I was going to be working remotely for a long time and so moving my desk closer to the window and, you know, reorienting the way my desk sits so that it’s better oriented towards the outside, towards the trees and so on, little things like that.

Sometimes I tell friends outside of architecture where the sun rises and sets, and they don’t know. As an architect, you think that’s something that everyone knows and you don’t even realize that those little bits of information can go a long way in helping people outside architecture who aren’t used to these little pointers. I would say another tool would be . . . okay, I have an answer but it’s somewhat anti-architecture, you know, also when I was leaving corporate America and starting out on my own, one of the big things why I left was that I felt as though I were chained to my desk. I left so that I would be able to explore things that were outside of architecture and I felt that to be a better architect, I needed to expose myself to things outside of the bubble that we live in. And so, doing that a couple of

years in advance of COVID allowed me to understand and build communities outside of architecture that many other architects are only just now beginning to realize are important. It just makes you a better architect, you know, having that exposure to the world.

LL: I suppose the narrowness of the architectural vision is its own enemy?

SJ: Yes, having that diversity in social groups is really important. I mean, it’s helped me with random questions that I have, whether they’ve come from history or practical things like how to cook certain things . . . you know, tapping into other networks. Being able to build that network was important for me because I didn’t want to be the kind of architect who could only talk to architects and that’s it.

Q3 COVID has laid bare the deep structural inequities of capitalist economies, particularly the US. Health, wealth and space are partners in a three-legged race and something’s got to give. What would you say that “something” is?

SJ: Oh, that’s hard because all three are important in order for a group of people or a community to progress. Maybe not one having to give but a portion of one more so than another. For example, if we’re looking at a low-income community and we’re looking at the words “health,

wealth and space”, space is really important as far as how it shapes your mental well-being and having good quality space, again whether that’s having access to light or having a space to yourself if you’re living in a house full of family members, having a refuge is important.

So, I wouldn’t say that you need to have thousands of square feet of space in your home but you do need to have some sacred spaces within the home for people to be in isolation more than they are, but then also having that outside space. And then on the topic of wealth, it’s important for us to have — well, I wouldn’t say 100% socialist society — there is a base that everyone should have and that base should provide everyone with a quality of living and then maybe pulling back something from our 1%ers, where wealth is no longer money but it’s power. And pulling back on that a little bit. And when it comes to health, that’s extremely important and I don’t think I would pull back on that at all.

As President of Nycoba Noma, I’ve been pushing on the idea of health and wealth and health in its physical and mental form is highly important and I think that wealth basically revolves around it.

LL: During apartheid, South Africans used the Neufert Handbook — it’s a bit like The Metric Handbook of dimensions — dimensions for everything, from table heights to counter heights and so on. But 37

in the South African version, everything was also racialized, you know, such-andsuch amount of space for a black child; such-and-such for a white child. It always amazed me that some architect sat down and worked these dimensions out.

SJ: It’s funny you say that because we don’t have a handbook that says, depending on a demographic, you can have this much space, but you can clearly see the same things in our architecture and I think that is reflective of wealth. We have our city agencies that have authority over how we design and build public housing, and that’s based on the amount of money they have available for that kind of housing.

I’ve seen first-hand how firms that are producing these designs are just trying to fit a certain amount of housing in a certain square footage and they’re not thinking about the quality of design. So, you might not have it in a book, but you still have it. Sometimes an architect may approach renovating or updating housing which is in a really poor condition and say, “well, they’re comfortable enough with that. Why do we have to provide them with anything more?” If we’re thinking about quality and hygiene and health, we as architects have to take the lead and say, “no, this is a better way of doing things.”

Q4 Do you have a message for COVID-19?

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SJ: OK, so this might sound cynical, but “thank you” because I feel as though this is earth’s way of responding and saying, “I need to pause. I need to take a break and re-cleanse.” I know that there’s tragedy but at the same time, I’ve been hearing more optimistic things like we needed to slow down and reflect, and take the time to pause and think and understand what’s essential.

It’s not to say that everything that isn’t essential should go away, but you should understand your position in the world.

A lot of the time we can get carried away, thinking, “oh, I’m this or that”, or “I’m more important because I’ve got more money, or my industry makes more money”, but as vital as your industry is, there are a lot of things about your industry that can be taken away and the world will still thrive. What I would tell COVID is “thank you” and “maybe you could have come on a little easier” but I think this was something that the world needed. I might get sad or confused but at times I think we needed this. We really needed this.

Image: Genesis Baque

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Theme 1

Ambition & Self-Reflection

Viewpoint 2: The Craftsman

“Many of the buildings we design are made for getting to know each other, for making community.”

—Christian Volkmann

Q1 You’ve had the benefit of studying and teaching architecture in very different places — Germany, Switzerland and the US. Are there differences in the way they view technology that might be useful to us in thinking about COVID-19’s impact on our lives?

CV: Hmmm. [Smiles]. Yes, I think that Europeans are much more trusting of technology than Americans.

Americans very often use a quick fix, while Europeans try to understand and develop the principle. There’s also a kind of germo-phobia here, which is much more widespread than it is in Europe. We cannot sanitize the universe and Europeans seem to understand that better. Here, there is the idea that everything is (and must be) clean. Even though the Swiss are very, very clean!

But it’s a different relationship to the idea of things being clean, I would say.

Q2 Has the pandemic altered the way you think about your own profession or discipline?

Image: Screen shot, May 14, 2020

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CV: I think one great part of architecture, one of the main foci we have, is designing for congregation, for getting to know each other and for making community. That worries me a lot because it means we have to reconsider things and what I develop in my head is currently much less of reconsideration 41

and much more of resilience, so I’m thinking whether by inventing the right rules it’s possible to overcome it. We know that in 1918 we had something very similar and we don’t remember it, since memory was erased during the last century, but the way we can overcome this is by keeping certain things of the old and adding certain things of the new.

It cannot be that we say, “oh, this is the new reality.” Reality is always a mixture of history and the future.

Q3 The move to online instruction and interaction has been particularly difficult for people with a close affinity to making, to the tactile and material. Is it ever possible for the digital to replace the physical?

CV: No. It’s a very short answer. No. And I’m very interested in essays that are rotating around phenomenology at the moment. If we do not have the experience, we don’t know what it means. We have seen this during the last fifty years that certain touchable, tangible aspects of culture were erased.

Sometimes you can see that younger people have less of that appreciation for tactile things. For me, the tactile sense is the most important sense of all, more than the visual. So, I’m worried about that. I don’t think you can teach that.

When you’re in the forest you understand the way things fit together, the way the world comes together. Everything is related, not just through one sense or 42

one (computer) screen. We are losing that sense of connectedness between the senses. Again, my answer is that we have to find a mixture of keeping things that are alive, while finding new things to recuperate from the crisis.

Q4 During the past few weeks, I’ve often thought back to a number of places I’d like to be — a kind of mental “happy place” — and like millions of people, I suppose, I’m drawn to nature, rather than the urban. Where is your “happy place” and why?

CV: [Laughs] I just mentioned the forest.

I could also mention the ocean. I was fishing yesterday with a friend of mine in a boat off Coney Island and when you see that mass of water, heaving and moving, it’s so beautiful. On the one hand, I don’t want to give up meeting people, or community, congregation . . . those things. But at the same time, the cure, when everyone is stressed, is to look at nature. From nature we come. Dust and dirt, which are part and parcel of nature, harbor germs but it’s also a haven during this time. But I miss community too. I know it’s not realistic right now. I may just be missing what I know I cannot have.

Image: Leslie Epps

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Theme 1

Ambition & Self-Reflection

Viewpoint 3: The Generalist

“COVID-19 makes things clearer — what’s important, what’s not.”

—Jacob Alspector

Image: Screen shot, May 14, 2020

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Q1 You often describe yourself as a “generalist”, implying that you take a broad, rather than specific approach to the discipline. How would you say thinking about things more broadly has helped you navigate this crisis?

JA: That’s a good question. Well, I think contexts are always shifting a little bit from the external world, and certainly this crisis has made me realize how deeply I care about the future and how much I care about passing on what I see to have been a series of very fortunate circumstances so that I can expose my students to my broad range of practice and teaching, and I’ve always read theory. When I got out of school, I was starved of that aspect when I was working, so I did everything I could to stay in touch with those aspects of architectural thought. But I think it comes back to passing along: as you get older and you lose people you love, your teachers, mentors and colleagues, you realize what a gift they gave you to pass along their wisdom, knowledge and insights. And I guess that’s what drives me now — to pass along what I have. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn and understand and further my own education as I teach. The COVID crisis has made that graphically clear. Also, it’s made it very clear how fortunate I am, and have been, despite the difficulties of childhood and early years, immigrant refugee family and so on, that I still have 45

had a fortunate ride, compared to many.

The whole idea of equity has become more and more important, especially teaching the kids at City College, who have their own struggles, which I can relate to very directly. COVID just makes it just that much clearer, things are just a bit more black-and-white, what’s important, what’s not — like any crisis.

9/11 did that for me, professionally.

Right after that, I left my job, started my own office and started teaching, as many people did in those days. It forces a reevaluation. So, I use this as an opportunity to tell my students to reevaluate where they’re going, and what they want to do, look into their own lives.

Q2 The word “technology” actually means “systematic treatment” but it’s come to mean almost anything in the 21st century. What would you say are the “tools” of the technologist or the technology-minded architect?

JA: Hmmm. Well, I think technology at any point in time — I forget who said this — but every technology that’s ever been invented from the earliest human civilizations on, still exists and is still being used somewhere, so I like that view. Taking the long view about technology. So, I find that it comes and goes and it’s always a progression of sorts. I think technology in the 21st century has to be used in conjunction with all kinds of other things, all the other 46

things we’ve come to understand and know about. I say this to my students and use it in my own practice - that hand-sketching and building paper or hand models are so primary and those parts of the process become extremely useful and even more graphic, going back to COVID. What would happen if our technology was suddenly rendered useless. I think of how fragile it all is. So, I find a robust but redundant attitude towards tools. I think technology is also about technique and process, so, I’m the pre-computer generation, we drew everything by hand. When you drew a line, it was there the next day. [Laughs].

In my practice we use very advanced technology but I prefer not to use it. I have people who can use that end of it much better than I. I always tell my students if you want to make straight cuts in a piece of cardboard, don’t use a laser cutter. Get your # 11 X-Acto out and a straight edge. So being flexible is very important — don’t think the whole world is available through a screen, which, ironically, it almost is during these days of COVID. But I’m always telling myself I should go off the grid.

[Laughs]. In fact, my thesis project when I was a student, which I got very little support for (it was very Cubist, little bit of Wright, Corbusier — those Cooper Union days, early Hejduk) — my project was a self-sufficient farm that wasn’t quite a biosphere or anything like that. It was in southwestern Wisconsin, off the grid, solar power, wind power, animals

living in the same structure, and interior greenhouses, windmills, geo-thermal, stuff like that . . . and it was progressive that way, but it wasn’t formalist — I came to abhor formalism, especially in those days of beginning consciousness of the environment. We were all rebelling, marching to Washington, getting gassed.

I ask my students why aren’t they marching, what’s going on and it’s partly because life’s so filtered through slick, one dimensional media.

Q3 There’s been so much talk about “science” and the importance of decision-making according to “hard, scientific facts” during the pandemic, but we all know that human behavior is never driven by science alone. As one of the few, if not only, disciplines that sits at the intersection of art and science, what would you say architecture has to offer us when thinking about a pandemic?

JA: So, I think art is very important because it’s a kind of a critique of the past and the present and a glimpse into the future. So, architecture is the same. And science is an analysis of the external world, and it tests our senses and our ability to think and apply reasoning in a dispassionate way, so I think we need that understanding.

Architecture was perfect for me. I’ve always loved art and I’ve always loved science and I’ve always built things. It’s so wide-ranging, so many tentacles,

so many directions or maybe so many things impact architecture. Science is very important. Without it, we subject ourselves to superstition and to making decisions that are narrow and shortsighted and biased, in whatever way, so the scientific method is really important to architecture, we must critique things and look at their whole impact, look at how they fit into the broad spectrum, from cosmology to the microscopic but it’s also about acting in an artistic way to create a unique and sometimes personal vision, or personal as well as universal. Community and individual.

We’re social beings, it’s a social act.

We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have community.

Q4 What would you say to your 25-yearold architectural self, if this crisis had occurred then?

JA: It’s going to be okay. I think of myself in that time. The question is about hindsight, what I would tell my past self from the future. That’s the decision I made with my thesis project amidst all the rebellions against the status quo in the 60s and all of that incredible ferment. In those days I fancied myself as something of an anarchist. I spent that summer when I graduated making music. It was a great break. But then I also came to believe that I needed to dig back in.

And the best way was not to leave. To 47

get engaged. So, I would say to myself: go back in, get in it. Which is what I did in a somewhat unaware way. The impulse was not to run away but to run towards the crisis. I think I was very afraid. But as you run, you will only be more afraid. I would reassure myself.

But as I look back, I think I’ve been as lucky as hell. So, I tell my students to work with each other, to contribute, to do as much as you can. Teaching is profoundly optimistic. I think teaching is such an embedded act, such a natural act. I understand when people devalue teachers because they value money and status but COVID has exposed that, like any crisis does — wars, the Depression, 9/11 — those things are not really important. So, when I went into practice, I refused to sell out and I was lucky for the most part. In teaching, I feel that no matter what I do, it really has its rewards. There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m teaching where I haven’t learned something. That’s the part I crave. I think our minds are wired to expand and to make connections. Make more connections. It’s the opposite of entropy. Teaching architecture is all about optimism and a belief in the future, in spite of the physical and societal hardships. Teaching is an optimistic act and it’s a doubly optimistic act to teach architecture.

Image: Ahmed Helal and Chantal Garrido

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Theme 1

Ambition & Self-Reflection

Viewpoint 4: The Historian

“Distance is the luxury that history gives you.”

—Marta Gutman

Image: Screen shot, May 6, 2020

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Q1 What tools do historians have to help us understand or make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic?

MG: Historians have many tools. We’re now in the ninth week of this crisis and I’ve been reading online, and in print journals as well, about previous experiences, previous epidemics, and previous ways in which humans have experienced health crises across history.

So, for me, what’s been edifying is to understand just how much of what we’ve been going through in this crisis isn’t new, it isn’t a unique situation, although it certainly feels unique . . . [something of this magnitude] hasn’t happened in the past 100 years, at least not in this country — I’m not talking about the rest of the world — that gives us cause for a lot of sober reflection. I’ve been thinking a great deal about how pandemics have inexorably proceeded through and altered human history in their wake.

I’m a big fan of James C. Scott’s work — he’s a political scientist and an anthropologist who must be in his mid80s . . . he teaches at Yale — and his new book is called Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States.

It’s a book in which he examines the earliest relationships of human beings in regard to settlement and state building.

One of his insights is that the close proximity of animals and human beings comes through agriculture and urban settlement, which produced exchange 51

between them — including of infectious disease. Where did smallpox come from?

Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from?

Scott, who takes quite a pessimistic view of the origins of urban life (or of the reasons why cities have developed), argues that authoritarian rulers built cities with walls to keep people in, rather than to keep people out. So, the longue durée, so to speak — to use one of Fernand Braudel’s concepts — gives one a reason for sober reflection about sickness and health and about human and nonhuman interaction. That’s just one example.

Another example would be to look at the bubonic plague and the way in which the plague has been part of human history since ancient Greece. I read Braudel’s Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 early in my life as a historian, and it had a big impact on my thinking about causation and taking the long perspective on the view of human change. The plague that devastated Europe in the late Middle Ages worked as an agent for huge amounts of change, ironically releasing human initiative because of the shortage of labor and resources that it produced. It shook up the feudal structure. You could call it an engine driving modernity, in some ways.

So, that would be another way in which the long-term view is helpful.

And then, of course, the example that I give in teaching is cholera and the ways in which its transmission has caused global pandemics in modern 52

times (and here I speak of modern times as dating from the eighteenth-century revolutions onwards). When cholera, very infectious, erupted in the West, it also caused devastating losses. Eventually governments took action to protect health, sanitation in cities, and these sanitarian improvements could ingrain inequalities, reinforce racial biases — thinking of slum clearance to “contain” the plague in San Francisco’s Chinatown and in colonial Bombay. These events are important for us to understand.

LL: Are you saying that Ebola and SARS were not global pandemics?

MG: No, I would say that they were global pandemics, but ones that the West ignored or only responded to in the sense of containment. It was a miracle that they weren’t more widespread, especially with SARS, which was quickly contained. With Ebola, there was a strong consciousness on the part of the Obama administration that quarantine and seclusion were critical in the service of human health. I admire the doctors and nurses who took care of very sick, very contagious people.

So, when I said in the beginning that this pandemic is the first pandemic in the last 100 years, I’m referring to the United States. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s the only pandemic that the world has experienced. There have been many of them. We could speak about the Zika virus in the Caribbean and

Latin America, for example, or cholera in Haiti, which came to Haiti with the peace-keeping forces after the 2010 earthquake.

LL: But they didn’t hit home in quite the same way?

MG: No, exactly. There have been many examples in the past ten or fifteen years that should have been wake-up calls but were not. If you read the New York Times, or the London Review of Books, or the New Yorker or the Guardian, or the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, you learn that the U.S. military has been on the alert since the Obama administration, if not before, for the threat of pandemics, and those counsels have been ignored by the current administration. In the past year, it dismantled the task force [on pandemics].

Q2 Are we too close to the events to understand them historically? If so, why?

What difference does distance make?

MG: Oh, that’s a great question. So, distance is the luxury that history gives you, right? In my teaching I often quote from an article in the New Yorker about the Iraq War, that the history of your own time is a picture that is too close to see.

And I use it to reflect on my position in relation to talking about contemporary architecture because I am speaking

about events that happened in my time.

It leaves my students looking confused — “What does she want us to do if she doesn’t know what the truth is?” I think the history of your own time is always something you’re too close to see. In the context of this crisis, however, we don’t have that luxury. We just don’t. But if we don’t have the luxury of distance, we do have the luxury of learning from historians who have been able to take the long view. And we should do that.

If I can just reflect for a moment on Platform . . . in March, the four editors decided to pivot immediately and address the pandemic. We could do that. We’re a journal. We’re online, we’re digital, we’re self-funded, and so we started publishing and reposting articles on the pandemic and that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing ever since the lockdown.

One of those articles was written by a historian who is living in Italy right now, raising her child, and trying to figure out what lockdown means.

It’s quite a personal piece of writing, but it’s also inflected through her knowledge of regulation and mapping and disciplinary actions on the part of the state. It’s been really useful to see how she and her husband, who is also a historian, make comparisons between their particular situation and the ways in which it is linked to larger structural forces.

We also just published an essay on the plague in Marseille in the late 53

eighteenth century, and on the ways the plague was racialized in the city, looking at how the black body was disciplined, whether those bodies were from Africa, North Africa, or the Middle East. They were understood to be different, and they were treated differently. Orhan Pamuk, an author whom I admire enormously, wrote a brilliant piece in the New York Times a few weeks ago, speaking about pandemics and plagues, particularly in regard to the bubonic plague. It’s been his long-term aim to write a book on this topic and how the “othering” of Islamic subjects is connected and is historically linked to the orientalizing of the bubonic plague in Western history.

We don’t have the luxury of distance, to go back to your point, but we do have the luxury of historians who do, so we can take it and use it to think about things and pause to think about how so much of what we talk about has nothing to do with illness.

LL: What you’re describing, I think, is how historians use time as a tool, but also about how the ability to read is also a tool, or the ability to understand oneself not as the center of the world, the be-all and end-all of human experience, but simply as a part of it. That leads to my third question.

Q3 Which historian — from any period in history — would you have liked to read 54

during this time?

MG: Hmmm. I’m a creature of my own time. I think Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish is an essential text but there are new books that are coming in. Walter Scheidel’s The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century is a huge, thick book — I’ll just go and get it to show you — this is economic history, full of tables and graphs, not how I write history at all, but it is a book where, I believe, he shows quite well what happens in times of crisis and how, when there are these eruptions — whether they’re pandemics, or revolutions, or famines, what these external events do to human history. Why are elites so terrified of them and why do they work to mitigate or constrain or contain the democratizing impacts they can have?

I’m not a classicist or an economic historian . . . it’s a totally new field to me, but I think it’s a book we should all read.

This is a time to look long and deep.

It’s a time to hear from people we don’t usually know about or read or consult.

There hasn’t been a global crisis like this, one that involves the West as well as the non-West, for a long time. This crisis is shaking assumptions about isolation and privilege and determination that Western countries have held for a long time, and it has shown us that those assumptions sit on very shaky foundations. We need to use this moment to learn more about other places, other times, other people.

LL: I’ve lived through many crises, from coups to revolutions, curfews, military takeovers, and this doesn’t actually feel much different. I wonder what the impact is on societies that are perpetually in crisis and societies where there’s been a long and uninterrupted period of socalled stability? In the same way we talk about “inherited trauma,” whether at the level of the individual or the level of a culture, people carrying inherited trauma or shame, for example, just as some societies might carry inherited instability, and it manifests itself in the way you see the world, you write about it, you portray it, and so on, what’s unique I guess here is that the pandemic arrived after such a long period of calm — or supposed calm — which takes me to the last question— MG: —Not to interrupt, but I would just say that there’s been stability for some, but not for all. This pandemic has revealed enduring lines of inequality, exposed structures that construct everyday lived lives of so many Americans. Look at who is dying! Look who can leave town. Look who has to work. People on the Left knew, but I would hope this crisis has made it impossible for all Americans to ignore the depth and extent of inequality in this country. I say this but I read in the papers every morning how certain congressmen refuse to believe what is, in fact, the case. I could go on, but I won’t.

LL: Well, my last question will lead us to

talking precisely about that.

Q4 We often talk of “how history will judge us” — how do you think history will judge, view, excuse, blame the way this crisis was handled specifically in the U.S.?

MG: I think history will be utterly condemnatory, utterly condemnatory.

There’s been a failure of leadership across the board. The devastation that this pandemic has produced — you don’t need to be a historian to understand this. History helps us. If action had been taken at the federal level in January — I get so angry about this — it’s why, in my tribute to Michael Sorkin, I wrote that I was angry. It’s because the deaths, almost 100,000 people in the United States, one in every 600 New Yorkers, could have been prevented if we’d had a government that faced what was happening in China and Europe, the way President Obama did with Ebola in West Africa. If our government — from the president on down — had understood that this situation called for action, for the need to protect American citizens, from a national self-interest point of view, not even internationalist . . . if they had understood that they had to protect Americans from a disease that could skyrocket out of control . . . if they had followed through on the offer to make PPE masks in January .

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. . if they had kept the military’s counsel on pandemics intact, upped testing requirements, stopped flights from Europe as well as China . . . there were so many specific actions that could have been taken that would have stopped the spread of this disease in the United States. If Trump had acted from what I understand to be his political proclivity, a blatantly nationalist, protectionist perspective, we would be in a very different situation. This crisis didn’t have to unfold in the way that it did.

But that would have required a different concept of government. I’m not talking about progressive politics, just a concept that grasps the concept of federalism in the way in which previous presidents have understood it — George W. Bush, President Obama, Bill Clinton, you know, all of them. Not radicals, by any stretch of the imagination! But Trump didn’t do that. It’s unconscionable. The deaths of tens of thousands of people . . . there’s blood on Trump’s hands.

Absolutely. The United States has lost stature in the world, tremendously, hugely. Our retreat form leadership is a nail in the coffin. Nails banging in the coffin of American leadership. We’re a country that’s known for being “cando,” for being responsive and pragmatic, for jumping in to take action to address everyday realities. We are not — we’re sidelined. I’m talking here about the national level. At the state level, there’s a different story to tell. I have not found Governor Cuomo to be impressive at all 56

in his stance on public education but I do give him incredible credit — due credit — for his actions on this pandemic. He waited too long — by about three weeks — to intervene, but once he started, once he took action, he’s been leading this state in the way the country should have been led. By saying, “We have to do this.

It’s going to hurt. We have to lockdown.

We have to flatten the curve.” We even have to crush the curve, according to Paul Krugman in this morning’s newspaper. New York, which took the brunt of the pandemic, is now showing what effective government can do.

Image: Anna McKeigue

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Theme 1

Ambition & Self-Reflection

Viewpoints 5: The Presidents

“Sometimes we find ourselves not only repeating the mistakes of the past, but magnifying them.”

—President Lloyd Williams

Image: Screen shot, May 18, 2020

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“We will never be what we need to be as a society, as a people, as a democracy, without providing opportunity, without educating the whole of the people.”

—President Vince Boudreau

LL: President Williams, I read a couple of interesting facts about you recently— one, that Malcolm X was your godfather and two, that you were a protégé of Percy Sutton, with whom you traveled the world. The story of all three of you is the story of Harlem — an epic tale of resistance and reinvention, which some might say is also the larger story of the US. MG: [Smiles] Well, I had a tutor when I was a child in Harlem, I had to do the tutoring because my grandmother told me to do it, and you do what grandma tells you to do. I found out years later, when I was in school, that the tutor was famous. To me, he was not. He was just “Mr. Hughes”, the tutor. And of course, it was the great Langston Hughes, who said “as goes Harlem, so goes black America.” When he said it at the time, black America was Hispanic, it was Caribbean, it was African American . . . there was no distinction. So, to answer your question, Harlem still resonates as the international capital of black America. Whatever we do in Harlem, is picked up in Cicero, Illinois; Bristol, UK; Kingston, Jamaica, Watts, L.A., East St Louis or New Orleans. What happens in Harlem during these historic times at this time and how we choose to address it is going to be a road map for how these other communities, urban or rural, address these issues. Harlem is stepping up and Dr. Boudreau has done an awful lot to assist the profile 59

of Harlem’s leadership. In fact, just this morning I had a conference call with U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, who called me about wanting to come to Harlem to hold a press conference that addresses what is happening to communities of color throughout the nation. He said he recognized that if he did that in Harlem, it would be picked up nationally and internationally.

LL: You’ve spoken often about Harlem’s multicultural, multi-ethnic character, yet it’s synonymous with African-American history, not Korean or Caribbean. How important is it that Harlem remains the epicenter of specifically black cultural life?

LW: When I grew up in Harlem, Harlem was then an international community. It included significant portions of Jewish, Irish, Greek, and Italian, Caribbean, Puerto Rican, and Cuban communities, and so on. Many of those communities, especially the most affluent left Harlem as they departed urban America in the 60s and fled to the suburbs, as did much of the professional community of color, leaving a vacuum behind. We lost many people who had the disposable income to support local businesses.

Gentrification in the 80s and 90s did bring some of those people back but what we realize now is that those communities that had remained relatively stable until the 1950s were hard to replace. Integration had its positives, 60

but it also had an equal amount of negatives its negatives, which is what happened when the most affluent of those communities left. More recently, President Boudreau and I saw this firsthand when the first PPP initiatives from the stimulus were made available — the billions of dollars supposedly earmarked for small businesses did not go to the small businesses in our communities.

Most of the business people in our community, unfortunately “drank the Kool-Aid”, as they say. In order to be a solid business person, you had to go into the larger institutions — Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo and the like. They did not have accounts at Carver Federal Savings Bank and Popular Bank. When they went into those larger institutions to get the attention and assistance required for PPP, they found that the managers of their local branches didn’t have significant access to and contacts in the main headquarters. As a result, President Boudreau and I have been working directly with Michael Pugh, President of Carver Federal Savings Bank. Carver stepped up significantly and is now seeking to fill the vacuum.

We now encourage all to reinvest in their local community banks.

LL: One of the issues that has been really challenging for African American communities has been the retreat into the suburbs, away from the urban centers and away from the idea of a public, urban life. President Boudreau,

how do you think an institution like City College should respond?

VB: Well, that’s always been the College’s strategy. You know, when the College was organized in 1847, the founding language was that we would never be what we needed to be as a society, as a people, as a democracy, without providing opportunity, without educating the whole of the people. What it meant to be “the whole people” in 1847 is different to what it means today, but we’ve always looked at what broader American society was, what it judged as meritocratic and who it was educating. As an institution, we’ve always been concerned with where you find talent. We are a place that takes new Americans in. Oftentimes they come to us with a rudimentary understanding of English and develop both language competency and competency in navigating American society as they’re studying architecture, engineering, science, all of these things.

LL: It seems to me, that there are two kinds of Americas — well, there are many Americas — but in terms of the students who come to City College, there are the new Americans who come here to be remade in the image of America and then there are existing Americans, such as the African American community, who have been left behind or out of the picture. I wonder how do we go forward with this narrative of “building the new” but also of repairing the “old”?

VB: I think it’s the same narrative. Of course, they have different experiences and different narratives, but what we’re talking about is a group of people who come from down the street and the other side of the world. They’ve all been discounted, they’ve all been told that the circumstances of their birth are going to define their horizons and their future. And we are the living embodiment of how shallow that idea is. Every year, where we really make our mark, is on social mobility. We contribute to society by bringing in people who come from family incomes that are somewhere around $30 to $40,000 a year — and money is one thing, one kind of yardstick. Ten years out, the individuals who graduate from City College average over $100,000 dollars in income every year. That’s one way of measuring progress. But the other way of measuring progress is to think of the ideas, of the experiences, of the dreams that are often not the dreams and ideas of mainstream America that get repositioned as success in this college. I’ve said this before, but if you are ever going to come to a just model of policing, you need to talk to the people who were stopped and frisked. If you’re ever going to have a good model of the integration of new Americans into society, you need to listen to the perspectives of people who, when they go home, they are living with people whose immigration 61

status is unclear. Now, let’s take it up just another level. If you’re ever going to have a model of real health care in the United States, you need to have a biomedical engineering program that is specifically designed to look down the street and across the city and say, “What illnesses are not attracting the attention and the research dollars and the care that they need?” You do this by bringing people from these communities — whether they’re new Americans or people that have lived in East Harlem for three generations but somehow never managed to progress economically — these are the perspectives that need to come into the center of what we accept as knowledge and accomplishment in this country.

LL: One thing I’ve noticed is that we often talk only of social mobility as though that were the only yardstick by which students expected to progress.

In doing so, we risk leaving out all those other concepts of what citizenship means, what it means to be part of the public, what inclusivity and diversity mean — there’s a whole range of issues that don’t get talked about when we speak only of social mobility, and I wonder in what ways a school of architecture can work to ensure those “other” issues become the foundations of design, of building a better society. In other words, it’s not just about one’s own individual circumstances and disposable income or spending power, but it’s 62

about the whole. Given that so much of Harlem’s history is based or rooted in community politics, what are some of the ways we can begin to change the way we teach to include or prioritize those issues?

VB: You know, when the social mobility data began to come out, many of us at City College had the same experience where we always knew that people came to this college and their lives changed but all we had were stories. We had stories of this person or that person, who went on to do greater things. And then the social mobility data comes along and we were able to say, “see, we knew it. We knew that progress was happening when people came into City College.” You may not know this but I’m a fisherman, and when I was a kid, we had a worm, and then up top, there was a barb, a little thing that floated on the top and when the fish would bite the worm, the barb would catch. Social mobility is like the barb. It’s the thing that you can see. But what really matters with a City College education and you can see it when you encounter anyone who’s graduated from City College, they carry with them a set of values, or perspectives. They never forget what it was like not to have, to work hard and to then find a place in the world. That doesn’t just mean that they have greater purchasing power, it means that all the ideas and memories and concerns they had when they were being ignored or marginalized — when

people in their neighborhood said, “what are you going to school for? You’re never going to be anything different than what you already are.” Or, when somebody said, “your way forward — you’ve got this light and the way to develop that light is by going to school” — either way, is a way forward. For us, we talk about diversity all the time and a large part of that is, you give people who perhaps didn’t have a chance, have a chance and you make that possible. But for me, the biggest element of a diverse education is that you’re bringing people together who have perspectives who are often ignored and you’re putting those perspectives at the center of their education. So, I think you’re right — we can’t get carried away with social mobility because it’s not about how much you make, it’s about the ideas you had that were ignored and putting you in a position where people listen to those ideas. That’s the whole ballgame for us.

LL: One image that fills me with excitement (and pride) is the idea of a Second Harlem Renaissance, in which the experience, history and expertise of the wider African diaspora might play a significant role. In other words, seeing Harlem as the center of a global network of cultural, social, economic and political life, as important a space for South Africans, Brazilians, black Britons, as it is for Americans or New Yorkers. I met Max Bond several times at my home in Ghana and we often talked

about the important role that African Americans played on the continent.

David Adjaye often talks about the Museum of African American History and Culture as being a ‘returning gift’ from the African diaspora to America.

Shawn Rickenbacker and I often talk about the Bond Center being a ‘gift’ to the neighborhood, not in the sense of a single project or a consultancy, but in the sense of a continuous, on-going and long-term exchange of ideas and dialogue—to see Harlem as a resource for developing the architect of the future and for that architect to be a resource for Harlem. How do you see the relationship between the school — whether that’s the Bond Center or the wider school of architecture — and the community?

LW: Well, first, Max Bond was a board member of The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce and a very good friend of mine. Max’s legacy in Harlem and nationally stands strong and will remain for be there for many decades to come. Max was the architect for The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture; he was the architect for the chamber and the design of the Strivers Garden complex, on West 135th Street. One of the things that we need to do with the school of architecture is encourage those who are here to understand the architectural greatness around them. We need to encourage those who wish to come into Harlem 63

to recognize that they’re coming into an architectural mecca. The reason why that’s important is that one of the things which has happened historically, is that people in Harlem have never been encouraged to leave their homes and most of them have no idea what’s happening five blocks away from where they live or what’s around the corner from their public school. So, as we plan the Second Harlem Renaissance, it’s useful to remember that the First Harlem Renaissance is romanticized, perhaps out of proportion. It was really a local economic renaissance that was based upon people having rent parties. Those who couldn’t afford to pay their rent would sell food on the weekends from their apartments to raise rent money and that then went on to having musicians come and perform so that the musicians could make some money and that went on to having artists come round and paint and they would create their own original artwork, or their jewelry, and so on, and then it became a political and educational renaissance. As we talk about the Second Harlem Renaissance, we’re going to have to let people know — and this is where the school of architecture will be very important — they need to know what’s happening at Sophie Davis School Medical School at City College, they need to know about the Manhattanville complex of Columbia University; the new construction of the Studio Museum of Harlem; the new hotel, which is actually completed now at 64

125th Street, the Marriott Hotel, ready to open, they need to understand what is happening with the 2nd Avenue subway, the northern construction from 96th Street to 125th Street. is taking place.

Harlem, between 96th and 168th Street, from the Harlem River to the Hudson River it is the most magical community.

There are 17 institutions of higher education identified within that area.

We focus on City College and Columbia but we don’t focus on Union Theological Seminary and Jewish Theological Seminary, Bank Street College, the Manhattan School of Music and the College of Podiatric Medicine — we could continue. Of the 48 historic sites of historic interest that are in the city of New York, 14 of them are located in Harlem. Sometimes we don’t think about that. Most people have no idea that the National Academy of Arts and Science is located in Harlem.

So, I’m sharing with you the fact that the school of architecture can let people in this community know how magnificent it is. And it is a foundational platform for architecture students. When we start thinking about the future, what’s going to happen with tourism, which is a major economic tool in Harlem. It’s created thousands of jobs. How are we going to plan that? Transportation is a major issue in Harlem. I’ll tell you something quickly: of the bridges that come into Manhattan, the George Washington Bridge, the 155th Street Bridge, the 145th Street Bridge, the (RFK) Triboro Bridge,

the 135th Street/Madison Avenue Bridge and the Willis Avenue Bridge all come directly into Harlem. So, if you’re coming into NYC from the northern parts of the state or New England, from New Jersey, Pennsylvania or the south, you’re all coming into Harlem. But I don’t think there’s anything on the drawing board that suggests new bridges are being built. Harlem is this great connecting linkage and the school of architecture has to look at that. And lastly, the adage that President Boudreau and I speak about all the time is — and this is the charge to you — that there are a hundred plans for Harlem, but no plan. We have to understand what is the plan. We’re putting down new housing complexes in the middle of a section of Harlem — what happens with trash collection? What happens with public safety, with the fire department? What happens to the kids who now have to go to school? No one is planning the connecting links.

President Boudreau and I are working on this: there’s a new project being developed that will call for 1,800 new apartment units going in between 135th and 132nd Street, from Malcolm X Boulevard to 5th Avenue. Those 1,800 apartments will have an average number of 2.5 persons per apartment, which is fine. But now there will be that number of people going into the already-overcrowded subway. How can you have all of those people without planning it properly? The school of architecture will be playing an important

role in developing this plan and I’m also happy because we’ve been able to create a link now — the pandemic has had some positive effect — and that is bringing Columbia University together with City College. Historically, those two institutions have not collaborated in decades, but now they need to come together because they are the premier public and private institutions of higher education in the city and they are both located in Harlem. So, the school of architecture at City College has an awful lot it can do and we’re counting on you to do many, many great things.

LL: One of the really pressing issues for us in the school is how to train the architect of the future. The oldfashioned idea of an architect who is trained with largely technical expertise and then works in a practice is no longer as relevant. We need architects who are able to think in multi-layered ways — about transport, development, public policy, tourism, etc., who can think in a much broader way about the whole of the built environment— LW: —I have to interrupt you there. I’m living this. Architects are now going to have to design differently, around social distancing, renovation, for example, will become a whole lot more important.

They will have to go into buildings that are decades-old and redesign them, so the opportunities for architects will be extraordinary.

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LL: I’m going to ask you both one last question, which comes from a motivational speaker, of all people. “Live out of your imagination, nor only your history.” Can I ask you both to respond to that?

VB: Well, I think by virtue of our mission and who has come to City College in the last 170 years, we’ve always been “the next big thing”, we’ve always been the place where under-represented ideas, dreams, plans, and so on, get hatched and developed. Now, the next big thing for us and where my imagination goes is, what is it that this community needs of our institution? How is our engineering or our architecture school prepared to be the engineering or architecture school for New York, for Harlem? How are we prepared look at, talk with, act alongside members of the community to say, as we come back from this virus, let’s not just come back — let’s rebuild, reimagine.

This is why the notion of the Second Harlem Renaissance is so powerful.

We’re not just talking about reopening what we had. We’re talking about figuring out what people didn’t have. How the ideas and experiences we have can meet that challenge? That’s what is really exciting. I am convinced that our next big thing is going to be aligned with the ambitions of President Williams and the Chamber and all the public and private entities that cluster around them.

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LW: My comment would be that this virus is going to give us the opportunity to combine imagination and history. I think what I have seen in my lifetime is that there’s been too much imagination without a foundation of history. You know, as the great artist Stevie Wonder said, when you believe in things that you don’t understand, you suffer. Superstition is the way. People sometimes imagine for us, but they don’t have a sense of history. So, we need a decent balance between them both, but if we choose one over the other, I think history is going to be the most important component. If you imagine and you don’t know your roots, then you are doomed to fail.

LL: I think there’s also something in this about reclaiming history. For a lot of our students, the history they know is a very narrow interpretation of history.

LW: I think that’s such a great way of saying it — reclaiming it is very important. But we also have to teach it and we’ve had too many false prophets who haven’t understood the connections between history and the present, we’re sometimes in denial, sometimes we’re ignorant of it and so we find ourselves not only repeating the errors of the past but magnifying them.

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Theme 2 The In-Between

Image: Kari Kleinmann

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Theme 2

The In-Between

Isabella Joseph, Editor and Eliana Dotan, Faculty Editor

The In-Between: an ambiguous threshold between the measurable and immeasurable, tangible and intangible, constrained and unbound.

Image: Johnoy Gordon

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Keywords

As a discipline, architecture has always offered more than answers to demands or solutions to problems — at its best, it creates space for the multiple meanings contained within human interactions to crystalize. One of architecture’s primary means or tools is scale. In Politics, Aristotle gave the space of democracy a scale — the Agora would be the length that the sound of a shout could carry.

In Burkina Faso, West Africa, the roof of the debating chamber is held up by columns that will not allow the audience to jump up in anger without hitting their heads. Scale matters.

The social isolation that has characterized our experience of COVID-19 is amplifying a process that has been under way for the last few decades. Digital culture has altered the way we produce architecture, causing an erosion of scalar hierarchy, both physical and temporal. From the Parthenon through Modernism, tectonic relationships engendered architecture with the capacity to connect cities to culture, society, and history through scale. However, we find ourselves at a moment when structural problems are increasingly solved at a material level and the design process increasingly takes place in cyberspace—the tectonic foundation of architecture is shaking.

Can architecture be unbound to the limits and possibilities of scale? The ubiquity of 3D digital modeling has enabled us to generate forms and volumes that can float without dimension. We can now

scale digital culture hierarchy tectonics civics

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Towards an Archaeology of the Future: The Pine Street African Burial Ground

share our work with new audiences, across borders and disciplines. The Agora has expanded into the black hole of digital cyberspace. What will we shout?

Although the radii of our activities have never been smaller, their reach has never been wider. The locus of the shout, and the distance over which it carries, span two distant ends of an almost unthinkable scalar spectrum — the home on one end, and an infinitely folded cyberspace on the other. Yet for the shout to land, the scale of encounter telescopically and instantaneously shrinks back to the scale of an individual, at home, alone.

What does the activation of scale as a means of producing meaningful architecture look like in today’s world, and in the future? What does collectivity and individuality mean in our new context, and how do they coexist? What lies in between the scalar poles? What is the scale of democracy?

Image: Tania Jaquez

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Image: Johnoy Gordon

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Theme 2

The Inbetweeners

Jerome Haferd

“...we’ve got to invent what it means to use form to tell a story.”

Torkwase Dyson

Architecture is an archaeological practice of sorts. Our toolset includes forms and types that persist from one generation to the next. But our archive of forms and tools is incomplete. This course built on last year’s investigation of the Harlem African Burial Ground, addressed the opportunities and challenges of producing ‘time-released architecture’ within a very different spatial context.

The Pine Street African Burial Ground—now part of the Kingston Land Trust and Harambee’s stewardship — is a recently rediscovered site nestled in a residential area of a regional town center of the Hudson Valley, the vast region which extends north of New York to Albany. Research of the history of indigenous occupation of the Valley, industrialization and extraction, black enslavement and dispossession and its connection to contemporary issues of land ownership and stewardship models, and environmental repair will inform the work in this context.

Students were tasked with positioning themes of Time, Archive, and the Ground within their own project for a possible future that is instigated and anchored by the design of a new Interpretive Center for the site. Our method looked to science fiction as a model, and students worked in the tools of the storyteller, crafting a future

scenario which demonstrates the concepts of their living vision for the site.

This work challenged the limits of the historical archive, how we practice, and what we design. How does architecture at the scale of the local connect to regional scale infrastructural systems?

What does a generative architecture look like fifty years into its lifespan?

Work done in the studio expanded beyond the scope of the classroom, engaging local stakeholders in their reallife process of restorative justice - as - architecture. We travelled to Kingston (before COVID019!) and met with the Harambee youth and local leaders responsible for the future of the site.

Image: Kari Kleinmann

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Theme 2

The In-Between

Martin Zanoli

Sadie Wegner

Selected Projects

Image: Martin Zanoli

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Images: Sadie Wegner

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Tania Jaquez

Image: Tania Jaquez

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Yoo Jin Jang

Image: Yoo Jin Jang

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Theme 3 An Informal Conditioning

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Theme 3

An Informal Conditioning

Mohammed Gueye, Editor

Introduction

Keywords

Informal[ity], meaning ‘lacking form’ or ‘not in accordance with the rules of formal logic’. In contemporary architectural and urban discourses, informality has come to describe the ‘casual’ and a ‘lack of order’. We characterize slums, bidonvilles, and shantytowns, the world’s fastestgrowing building typologies, as informal settlements. But there is nothing casual about informality. The break in monotony created by the COVID-19 pandemic has created an uncertain and deeply insecure environment.

Every week, our studios come together from disparate, separate locations as we process both our work and our worlds in very different ways. In most architectural studios, the production of a drawing is generally geared (and reduced) to the formal qualities of a final presentation document. Now, however, there is no plotter, no pin-up, and there are no conventions. Every day, in isolated bedrooms and dining rooms across the city, the solitary informal architect forcibly produces through intense and often lonely inquiry. Bereft of the noisy and engaged environment of the studio, this informal architect produces work that is inherently exploratory, using selfdirected inquiry, methods and processes to originate, evoke and investigate possible answers to the questions: “How do we produce work?” “How do you produce a drawing?”

informal casual disorderly logic speculation

Image: Mohammed Gueye

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Mohammed Gueye, Julia Lu, Shola Owolewa, Amanda Sarantos, Bethany Hermann & Samantha Ong

We sought to answer, for ourselves, what might happen if we treated the time of the pandemic as a time of open-ended possibility, rather than a desperate longing for a return to ‘normal.’ We looked for informal architects wherever we could find them — present students, past students, future students … anyone and everyone who was present on our screens in this extra-ordinary time. A time ‘out of’ the ordinary, producing work that is ‘out of’ the ordinary.

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250 Things Every Informal Architect Should Ask

For Sorkin

1.

Is the rough opening large enough?

27.

2.

Will this open riser pass the baby’s head rule?

How will this look after millions of hands have touched it?

3.

Whose hand does this handrail fit?

28.

Where does it start and end?

4.

Who determines eye-level?

29.

Is it okay to call my bosses out (privately) for being idiots on a Zoom call?

5.

Whose reach determines countertop height?

30.

According to whom?

6.

Whose stride is this step designed for?

31.

Am I running this meeting?

7.

What is the balance between specificity and generality?

32.

How can I communicate with senior staff better?

8.

Is design for all designed for everyone?

33.

How do I bring everyone to the table?

9.

What three delicious words would you use to describe this room?

34.

What are some of the differences between realizing it’s 4am and staying up until 4am ?

10.

How was it designed to make you feel?

35.

11.

What should I read next?

What the synchronized call to prayer in a Muslim city sounds like?

12.

How can I write this better?

36.

What does it look like?

13.

Should all text be written for short attention spans?

37.

What does it feel like?

38.

How do you give time generously and responsibly?

39.

What does it mean to be envious?

40.

Where does the word ‘envious’ come from?

14.

Why do architects love to proselytize theory?

15.

Can you name 10 architectural Gesamtkunstwerks from the past 10 years?

16.

Who makes the architecture of your everyday?

41.

What is a etymological dictionary ?

17.

What does the architecture you love do best?

42.

Why do you need it ?

18.

Why?

43.

19.

Are the walls solid enough to block the sound of your neighbor/wife/roommate/partner’s phone calls?

Who writes dictionaries and what power do they possess ?

44.

What is the speed of the city in the morning versus at night?

20.

Would you want to take acid here?

45.

What are the different frequencies?

21.

Do the doors lock?

46.

How do you manage your files?

22.

Do you know how to get onto your roof?

47.

23.

Is there enough room to pirouette?

What is the playful intensity of Ricardo Bofill, Selgascano, and Atelier Bow Wow.

24.

Is there enough room to take a step back and look?

48.

How do you fix a running toilet?

49.

How do you catch it?

25.

Can I touch it?

50.

How do you get a sense of humour?

26.

Can I break it apart with my bare hands?

51.

Who sold it to you?

85

52.

Who is Albert Camus?

80.

How do I avoid becoming jaded by code?

102.

53.

What spaces does he create?

81.

103. How much time do I have left?

133. Is there such a thing as Junkspace?

54.

Where is the Mediterranean Sea?

Why do we start with what we want, instead of what’s possible?

104.

How am I going to present this?

134.

Are you asking or are you telling?

55.

What does it taste like?

105.

Did I document my time spent?

135.

How do I get lost?

56.

How do you give criticism?

106.

What is the budget?

136.

57.

Can I honestly complete all tasks within budget/time?

What can you remove until it becomes something else?

137.

What are you obsessing over?

Can I make the deadline?

132.

Can it be scaled?

82.

Why not start with what’s possible?

83.

Where is the line between truth and illusion, between representation and presentation?

How do you receive criticism?

84.

Does intent ever justify illusion?

107.

58.

Is a critique a conversation?

85.

59.

When isn’t it?

Does material need/deserve truth in expression?

108. Did I proofread?

138. What are the parts?

60.

When do you stop talking about work?

86.

Is there beauty in trickery/manipulation?

109.

Did you save your file in the last 10 minutes?

139.

What lives here and what dies here?

61.

To what degree do I justify my subjectivity?

87.

Is playfulness an inside joke?

110.

Can this be expressed as a drawing?

140.

What is an assembly?

62.

Do they need to “get” it?

88.

Do I want to be an architect or something adjacent to it?

111.

Where are the people?

141.

What is the context?

63.

Are there layers to “getting it”?

112.

Did I draw enough?

142.

How do you see the context?

64.

Are spatial sensations shared?

113.

What’s on the supply list?

143.

How do others see the context?

65.

Learned?

114.

How does this investigation relate to the project?

144.

Where do the birds stay?

66.

Imparted?

145.

Is there history or are there histories?

67.

Do we only understand by our experience?

146.

Why do you lie to yourself?

68.

Is constantly questioning my surroundings constructive or destructive?

147.

What is sophistication?

148.

Can you build an empathetic drawing?

69.

Does everything have a reason, or is that hindsight, or is it only a theory?

149.

What is the difference between empathy, sensitivity and sensual?

70.

89.

Is the power to impart change only in architecture’s adjacencies?

90.

Do we need a greater blurring of that line to change the lack of agency in practice?

115.

How am I engaging with the existing?

116.

Does this engage the phenomenological?

Can my contributions to architecture be more impacting/powerful/revolutionary operating outside of practice?

117.

Can there be a more ethical approach?

118.

Did I do enough research?

93.

Is it more important to exist in the buffer zone?

119.

What is the purpose of this project?

Will I survive as a romantic?

94.

Is there more freedom in the buffer zone?

120.

Who can I ask for help?

150.

How did each word feel to say?

71.

How objective is intuition?

95.

121.

What am I doing right now?

151.

Could a space be for everyone?

72.

What is the value of my vision?

Are the products of that freedom legitimate if not coupled with practice?

122.

What is my role in this?

152.

Should it?

73.

Am I justified in fighting for my vision?

123.

Is their voice heard?

153.

Is space a room?

74.

How much compromise is assumed in realizing the virtual?

124.

Is my idea thoroughly expressed?

154.

Is it silky or smooth?

125.

What is the narrative?

155.

Is it granular or coarse?

126.

How do those two things connect?

156.

Is it heavy or weighty?

127.

What is the unit?

157.

Is it neither?

128.

Is there a hierarchy?

158.

What makes you work?

75.

76.

How do I know when to fight and when to compromise?

91.

92.

96.

What does it mean to be a woman in design?

97.

Why define ourselves within a hierarchy when the emerging strength in the design world is its fluidity in titles, operation, knowledge base, practice?

98.

What is the line between reconciliation and compromise?

77.

Will I always operate on that line?

78.

Is it for me or for you?

79.

How do I stay optimistic in New York City?

Is this the aim structural change, or is the aim alternative design?

Do I need to be an Architect, or is being an architect still legitimate, still powerful, more progressive, adaptive, not rigid, significantly not insular?

99.

Is this readable?

129.

Is the form well-articulated?

159.

Where are the points, lines and planes?

100.

Do these colors complement each other?

130.

What is its relationship to the site?

160.

What are you celebrating?

101.

What is the lead time?

131.

Is it efficient?

161.

What piques your interest?

87

162.

How many ways can you respond?

163.

What is the difference between articulation and legibility?

186. What’s the distance of a typical NYC block and how long does it take you to walk it?

187.

Can you tell when it’s time to put down the pen?

213. How long can the duration of an apology be?

244. What is the lifespan of what you create?

214.

Who defines “good”?

245. Is creating something eternal narcissistic?

215.

What are the terms of your engagements?

246. What does it mean to be progressive?

216.

Who defines those terms?

247.

Can you speak in other people’s vernacular?

248. Why does it matter?

164.

When are you reading and when are you narrating?

188. Can you tell when it’s time to pick it back up again?

165.

How many times have you sharpened the pencil?

189.

Have you lost hope?

217.

190.

Have you lost faith?

218. What do you fill a room with when you enter?

249. How do I tell if it matters?

191.

Where did they go?

219.

250. Am I trying too hard to be original?

192.

Did they leave or were they hidden?

220. What benefits do you see?

193.

When was the last time you made something for yourself?

221.

166.

How many metaphors are there for sharpening the pencil?

167.

Have you learned from what you were doing?

168. What does it mean to be radical?

169.

What do you gain from reservation?

170.

How many ways can you measure a drawing?

171.

How many other ways could you measure a novel?

172.

173.

What does it feel like to be in a room with an open door?

What does it feel like to be in a room with a closed door?

194.

How do you introduce yourself without using your occupation/job?

195.

Do you know the way home?

196.

How did you get there?

197.

Why don’t you cook?

198. Why don’t you bake?

199.

Are you working or are you resting when you are having fun?

What do take when you leave?

How long does it take for you to learn a lesson?

222. Which lessons take longer to learn?

223. Was it worth learning?

224. Do you need to write it down?

225.

Is it about the process or the result?

226. Am I trying to be repetitive?

227. Who are you?

228. Who have you been?

229. Do you know the way home?

174.

Did you answer truthfully?

175.

Did you answer casually?

200.

Is communicating laborious?

230. Do you know where home is?

176.

Can you recognize the soft and hard power dynamics in relationships?

201.

Should it be?

231.

177.

How do you belong somewhere?

178.

And what does it mean to belong there?

179.

How can you capture the moment?

180.

Are you making work that is intentionally thoughtful or is it just sensationalist?

181.

How do you channel inspiration into productivity?

182.

What is your workflow?

183. Do you need to write it down?

184. Is it about the process or the result?

185.

Is it harder to start something or finish something?

When is a drawing finished?

202. Do you produce the same from home?

232. When is the work finished?

203. Are you stressed or depressed?

233. Are they same or are they different?

204. Does that change the quality of your work?

234. How different could they possibly be?

205. Does that change how you feel about work?

235. How do you know when you’re done?

206. What is the difference between a house and home?

236. For whom do you work?

207. Which do you currently inhabit?

208. How big or small can a home be?

209. Are your neighbours part of it?

210.

How do you express a genuine “thank you”?

211.

At what point do you not say “I’m sorry?”

212.

What happens after an apology?

What does it mean to be authentic?

237. Who are you addressing when you work?

238. How many bridges come into Harlem?

239. What are their names?

240. How many are above ground?

241.

How many are below ground?

242. Is the building about the erection?

243. Can it be about the demolition?

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Theme 3

An Informal Conditioning

Annabelle Surya

Bhavya Desai Luisa Janssen

Selected Projects

Image: Annabelle Surya

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Image: Bhavya Desai and Luisa Janssen

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Elene Solomnishvili Alejandra Zapata

Image: Elene Solomnishvili and Alejandra Zapata

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Noor Ain

Image: Noor Ul Ain

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Genesis Soto

Image: Genesis Soto

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Kimberly Cueto Joande Hernandez

Images: Kimberly Cueto and Joande Hernandez

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Mohammed Gueye

Image: Mohammed Gueye

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Theme 4 Catalytic Surfacing

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Theme 4

Catalytic Surfacing

Image: Ignacio Nestor-Lopez

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Nicolas Losi & Giuliana Vaccarino Gearty, Editors

Image: Nicolas Losi

Introduction

Keywords

The late Michael Sorkin asserted that “all architecture distributes: mass, space, materials, privilege, access, meaning, shelter, rights,” both a warning and a challenge. If there is a place to meet this provocation, it is at a public school of architecture, a format concerned at its core with questions of distribution.

It is presumptuous to expect that architecture can solve society’s ills. Such an assumption rings of modernist hubris: we are past the era of Pruitt-Igoe and La Ville Radieuse. Yet it would also be disingenuous, not to mention ethically questionable, to claim that architects today should not seek to confront the repercussions that their work might, and does, produce. Indeed, many architects, designers, and planners alike understand that in shaping the human realm, one must confront its past and present realities in ways that are respectful as well as critical. In today’s climate— particularly in this period of public health turmoil—how can architecture act as an agent of change, critiquing systems within which it exists and reconceiving our method of inquiry to be more expansive and probing? How might we reinvent our interactions with our palette of tools and materials to expose new or overlooked modes of thinking and working? In a time when inequity has been laid bare by a global pandemic, we ask what agency architecture has as an empathic, ethical catalyst, exposing and reframing existing narratives and opening minds to new methodologies.

We sought work that challenged conventional modes of practice through grappling with these larger questions about the value of place and the lessons their specific qualities could offer the design discipline. We were interested in projects that reframed existing narratives and opened our minds to new methodologies and uses of material.

uncover peel back reveal catalyze to surface lay bare expose develop confront engage reevaluate question challenge status quo induce incite reinterpret

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Theme 4

Catalytic Surfacing

Ali Askarinejad

Hypothetic Constructs

Image: Catherine Priolet

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A humanist architecture has concentrated its effort on space as a positively constructed volume to be enclosed, somehow. As a result, the matter with which architecture assumes its corporeal reality – either the physical material or the labor in it and its unarticulated history is excluded from spatial thinking and, later, the experience of the occupant’s interaction with it (as it becomes a virtual matter, a shell). This results in marginalizing yet another bridge in direct experience through which the inconsistencies of the imposition of lingual and power structures may be exposed. The collective consciousness is impoverished and left inadequate to situate itself within its surrounding world. With such paradigms of disjunction in the name of liberation, what is left to talk about is the secondary pre/post-historical primitiveness of “things as they are” a globalized market of violence.

Image: Jacqueline Love

Image: Jeffrey Schneider

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The course, Hypothetic Constructs, is an episodic semester with five separate exercises. Mass, the first in the series, is in hopes of an architectural call for amnesty by proximity to the primordial body of matter - something that the virus or ecological crises seem to remind us is still more than possible. It is our choice to make: for the looming or adjacent bodies to devastate or awaken us.

Image: Mohammed Gueye

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Image: Olenka Sotero

Image: Pedro Cruz

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Theme 4

Catalytic Surfacing

Benjamin Akhavan

Pauline Dang

Selected Projects

Image: Benjamin Akhavan

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Image: Pauline Dang

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Tanha Tabassum

Image: Tanha Tabassum

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Theme 5 Community Building Building Community

Image: The Grid Project. Brooklyn Bridge, 9 May 2020

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Theme 5

Grass Roots

Elene Solomnishvili and Alejandra Zapata, Editors

Commun[ity], originates from the Latin ‘Communitas’ and means a ‘community’ or ‘a public spirit’.

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Introduction

Keywords

German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies, in Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, describes two types of human collectives: Gemeinschaft interpreted as ‘community’ and Gesellschaft as ‘society’ or ‘association’. The understanding behind these words forms the understanding of social ties. In a time of uncertainty, during COVID-19, the ‘public spirit’ or ‘community’ was physically shattered, isolating people from each another. However, the community does not only exist within the physicality of a building, but this ‘community’ can also be understood on different scales, forming collectives as small as a screen to large, open spaces and parks. According to Tönnies, ‘no group is exclusively one of the other.’

Each collective is either a small group, or a large one, creating its narrative and unique identity. We have personal and social interactions that include roles, values, and beliefs in communities that form unified connections. Throughout history, multiple communities of diverse cultures have developed different types of collectives in schools, libraries, community centers, parks, neighborhoods, and districts. Virtual meetings have become a substitute for physical face-to-face interactions, but as soon as people become isolated, the craving for those community bonds is instant. It is interesting that, even in a time of change, we still form collectives in which we want to achieve something together, returning to our Grass Roots.

community building collective isolation identity

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Theme 5

The Grid Project

Anonymous

From: Anonymous Sent: 08 May 2020 08:58 To: Lesley Lokko Subject: COVID 19: The Grid Project

From: Lesley Lokko Sent: 08 May 2020 07:02 To: Anonymous Subject: COVID 19: The Grid Project These are great! Can I put them on our Instagram feed?

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Good morning! Unfortunately, we can’t.

It’s illegal what we are doing. We do not have any type of permit from the city, parks, etc. and with the people that we are doing it, we agreed to be anonymous. At least for now. We are going to document it. A friend of mine, she is a film director, is going to film it.

Let’s see the results, and maybe then can go public.

From: Lesley Lokko Sent: 08 May 2020 09:48 To: Anonymous Subject: COVID 19: The Grid Project

From: Anonymous Sent: 08 May 2020 08:58 To: Lesley Lokko Subject: COVID 19: The Grid Project

Sorry! I will keep you posted.

Can we publish in Antidotes?

Absolutely!

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Theme 5

Abigail Kaage

Belma Fishta Josmarlyn Henrriquez

Selected Projects

Image: Abigail Kaage

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Image: Belma Fishta and Josmarlyn Henrriquez

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Benjamin Akhavan Genesis Baque Gabriela Silva

Images: Benjamin Akhavan, Genesis Baque and Gabriela Silva

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Gilbert Santana Bryan Ortega Chaerin Kim

Images: Gilbert Santana, Bryan Ortega and Chaerin Kim

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Karyna Yanovska Kerry Chan

Images: Karyna Yanovska Kerry Chan

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Theme 6 Six Degrees of Separation

Image: Hajar Alrifai

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Theme 6

Six Degrees of Separation

Krystian Sidorski, Editor and Viren Brahmbhatt, Faculty Editor

Introduction

Keywords

“Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other. Also known as the ‘6 Handshakes’ rule. As a result, a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps”.1 The theme ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ is both a provocation and invitation for collective observations on shifting paradigms under the current disruption caused by the pandemic.

While it dovetails with our ongoing Advanced Studio theme this Spring, we imagine it to be an open conversation about architectures of care and sociality; ethics; aesthetics, and politics of intellectual practices. The questions are obvious: how do we read, reflect, and respond collectively in shaping the intellectual space where such narratives live? And how to balance the needs of the collective with the need for the potentially sustained possibility of social distancing and other consequences?

Together Apart Alone Together Shifting Domesticity Toxicity Sociality Negotiation Non-binary Conditions Care Wellbeing Disruption as a Catalyst Community

1

Image: Hajar Alrifai

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It was originally set out by Frigyes Karinthy in 1929, and popularized in an eponymous 1990 play, written by John Guare. It is sometimes generalized to the average social distance being logarithmic in the size of the population.

Source: Wikipedia

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Theme 6

Six Degrees of Separation

Mashrabiya

Ahmed Helal, Hajar Alrifai, Benjamin Akhavan and Tatiana Voitovica

Keywords

Mashrabiya is a periodical produced annually by Future Architects of the Middle East, an undergraduate student organization at City College of New York’s Spitzer School of Architecture.

The publication explores Middle Eastern architecture with the goal of shining light on a vibrant, diverse community that is often exoticized, villainized, under-represented and misunderstood.

Through the journal, they seek to facilitate an ongoing dialogue about architecture and identity. Mashrabiya is run entirely by student editors and features work by students and practitioners around the globe. Identity, the inaugural issue, was published in April 2020. www.mashrabiya.org. Its editors are Ahmed Helal, Hajar Alrifai, Benjamin Akhavan and Tatiana Voitovica.

diaspora architecture identity Islamic Middle East exotic global

Image: Hajar Alrifai

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Hajar Alrifai

Assimilation

I am part of a generation in-between In-between homelands, never truly belonging In-between fragmented identities our sense of self is one big question We come from parents who moved mountains Whose stories cross borders and transcend lifetimes We are the bittersweet fruit of uprooted trees, planted in foreign soil Our mother tongues are like sand slipping between our fingertips, We cling desperately to whatever broken Arabic we have left.

The “motherland” is a place we’ve known through photographs, and nostalgic stories our parents told

Nadeem Hassan

whose fruit is bittersweet tainted with war and diaspora Assimilation is a remnant of the colonizer’s oppression.

My mother’s headscarf is her resistance My grandmother’s face tattoo is a reminder of where we came from.

Every time we pray, we decolonize our power is living despite the colonizer We live on in reclaimed spaces that tell our stories

Prayer is My Safe Haven Inspired by David Hockney’s “Joiners” collage photography, “Prayer is my Safe Haven” illustrates the multiple positions of Muslim prayer that take place in a peaceful and empty room.

My ancestors made colonized spaces their sanctuaries While the White Man conquered, they conserved They quarried masonry and harvested grain And with their blistered hands sustained an empire They spun life and laughter from wheat stalks and olive branches

Image: Nadeen Hassan

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129

Theme 6

Six Degrees of Separation

Krystian Sidorski Jasmine Cato and Paola Ruiz

Ngawang Tenzin Karyna Yanovska and Rebecca Mechanic

Selected Projects

Image: Krystian Sidorski, Jasmine Cato and Paola Ruiz

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Image: Ngawang Tenzin, Karyna Yanovska and Rebecca Mechanic

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Ngawang Tenzin Karyna Yanovska and Rebecca Mechanic

Image: Ngawang Tenzin, Karyna Yanovska and Rebecca Mechanic

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Tracy Orend and Alexander Young

Image: Tracy Orend and Alexander Young

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Anna Lekanidis Nikitha Menon Olivia Sklyarova and Juliia Sokolova

Images: Anna Lekanidis, Nikitha Menon, Olivia Sklyarova and Juliia Sokolova

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Theme 7 10 Reasons ...

Image: M. Vaginatus, Street Life. Š Mike Finazzo, 2020

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Theme 7 10 Reasons the Pandemic is Proving We Need to Start Thinking About the Ecology of Public Spaces

Denise Hoffman Brandt

Abstract

Keywords

For the past few years, I have instructed a second-year landscape architecture studio that focuses on biodesign as a means to expand students’ — and my own — ideas of how to practice ecological planning and design. The spring 2018 studio, Biopolis/Biopoly, participated in the Biodesign Challenge by exploring design of devices and tactics that would contribute to an overall plan for infrastructure to support a robust urban growth of beneficial microbes. In spring 2019 we took a more instrumental approach, and developed a distributed organic waste management plan using microbial processes — both to effectively manage waste without the attenuation of a centralized system and also to build awareness of the urban microbiome. Those efforts, and the conceptual planning for a symposium on Everyday Ecologies were the backdrop for this year’s project calling for speculation on how to connect the microbial landscape to the daily lives of New Yorkers. SARS-COV-2 did that for us.

The following 10 reasons emerged throughout the course of our explorations. They should be interpreted as opportunities for new ways to imagine design and planning in the public realm, and not as problems to be solved.

biodesign ecological planning biomes landscapes infrastructure

Image: M. Vaginatus, Street Life. © Mike Finazzo, 2020

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1. Humans and viruses use spatial maneuvers to achieve the same paradigm for success: growth. Humans and viruses physically move into a territory — viruses break into cells — to use the resources of their new context to reproduce and spread. With this understanding, perhaps we have to ask ourselves what we really mean when we elevate humanity’s status based on the idea of sentience. When a virus can alter the social behaviors of humans simultaneously around the world, it reveals that humans are not the only species with extreme scalar capacities, and that anthropocentrism is a false construct.

2. We are holobionts. The cells of non-human organisms outnumber human cells in a human body by upwards of 130%. Each of us is a host of other living organisms that function together — successfully or not — as an assemblage.

At a finer grain of biological organization, we are hologenomes. We share genetic material with our microbial symbionts.

“Beneficial, deleterious, and neutral mutations in any of these genomic subunits underlie hologenomic variation.”

We evolve with microbes. (Bordenstein, Seth R. and Kevin R., Theis 2015) So, what does it mean to be human?

3. The emergence of a “public” was also a biological process. Yersinia pestis, the microbe that causes bubonic plague in human hosts, and the Neolithic Aryan peoples settled together with domesticated animals — some of the 140

earliest publics — grew territorially together along early trade routes.

Behaviors of both organisms were affected by the process of socialization.

(Morand 2018) Cities are ecosystems, shaped by biological relationships.

4. Cultural diversity and biological diversity are correlated with diversity in infectious diseases. In other words, positive aspects of urbanity have always been associated with increased exposure to diverse microbial allies, neutral entities, and pathogens. (Morand 2018) Rather than seeing this as taking the good with the bad, it might be functional — and accurate — to recognize that organisms that directly harm us are still significant for our well-being in that they fulfill meaningful roles in the lifecycles of other species upon which we depend. To reframe Donne: “Man” is no island.

5. High microbial diversity benefits everything from soil ecosystem functioning to human gut processes.

How we design the public realm influences whether we support positive microbial relationships or construct mechanisms — both physical and ideological — that support the spread of pathogens. (Maron P. A. et al 2018) (Hunter-Cevera 1998) We should be planning infrastructure for robust urban microbiomes.

Image: City Swabs. © Ally Maher, 2020

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6. Public spaces are shaped by history, political and environmental contexts, and economic inequalities, likewise epidemics. For example, COVID-19 spread at New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebrations has been disproportionately lethal in minority communities with a background of underlying conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure stemming from economic status and cultural biases related to diet. (Villarosa 2020) (Destoumieux-Garzón, Delphine et al 2018) While occupying the same route, the spaces of the Zulu Krewe were more deadly than the spaces of other Mardi Gras Krewes.

7. It’s not just a metaphor, we need to know what is in the air. Public spaces are unbounded. There is evidence that air pollution should be considered a co-factor in the level of SARS-COV-2 lethality. Air quality deregulation and non-compliance increase the prevalence of a chronic inflammatory stimulus (PM 2.5) that raises the risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome and susceptibility to infection for citizens who frequent public spaces in areas with high levels of atmospheric pollution.

(Conticini, Edoardo et al 2020) SARSCOV-2 highlights how federal-level environmental policy-making has serious local-scale public health impacts.

Image: COVID-19 Select Disturbances. © Abby Stein, 2020

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8. We may be “cleaning” ourselves to death. Anthropologist Mary Douglas’ statement: “Dirt is matter out of place” could be applied equally to the microbial realm which, in being simultaneously beneficial to humans and dangerous to them, often seems to operate outside the rules by which we try to order the world.

(Douglas 1978-originally 1966) Douglas argued that societies established morally-grounded prohibitions against such ambiguities as a means of protection against disorder. The current rhetoric about the virus being evil is not just anthropomorphizing the organism, it is encoding a taboo against it. And yet, sanitized or confined urban environments have low-population, lowdiversity microbial communities that can be exploited by opportunistic, sometimes harmful species. (Yong 2016) Ridding ourselves of our urban microbial cohort opens space for other, possibly more pathogenic, creatures.

9. The idea that environmental and social forces are always in conflict has caused paralysis, to act effectively, we need to reimagine our relationships with nature. Wilderness preserves, nature conservancies, and National Parks are all set aside as public resources predicated on the idea that they are the opposite of urban. Spaces representative of our environmental ideals are relegated to being special places as opposed to social necessities. The outcome of this rationale is that ameliorating responses to spread of a pathogen are set in false 144

opposition to economic security and initiatives to mitigate climate-change are understood to be an extra dividend and not essential.

10. Public spaces can be seen as zones of symbiogenesis. Literally meaning “becoming by living together,” symbiogenesis describes the coevolution of symbiotic organisms in ecological relationships over a long period of time. Common microbes found in public spaces are carried by us into our homes and even into ourselves — to be then carried by us back into the public realm — where, over a long time period, our intra-relationships could stimulate evolutionary-scale genetic modification (Aanen, Duur K. and Paul Eggleton 2017). SARS-COV-2 will evolve with us.

Aanen, Duur K. and Paul Eggleton. 2017.

“Symbiogenesis: Beyond the endosymbiosis theory?”

Journal of Theoretical Biology, December 7: 99-103.

Accessed April 29, 2020. https://reader.elsevier.com/ reader/sd/pii/S0022519317303612?.

Bordenstein, Seth R. and Kevin R. Theis. 2015. “Host Biology in Light of the Microbiome: Ten Principles of Holobionts and Hologenomes.” PLOS Biology, August 18: 1-23. Accessed April 29, 2020. https://journals. plos.org/plosbiology/article/file?id=10.1371/journal. pbio.1002226&type=printable.

Conticini, Edoardo et al. 2020. “Can atmospheric pollution be considered a co-factor in extremely highlevel of SARS-CoV-2 lethality in Northern Italy?”

Environmental Pollution (Elsevier) xxx. Accessed April 28, 2020. https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/ S0269749120320601?

Morand, Serge. 2018. Biogeography and the ecology of emerging infectious diseases. Edited by Serge and Muriel Fiquie Morand. Vol. Emergence of Infectious Diseases. Versailles: Editions Quae. Accessed April 12, 2020. https://www.quae.com/collection/38/matiere-adebattre-et-decider.

Villarosa, Linda. 2020. “A Terrible Price: The Deadly Racial Disparities of Covid-19 in America.” The New York Times, April 29. Accessed April 29, 2020. https:// www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/magazine/racialdisparities-covid-19.html.

Yong, Ed. 2016. I Contain Multitudes. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Destoumieux-Garzón, Delphine et al. 2018. “The One Health Concept: 10 Years Old and a Long Road Ahead.” Frontiers in Veterinary Science. Accessed April 28, 2020. https://www.frontiersin.org/ articles/10.3389/fvets.2018.00014/full.

Douglas, Mary. 1978-originally 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan.

Hunter-Cevera, Jennie C. 1998. “The value of microbial diversity.” Current Opinion in Microbiology 1 (3): 278-285. Accessed April 28, 2020. https:// www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/ S1369527498800301.

Maron P. A. et al. 2018. “High microbial diversitypromotes soil ecosystem functioning.” Applied Environmental Microbiology 84:e02738-17 (9): 1-13.

Accessed April 28, 2020. https://aem.asm.org/ content/aem/84/9/e02738-17.full.pdf.

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A publication conceived, edited, and produced by the students, staff, and faculty of The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York.

For Michael Sorkin. In memorial.

Image: Screen 1 of 4, Online tribute to Michael Sorkin, Friday, May 15, 2020.

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The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture The City College of New York 141 Convent Avenue at West 135th Street New York, NY 10031

@whatsonatssa @dieateljee @swart.fred

All photographs by David Johnson, Gordon Gebert and Sirin Samman, with the exception of student work.

Our deepest thanks and admiration go to Fred Swart, who, from 6,000 miles away, pulled this all — and us — together.