Living in America Symposium

The question of how to live in America preoccupied many architects and planners—from Frank Lloyd Wright to the consortium behind Harlem’s first public housing proposals—in the mid-twentieth century. This symposium gathers scholars of housing for a conversation that bridges what might otherwise seem like disparate realms of inquiry in order to reassess received histories and to provoke new questions about how we live in America, together, today.

Symposium speakers are Shiben Banerji, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Jana Cephas, University of Michigan; Brian Goldstein, Swarthmore College; Jennifer Gray, The Museum of Modern Art; Jennifer Hock, Maryland Institute College of Art; Catherine Maumi, the Grenoble School of Architecture; Kevin McGruder, Antioch College; and Joseph Watson, University of British Columbia.

Session 1:

“The Meander and the Grid: At the Edge of American Urbanization” Shiben Banerji, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

“The Airtight Cage and the Affluent Society: Race and Place at Midcentury” Jennifer Hock, Maryland Institute College of Art

Session 2:

“The Farmer in the Rearview Mirror: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Agrarianism” Joseph M. Watson, University of British Columbia

“Design and Social Movements: Architects, Activists, and the Modernist Discourse on Affordable Housing” Jana Cephas, University of Michigan

Session 3:

“Living Separately: Managing Racial Residential Segregation through Public Housing at Harlem River Houses” Kevin McGruder, Antioch College

“Broadacre City Versus the ‘Slum Solution’” Catherine Maumi, Grenoble School of Architecture

Session 4:

“Landscapes of Control: Harlem’s Black Power Urbanism in the Suburban Age” Brian Goldstein, Swarthmore College

“Liminal Spaces: Resisting the Laissez-Faire Metropolis” Jennifer Gray, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Living in America has been curated by The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), and is co-presented by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and and The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, in correlation with Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York through October 1, 2017. The symposium is cosponsored by Columbia School of the Arts.

Please RSVP at wallach.columbia.edu.