As final reviews are taking place across the programs at GSAPP throughout the first weeks of December, the semester concludes with additional public programs including the annual Fitch Colloquium hosted by the Historic Preservation program, and a discussion on how abundance, natural resources, and flammability shaped architectural ideas hosted by the Buell Center. We invite you to join live streams of upcoming events and browse the extensive archive of this year’s programming on the Columbia GSAPP YouTube Channel.

This semester marks the 60th anniversary of the Master of Science in Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP, which was established as the first program of its kind in the United States and became the model graduate historic preservation degree program. This milestone is celebrated with the Fitch Colloquium, an annual event since 2000 named for the program’s founder James Marston Fitch in recognition of his influence on historic preservation education at Columbia and across the US. The day-long event will be followed by a special reception to honor the program’s many achievements and the individuals who have supported Historic Preservation at GSAPP.

The 2024 Fitch Colloquium, “Repairing Architecture Schools,” is a collaboration between the GSAPP Historic Preservation Program and Places Journal. It is co-organized by Jorge Otero-Pailos, Professor and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at GSAPP, and Nancy Levinson and Frances Richard of Places Journal.

Inspired by the eponymous article on Places, this year’s colloquium will explore the pedagogical imagination, and consider what it would take to rebalance the relative importance of preserving existing buildings in the pedagogy of architecture schools. While focusing on architecture and preservation, the symposium will also explore the impact of such pedagogical innovations in all the professions of the built environment, including urban planning, real estate development, urban design, engineering and others.

Participants include: Nick Axel (e-flux Architecture), Erica Avrami (GSAPP), Daniel Barber (TU Eindhoven), Deborah Berke (Yale School of Architecture), Shumi Bose (UAL Central Saint Martins, Koozarch), Mario Gooden (GSAPP), Olaf Grawert (bplus.xyz, station.plus, D-ARCH, ETH Zurich), Nancy Levinson (Places Journal), Josephine Minutillo (Architectural Record), Mireille Roddier (University of Michigan), Jorge Otero-Pailos (GSAPP), and Andrea Roberts (The Texas Freedom Colonies Project, UVA School of Architecture).

Daniel Immerwahr (Northwestern), Matthew C. Hunter(McGill) with response by Aleksandr Bierig (UToronto)

During a period in the 18th and 19th Centuries when American architecture was essentially flammable, the economic imaginary of the United States was reinvented around the material value of timber and of insurance. In these talks, Daniel Immerwahr and Matthew C. Hunter connect architecture to abundance by describing: the rewards and risks of clear-cutting, quick construction, and town-burning that defined colonial building’s attitude to North America’s Indigenous forests, and the risk cartography that made insurance underwriting possible, with its surprising ties to the valuation of art.

For in-person attendance pleaase email buellcenter@columbia.edu to RSVP. To attend virtually, please register for the webinar here.

Organized by GSAPP’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture

• Faculty Ateya Khorakiwala delivers lecture “Shells and Silos: An Epistemic Accounting of Instability and Cracks” for e-flux Architecture Lectures. December 5, 7:00 PM. RSVP.
• Faculty Kaja Kühl moderates NY Center for Architecture Talk, “Designing Climate Corridors: Re-envisioning Urban Arterials in New York City.” December 6, 6:00 PM. RSVP.
• This month, visit Columbia Books on Architecture and the City at two book fairs around New York: Pioneer Works’s Press Play Book Fair from December 7–8. Storefront Book Bash from December 14–15.

• ArchDaily features the works, pictured above, of faculty Lydia Kallipoliti and her approach to transforming architecture through ecological pedagogies.

• Patrick Delatour ‘84 MSHP appointed as Haiti’s Minister of Culture and Communication, previously serving as Haiti’s Minister of Tourism from 2006–2011.

• The Energy Advancement and Innovation Center, The Ohio State University designed by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects (faculty Laurie Hawkinson) receives the Plan Award 2024 Honorable Mention for Completed Education Projects.

• nArchitects (faculty Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang) receives the NYC Design Excellence in Design Award for the Orchard Beach Maintenance and Operations Facility in Pelham Park, Bronx.

• Faculty Hilary Sample’s firm MOS featured in “Frames of Architecture” exhibition at Seoul Museum of Art.