Dear GSAPP Family,
Five weeks in. Seems like an eternity. So much has changed in so little time. We are so swallowed up in riding this out, in structuring some semblance of normality, that I fear sometimes we forget to stop and register the true weight of what is happening and how much we have changed.
And yet, in the storm of daily worries, accompanied by the relentless and overbearing news of tragedies unfolding all around us, near and far, it is in the simplest acts of solidarity, recognition, and kindness—the 7 pm city-wide claps around the world, the neighborly check-ins, the collegial support, the unexpected email or call, the hand wave from across the street—that I find myself letting go and feeling, just for a moment, all that has been lost.
Those moments for me have crystalized in GSAPP’s endlessly creative and dedicated faculty, in the school’s ruthlessly loyal and protective administrators, in our students, whose resilience in the face of such upheaval has been nothing but awe-inspiring. I have also been particularly touched by the strength of the bonds that connect us to our alumni around the world. The outpouring of support, the Tuesday Talks, the global outreach, the random notes: Never in GSAPP’s history has there been such a strong sense of meaningful community. These invaluable ties might have always been here but they are revealing themselves in unprecedented ways, as we also show up for each other in unprecedented ways.
Beyond our alumni, I have been moved by the notes and calls from colleagues around the world—deans and faculty, architects and planners, clients and collaborators—all concerned for New York. I have felt this compassion, in particular, from colleagues in China, some of whom I’ve only met once, at the various schools of architecture and planning—who immediately reached out, offering to FedEx face masks and to help any way they can. It touched me but also gave me pause: did I reach out enough when it was Beijing and Nanjing that were struggling and at risk? Am I holding our colleagues across Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere, in mind and in heart, with the same intensity that I am holding those around me? How do we resist the biases of proximity and extend the same care and attention to those who are farther away?
This double feeling is not unfamiliar. It is the one we must negotiate as architects: we are always inside and outside, zooming (and now Zooming) in and out, shifting from past to future, attempting (always imperfectly) to represent, design, and plan for a different perspective. Our field at its best thinks relationally across cultures and contexts, and moves from its own understandings and commitments to those of others. This commitment to decentering our disciplines and practices has been central to GSAPP’s pedagogical engagements over the past years, across all of our programs. And today’s shared predicaments and exchanges, as individuals, architects, planners, developers, alumni, colleagues, and friends around the world, have only reinforced the importance of holding together different ways of seeing, different ways of working, different ways of living.
This week, I want to dedicate Mining the Archive to our alumni, colleagues, and friends in Asia and elsewhere, whose support now is carrying us beyond what they imagine and whose work continues to do the same.
Sincerely,
Amale
