Programming Living in America
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PROGRAMMING FAMILY DAY LIVING IN AMERICA An afternoon of art-making activities that October 7, 1–3pm invites families to re-imagine together their homes and communities. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, SYMPOSIUM HARLEM & MODERN HOUSING The question of how to live in America preoccupied many architects and planners—from ROUNDTABLE: PUBLIC HOUSING TODAY Frank Lloyd Wright to the consortium behind Harlem’s first public housing proposals—in This conversation carries the Living November 1, 6–7:30pm the mid-twentieth century. This symposium, in America exhibition premise forward, which accompanies the exhibition by the same considering current challenges for New York name, gathers scholars of mid–20th Century City public housing. 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 SATURDAY GALLERY TALKS how we live in America, together, today. October 21, November 4 and December 2 from 1pm SEPTEMBER 28 THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK All talks meet at To register for MoMA please RSVP before September 28 the Wallach Art September 25 to [email protected] 6pm Gallery entrance. Viewing of Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive at The Museum of For more information about these events visit wallach.columbia.edu. Modern Art 7–8:30pm Symposium Keynote Presentation, Dianne Harris, University of Utah SEPTEMBER 29 WALLACH ART GALLERY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LENFEST CENTER FOR THE ARTS Symposium speakers are Shiben Banerji, School September 29, of the Art Institute of Chicago; Jana Cephas, 10am–5:30pm Living in America has been curated by The Temple Hoyne University of Michigan; Brian Goldstein, Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, September 9–December 17 Swarthmore College; Jennifer Gray, The Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), and is co-presented Museum of Modern Art; Jennifer Hock, Maryland by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and The Avery Wed–Fri, Noon–8pm Institute College of Art; Catherine Maumi, Architectural and Fine Arts Library, in correlation Sat & Sun, Noon–6pm with Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive at The Grenoble School of Architecture; Kevin The Museum of Modern Art, New York. McGruder, Antioch College; and Joseph Watson, The Wallach Art Gallery University of British Columbia Columbia University Lenfest Center for the Arts Please RSVP at wallach.columbia.edu. 615 West 129 Street (West of Broadway) “Living in America,” a phrase written on wooden Living in America has been curated INSTITUTIONS ARCHIVES SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN panels traveling with the model of Frank Lloyd by The Temple Hoyne Buell Center BLACK CULTURE, NYPL Wright’s Broadacre City (1929–58), evokes a for the Study of American Archi- THE TEMPLE HOYNE BUELL AVERY ARCHITECTURAL AND question that preoccupied architects and planners tecture at Columbia University’s CENTER FOR THE STUDY FINE ARTS LIBRARY: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, throughout the mid-twentieth century: How to Graduate School of Architec- OF AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE: Carole Ann Fabian, Director SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH live together? Wright’s proposal for an exurban ture, Planning, and Preservation Reinhold Martin, Director Janet Parks, Curator of Drawings CENTER settlement of single-family houses offered (GSAPP), and is co-presented by Jacob Moore, Assistant Director and Archives* one possible answer; plans for large public or The Buell Center, The Miriam and Jordan Steingard, Program Manager Margaret Smithglass, Registrar UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AT subsidized housing located in urban areas presented Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and and Digital Content Librarian AMHERST, DUBOIS ARCHIVE another. Although these two visions seem a world The Avery Architectural and Fine THE MIRIAM AND IRA D. WALLACH Pamela Casey, Architecture apart, they share a common history. Arts Library, in correlation ART GALLERY: Archivist WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, WALTER P. with Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Deborah Cullen, Director and Chief REUTHER LIBRARY Wright (1867–1959) first exhibited his Broadacre Unpacking the Archive, on view Curator CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM City project at Rockefeller Center in Midtown at The Museum of Modern Art, New Jeanette Silverthorne, Associate WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY Manhattan in 1935. While the prominent Wisconsin- York, from June 12 through October Director of Finance and COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES based architect anticipated a degree of economic 1, 2017. “Broad Acres and Narrow Exhibitions diversity, Broadacre’s residents were, for the Lots,” an associated essay by Lewis Long, Associate Director of CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, RARE most part, implicitly white. In 1936 construction David Smiley, Assistant Director External Affairs AND MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS began on one of New York City’s first public of the Urban Design Program at Jennifer Mock, Associate Director housing developments, the Harlem River Houses, Columbia GSAPP, is included in of Education and Public DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER PRESIDENTIAL funded by the Public Works Administration the MoMA exhibition catalogue. We Programs LIBRARY under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. are grateful to all of our project Eddie José Bartolomei, Exhibitions Built for working-class African Americans, the partners, without whom this Manager THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION complex was designed by a consortium including challenging project would not ARCHIVE (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART John Louis Wilson Jr., the first African American have been possible. THE GRADUATE SCHOOL | AVERY ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS to graduate from Columbia University’s School OF ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING, LIBRARY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, of Architecture. Through such parallel examples, AND PRESERVATION, COLUMBIA NEW YORK) this exhibition shows how two different approaches RESEARCH TEAM UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK to housing combine societal aspiration with HAGLEY MUSEUM AND LIBRARY racial segregation and socioeconomic inequality, GSAPP: THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, and asks: How to live in America, together? Erik Carver (Harlem Research Team NEW YORK: THE LAGUARDIA AND WAGNER ARCHIVES, Leader), Daniel Cooper, Clara Barry Bergdoll, Curator, FIORELLO H. LAGUARDIA COMMUNITY The exhibition’s narrative takes the form of two Dykstra, Robin Hartanto Honggare, Department of Architecture COLLEGE/CUNY interwoven plotlines, developed through displays Neha Krishnan, Tola Oniyangi, Julie and Design of project-specific drawings, photographs, and Pedtke, Jiexi Qi, Laura Veit, Jennifer Gray, Project Research LENOX TERRACE MANAGEMENT OFFICE other material dating from the late 1920s to the Isaac Warshauer, Alexander Hilton Assistant late 1950s. One plotline tracks the Broadacre Wood (Frank Lloyd Wright Research THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS scheme as it plays out in Wright’s subsequent work, Team Leader), Zhengyang (Echo) Yue THE NEW YORK CITY HOUSING scattered around the country; the other tracks AUTHORITY MANHATTANVILLE HOUSES the development of public housing in Upper CONSULTANTS: MANAGEMENT OFFICE Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, ending just Nick Bloom, Matt Lasner, Nancy outside the gallery, adjacent to Columbia’s new Later, Richard Plunz, Abbe THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK campus. Both stories connect social institutions, Schriber, David Smiley, Joseph such as the nuclear family, with economic Watson, Ashley Wu THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES structures, such as private property or its alternatives. Wright’s version of the “American NEW YORK CITY MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES Dream” and Harlem’s public housing both draw EXHIBITION DESIGN lines of race, class, and gender, many of which ROCKEFELLER ARCHIVE CENTER persist today. Their differences remind us that PROJECT PROJECTS: the right to housing once defined, and could Shannon Harvey, Chris Wu, still define, what it means to live in America. Prem Krishnamurthy, Janet Chan, Lauren Bishop The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture LEONG LEONG: at Columbia University Dominic Leong, Gabriel Burkett * Retired June 2017 PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR APARTMENTS YEAR 1926–28 CLIENT John D. Rockefeller Jr. 1 Courtyard, ca. 1930, ARCHITECT Andrew Jackson Thomas TYPE 6 multifamily buildings reproduction of photoprint LOCATION West 149th to 150th of 6 stories each, with Courtesy Rockefeller Archive Center Streets btwn Macombs some commercial space Place and Adam Clayton UNITS 511 The spacious interior courtyard Powell Jr. and Frederick design was a significant Douglass Boulevards, New departure from Harlem’s Old York, NY Law tenements and more typical of experiments in the outer boroughs. In contrast to the Urged by the New York Urban League, perimeter and highly articulated austere street façade, the John D. Rockefeller Jr. built the courtyard became influential models, crenelated walls of the garden Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartments in and its architect—the self-taught maximized the use of windows and an attempt to prove that privately Andrew Jackson Thomas—gained underscored the development’s developed housing could be recognition as a pioneer of this inward focus. affordable for residents as well as “garden apartment” design. profitable for investors. Residents 2 Playground in the courtyard, initially came to this limited- The Great Depression brought sig- ca. 1930, reproduction of dividend cooperative from Harlem’s nificant changes. Management reduced photoprint higher income brackets, and included the size of payments