Course Syllabus

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HISTORIC PRESERVATION STUDIO 1 - FALL 2023

Faculty: Andrew Dolkart, Debora Barros

Teaching Assistants: Pitchaya Kointarangkul and Andrés Santana-Miranda

Historic Preservation Studio I: Course Syllabus

INTRODUCTION

Studio I is the central focus of the first semester of the Historic Preservation program, and a foundational course within the program. It is simultaneously broad in reach and narrow in focus. Studio I both complements and benefits from other first semester coursework; it is the space for engaging overarching historical and contemporary issues in preservation. The goal for Studio I is to equip students with skills, techniques, and critical thinking so that each student can gain the ability to exercise judgment as to the historical significance of a building or site.

Studio I will engage students in questions of preservation and its role in the context of the built environment and its larger cultural manifestations. The course will focus on developing skills using New York City as our classroom. This year, we will spend part of the semester focusing on Midtown Manhattan, an area that is especially relevant as the office buildings that dominate the area have increased vacancies and may be converted to housing or other uses or could be demolished, and because a recent rezoning in Midtown East permits the construction of buildings of enormous scale. The skills learned by using New York City-specific resources will be applicable wherever you are working or undertaking research and analysis. The Studio will encourage students to think about existing preservation tools, work with a variety of methods for exploring the field, and develop the ability to assess what has been learned in order to come to a conclusion about significance. The Studio will offer models for approaching preservation questions and for considering the diverse roles of the preservationist in contemporary practice. We do this through collective study as well as through individual student study of historic resources.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This course will help students to:

• Understand how to document the built environment, through research, photography, site study, measured drawing, and graphic representation
• Investigate the materials of construction and begin to assess the physical condition of the built environment
• Analyze the context and parameters of a site (building, landscape, neighborhood) in order to define the forces at work within its physical and social development
• Document a building or space using measuring tools and digital drawing programs
• Develop the skills and language to effectively analyze and describe a building’s physical characteristics and design components
• Demonstrate the ability to identify defining characteristics
• Demonstrate the ability to describe and discuss buildings using the correct architectural vocabulary
• Demonstrate an ability to use photography as a tool for documenting and interpreting a building or site
• Develop an ability to assess material integrity
• Begin to understand the history and properties of materials and building components used on historic structures
• Formulate a fact-based argument about the significance of a building or site
• Develop the communication skills to execute research, written arguments, graphics, and oral presentations individually and together as a group
• Engage the material, historical, and cultural context and existing condition of a building and neighborhood
• Exercise judgment regarding preservation from an engaged, informed, and critical position
• Coursework will build on the parallel and complementary courses taught in the Fall semester

METHODOLOGY

During the first part of the semester, students will engage in a series of short exercises and projects to develop skills and techniques for using one’s eyes to understand a building and its environment, understanding architectural vocabulary and how to describe a building, photography, research and basic drawing techniques. We will then move on to exercises focused on how one undertakes research on a building. This year, the focus of the second part of the semester will be commercial buildings in Midtown Manhattan. For the first part of this investigation students will be divided into teams to investigate various aspects of Midtown’s history and current character. This research will allow you to contextualize the building or buildings you will be working on during the later part of the semester.

Following this group project, each student will work on a single building. Students will research their building and through an analysis of the architectural and social/cultural history of the building, its use or uses over time, and its place within the history of the building type, each student will develop a carefully reasoned argument for the significance (or not) of the building.

Basic required deliverables will be consistent for all students; however, the format and focus of deliverables may vary slightly, based on instructor approval, as students have diverse existing skill sets and interests in aspects of historic preservation.

STUDIO FORMAT

Studio is many different things simultaneously. It is the physical and academic environment within which you will create the majority of your work. It is the time within which we will meet as a group or on an individual basis, with faculty, peers and outside critics. It is the group of individuals, of diverse backgrounds, who comprise the studio unit – students, faculty, teaching assistants. It is the intellectual environment for research, exploration, risk-taking, and leadership. It is the core and central focus of your work within the program. Skills learned in Studio will be fundamental building blocks for projects in later preservation classes. We emphasize that this Studio is different in content, format, sequencing, skill-building and feedback from traditional architecture studios.

Studio will at times demand intense, collaborative work and at other times require individual, tremendous effort. We challenge each student to take risks and explore territories outside of your individual discipline or familiar areas of comfort. And we encourage you to observe and learn from your peers; other students can often be your best critics, role models, and instructors. We expect students to discuss, share, and present work during the majority of classes, either in an individual desk crit (conversation and discussion) with faculty, or in a group crit with varying formats (pin-up, review, presentation, or formal review to others). Students must be prepared for their crits, with all necessary material (research, images, drawings, data, etc.) easily at hand.

Students are expected to be working in studio on their studio projects during studio hours unless otherwise discussed and approved by the faculty (illness, fieldwork, etc.). Note: there are many religious holidays in the course of the year. If you are taking a day off because of a religious holiday, please tell a faculty member, as this is an excused absence.

STUDIO BRIEF & SEQUENCE

The 2023 Studio I will be a class where we will undertake different types of exercises in various locations. First you will be assigned a building in Midtwon Manhattan. Then we will undertake a project that relates to monuments at Woodlawn Cemetery, a New York City cemetery with magnificent monuments and mausoleums located northwest of campus in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Finally, you will each choose a building in Midtown Manhattan, selected from a group compiled by the faculty.

Course Requirements

Specific course requirements are outlined in the assignments and consist of a combination of presentations and deliverables. Grading will be based on achievement of Studio learning objectives, participation, attendance, and the quality of presentations and deliverables due at the conclusion of each phase, with an emphasis on demonstrable evidence of skill advancement through the course of the semester. Assessments will be given to each student via written feedback. 

Grading Criteria

Presentations (40%): summary of critical thought progression; clearly stated approach and recommendations; clearly articulated case for proposed action, addressing integrity and significance; acknowledgement of challenges and unknowns; incorporation of faculty comments during desk crits; clarity and quality of presentation visuals; documented sources for factual or archival information; completion within time allowed; and responsiveness to critique and ability to address questions raised.

Deliverables (40%): succinct and well-organized work product; recommendations that consider short and long- term solutions; clarity, quality, and thoughtfulness of approach to building, site and neighborhood; clearly articulated case for proposed action, addressing integrity and significance; incorporation of faculty comments during desk crits; relevance, quality and clarity of graphics, drawing, writing, and overall deliverable format; and citations for research, drawings and photos.

Overall Assessment (20%): quality and completeness of work during all phases; responsiveness to instructor comments and criticism; participation, timeliness and attendance; and growth in understanding and incorporation of new information.

All students should purchase the following book, which will be useful throughout your career:

Cyril Harris, Illustrated Dictionary of Historical Architecture. (the book has been ordered from Book Culture, an independent bookstore at 536 West 112th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway)