This program focuses on urban commercial architecture to examine a lesser-studied type of tall buildings by use: lofts. Urban historian Andrew Dolkart draws on his detailed studies and analysis of skyscraper lofts in New York’s Garment District. The analysis of the design and function of the architecture is connected to the social and economic construction of the industries they accommodate, as well as their urban context.
The format for this program is paired as a talk and a dialogue.
This discussion builds on several past lectures at The Skyscraper Museum. The videos of these previous talks are highly recommended as background.
Andrew S. Dolkart, Developing the Garment District
Tom Mellins, Hotels: Big and Tall; Carol Willis, Lofty Lofts in The Rise of the Skyscraper City
Readings
Andrew S. Dolkart
Andrew S. Dolkart is a Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. His books, which highlight New York City’s everyday, vernacular building types, include Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development (Columbia University Press, 2001), Biography of a Tenement House in New York City: An Architectural History of 97 Orchard Street (Center for American Places at Columbia College, 2012), and The Row House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City 1908-1929 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). He was the guest curator for the Museum’s 2012 exhibition Urban Fabric and it working on a book on New York’s Garment District.