The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
BOOK TALKS AND LECTURES
The book talks and lectures below are held at The Skyscraper Museum from 6:30-8 pm.
The gallery and exhibition are open for viewing from 6 pm. All events are free of charge, except when noted. Please RSVP to programs[at]skyscraper[dot]org
with the name of the program you would like to attend.
Please be aware that reservation priority is given to Members of The Skyscraper Museum. Not a member? Become a Museum member today!
February 22, 2012 6:30PM-8PM
John Hill Book Talk
GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY NEW YORK CITY ARCHITECTURE
(W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., December 2011)
This essential walking companion and guide features 200 of the most notable buildings and spaces constructed in New York’s five boroughs since 2000. Projects include the High Line, by James Corner Field Operations/Diller Scofidio + Renfro; 100 Eleventh Avenue, by Ateliers Jean Nouvel; Brooklyn Children's Museum, by Rafael Vinoly Architects; 41 Cooper Square, by Morphosis; Poe Park Visitors Center, by Toshiko Mori Architect; and One Bryant Park, by Cook + Fox. Grouped by neighborhood, the richly illustrated guide allows for easy, self-guided tours, with photos, maps, and directions. Join the author for an engaging talk on some of his favorites.
John Hill is a registered architect who writes about contemporary architecture and "archi-tourism." He is the U.S. representative and editor for WorldArchitects.com and has publilshed articles in Architect Magazine, The Architect's Newspaper and eVolo, and was a contributing editor to the Chicago-based art/architecture magaizine TENbyTEN.
March 7, 2012 6:30PM-8PM
Angus Kress Gillespie Book Talk
CROSSING UNDER THE HUDSON: THE STORY OF THE HOLLAND AND LINCOLN TUNNELS
(Rutgers University Press, August 2011)
Crossing under the Hudson takes a fresh look at the planning and construction of two key links in the transportation infrastructure of New York and New Jersey--the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. Writing in an accessible style that incorporates historical accounts with a lively and entertaining approach, Gillespie explores these two monumental works of civil engineering and the public who embraced them. He describes and analyzes the building of the tunnels, introduces readers to the people who worked there--then and now--and places the structures into a meaningful cultural context with the music, art, literature, and motion pictures that these tunnels, engineering marvels of their day, have inspired over the years.
Angus Kress Gillespie is a Fulbright professor and teaches American Studies at Rutgers University. Gillespie is also the author of Twin Towers: The Life of New York City’s Trade Center and the coauthor of Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike (both Rutgers University Press).
April 18, 2012 6:30PM-8PM
Constance Rosenblum Book Talk
BOULEVARD OF DREAMS: HEADY TIMES, HEARTBREAK, AND HOPE ALONG THE GRAND CONCOURSE IN THE BRONX
(NYU Press, August 2009)
Stretching over four miles through the center of the West Bronx, the Grand Boulevard and Concourse, known simply as the Grand Concourse, has gracefully served as silent witness to the changing face of the Bronx and New York City. For a century, it has truly been a boulevard of dreams for various upwardly mobile immigrant and ethnic groups. Constance Rosenblum unearths the colorful history of this grand street and its interlinked neighborhoods. With a seasoned journalist’s eye for detail, she paints an evocative portrait of the Concourse through compelling life stories and historical vignettes. The story of the creation and transformation of the Grand Concourse is the story of New York—and America—writ large, and Rosenblum examines the Grand Concourse from its earliest days to the blighted 1960s and 1970s, right up to the current period of renewal.
Constance Rosenblum was the longtime editor of the City section of The New York Times, a Sunday section that used the techniques of narrative nonfiction to explore issues affecting New York City and the texture of life in the five boroughs. From 1990 to 1997, she was editor of the paper’s Arts and Leisure section, and previous to that she was deputy Arts and Leisure editor. Prior to joining The Times, she was culture editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and a reporter and editor at The New York Daily News.
In addition to Boulevard of Dreams, she is the author of Gold Digger: The Outrageous Life and Times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce, a biography of a Jazz Age celebrity, published by Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt. She is also the editor of two collections of essays: “New York Stories: The Best of the City Section of The New York Times” and "More New York Stories," both published by NYU Press. Rosenblum currently writes the Habitats column in the Sunday Real Estate section of The Times, and a collection of her columns will be published next year by NYU Press.
January 10, 2012 6:30PM-8PM
John Tauranac Book Talk
NEW YORK FROM THE AIR: A STORY OF ARCHITECTURE
(Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Photographer)
(Harry Abrams, September 2011)
John Tauranac knows architectural New York, but even he was stumped by some of the subjects that the great aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand shot for their newest book. Tauranac takes it all with a sense of humor and more than a dash of humility as he discusses some of the mysteries with which he was presented. He will share the stories with you, and he’ll show some of his favorite photographs from this glorious book and tell the tales behind them.
John Tauranac writes on New York's architectural history, teaches the subject, gives tours of the city, and designs maps. He also teaches New York history and architecture at NYU's School of Continuing & Professional Studies, where he is an adjunct associate professor. He was named a Centennial Historian of the City of New York by the Mayor's Office for his work in history in 1999, and he was awarded a Commendation for Design Excellence by the U. S. Department of Transportation and the National Endowment of the Arts in 1980 for his design contributions to the 1979 subway map.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand is a world famous photographer renowned for his aerial photography. His work includes the bestseller The Earth from Above, which has sold over a million copies. He lives in France.
December 7 & 14, 2011
Curator's Tour
Museum Director and Curator Carol Willis led a gallery tour of the current exhibit Supertall!
December 1, 2011
Kate Ascher Book Talk
THE HEIGHTS: ANATOMY OF A SKYSCRAPER
(Penguin Press, November 2011)
The skyscraper is perhaps the most recognizable icon of the modern urban landscape. Providing offices, homes, restaurants, and shopping to thousands of inhabitants, modern skyscrapers function as small cities- with infrastructure not unlike that hidden beneath our streets. Clean water is provided to floors thousands of feet in the sky; elevators move people swiftly and safely throughout the building; and telecom networks allow virtual meetings with people on other continents. How are these services-considered essential, but largely taken for granted- possible in such a complex structure? What does it really take to sustain human life at such enormous heights?
Exploring the interconnected systems that make life livable in the sky is the task of Kate Ascher's stunningly illustrated The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper. Ascher examines skyscrapers from around the world to learn how these incredible structures operate. Along the way, The Heights introduces the reader to every type of person involved in designing, building, and maintaining a skyscraper: the designers who calculate how weight and weather will affect their structures, the workers who dig the foundations and raise the lightning rods, the crews who clean the windows and maintain the air ducts, and the firefighters whose special equipment allows blazes to be fought at unprecedented heights.
Kate Ascher is author of The Works: Anatomy of a City. She received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in government from the London School of Economics and her B.A. in political science from Brown University. She formerly served as assistant director of the Port at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and worked overseas in corporate finance, before her previous position as executive vice president of the Economic Development Corporation for City of New York. Currently, she is a Principal at Happold Consulting in New York and in fall 2011 will begin to serve as the new Milstein Professor of Urban Development at Columbia University, GSAPP.
Click here to listen to the program
November 9, 2011
Daniel Okrent Book Talk
LAST CALL: THE RISE AND FALL OF PROHIBITION
(Simon & Schuster May 2010)
That Americans would ever agree to relinquish alcohol was as improbable as it was astonishing. Yet we did, and Last Call is Daniel Okrent's dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life under Prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever.
Writing with both wit and historical acuity, Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the women's suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax.
Daniel Okrent was the first public editor of The New York Times, editor-at-large of Time, Inc., and managing editor of Life magazine. He worked in book publishing as an editor at Knopf and Viking, and was editor-in-chief of general books at Harcourt Brace. He is author of four books, one of which, Great Fortune, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history. Okrent was also a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where he remains an Associate. He lives in Manhattan and on Cape Cod with his wife, poet Rebecca Okrent.
October 12, 19, 2011
Curator's Tour
Museum Director and Curator Carol Willis led a gallery tour of the current exhibit Supertall!
October 5, 2011
Paul Shaw Book Talk
HELVETICA AND THE NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY SYSTEM
(The MIT Press 2011)
More than a tale of a typeface. If you use subways or select fonts, you'll enjoy this book talk! There is a common belief, reinforced by Gary Hustwit's documentary film "Helvetica," that Helvetica is the signage typeface of the New York City subway system. But it is not true - or rather, it is only somewhat true. Helvetica is the official typeface of the MTA today, but it was not the typeface specified by Unimark International when they created the signage system at the end of the 1960s. Why was Helvetica not chosen originally? what was chosen in its place? why is Helvetica now used? when did the changeover occur? Paul Shaw answers these questions and then goes beyond them to look at how the subway's signage system has evolved over the past forty years. The resulting story is more than a tale of a typeface. It is a look at the forces that have molded a signage system.
Paul Shaw an award-winning graphic designer, typographer, and calligrapher in New York City, teaches at Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts. He is the coauthor of Blackletter: Type and National Identity and writes about letter design in the blog Blue Pencil.
September 27, 2011
Andrew Alpern Book Talk
HOLDOUTS! THE BUILDINGS THAT GOT IN THE WAY
(David R. Godine Publisher 2011)
Holdouts are often thought of as David versus Goliath battles, but is David the little homeowner who doesn't want to abandon his hearth to the big heartless developer? Or is David the harried builder who has invested huge sums of money in buying up ninety percent of the land needed for development – whose benefits would be enjoyed by thousands of citizens – but whose plans are thwarted by the one landowner who controls the critical land parcel without which the project is doomed?
Holdouts! depicts with vivid clarity the colorful personalities and outrageous actions that emerge in these stark confrontations. It describes epic battles that have been fought to erect buildings in New York. More than 200 illustrations and photographs show the holdouts before, during, and after the construction they delayed. This unique pictorial history will delight architecture buffs, New Yorkers, urban historians, indeed anyone interested in the sometimes hectic, sometimes pathetic, and sometimes hilarious struggles of individuals against real estate developers whose projects are so essential to the continuing economic viability of our large cities.
This is the third appearance of a unique view of New York's real estate and architecture by Andrew Alpern and Seymour Durst with an additional foreword and revisions.
Andrew Alpern is a much-published architectural historian, architect, and attorney. His co-author, the late Seymour Durst, was a major real estate developer whose own encounters with holdouts were the impetus for the book’s original version more than 25 years ago.
September 11, 2011
John Bartelstone Gallery Talk
John Bartelstone gave a talk about his photographs, featured in our gallery, on the decade of recovery and rebuilding at Ground Zero.
AUGUST 3, 10 and 24, 2011
Curator's Tour
SUPERTALL!
Museum Director and Curator Carol Willis led a gallery tour of the current exhibit Supertall!
AUGUST 2, 2011
Ann Ferebee & Jeff Byles Book Talk
A HISTORY OF DESIGN FROM THE VICTORIAN ERA TO THE PRESENT Second Edition
Click here to listen to the program
A unique cross-disciplinary survey of design history, A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present offers a concise overview of the modern milestones of architecture, interior design, graphic design, product design, and photography from the Crystal Palace of 1851 to the iPhone at the turn of the twenty-first century. This abundantly illustrated volume traces modern design across continents and cultures, highlighting the key movements and design traditions that have shaped the world around us.
This new edition of a classic text first published in 1970 expands coverage to include developments in design over the last forty years, with emphasis on its global reach, the impact of the digital revolution, and new trends in sustainable design that will shape the century to come.
Ann Ferebee is founder of the Institute for Urban Design, a membership organization for landscape architects, architects, and planners, of which she is now director emerita. In the early 1960s she launched Design and Environment, with a special focus on landscape architecture and the design of public space. She also taught the history of modern architecture and design at the Pratt Institute and the Parsons School of Design.
Jeff Byles is an author and journalist who has written about architecture, urbanism, and culture for The New York Times, The Village Voice, Metropolis, Modern Painters, Cabinet, The Believer, and other publications. His book Rubble: Unearthing the History of Demolition was named a Best Book of the Year by The Village Voice and Time Out New York.
July 6, 2011
Mary Woods Book Talk
BEYOND THE ARCHITECT'S EYE: PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE AMERICAN BUILT ENVIRONMENT
(University of Pennsylvania Press 2009)
Typical architectural photography freezes buildings in an ideal moment and rarely captures what photographer Berenice Abbott called the medium's power to depict "how the past jostled the present." In Beyond the Architect's Eye, Mary N. Woods expands on this range of images through a rich analysis that commingles art, amateur, and documentary photography, genres usually not considered architectural but that often take the built environment as their subject.
Woods explores how photographers used their built environment to capture the disparate American landscapes prior to World War II, when urban and rural areas grew further apart in the face of skyscrapers, massive industrialization, and profound cultural shifts.
Mary N. Woods is Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory at Cornell University. She is the author of From Craft to Profession: The Practice of Architecture in Nineteenth-Century America.
JULY 13, 2011
CURATOR'S TOUR AND CLOSING RECEPTION
Guest-curator and architectural historian Nina Rappaport led
a gallery tour and discussion of the impetus behind VUF and the state of
manufacturing in cities.
June 28, 2011
James S. Russell Book Talk
THE AGILE CITY: BUILDING WELL-BEING & WEALTH IN AN ERA OF CLIMATE CHANGE
(Island Press 2011)
Click here for a video archive of the program
In a very short time the developed world has realized that global warming poses real challenges to the our future. The Agile City engages the fundamental question: what to do about it? Journalist and urban analyst James S. Russell argues that we’ll more quickly slow global warming—and blunt its effects—by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. The Agile City shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly.
James S. Russell is the architecture columnist for Bloomberg News. He has written about cities, architecture, and environmental design for more than 20 years.
Click here for a video archive of the program A program on reinventing Williamsburg's historic industrial waterfront In the ongoing reinvention of Williamsburg's richly historic industrial waterfront into a burgeoning residential neighborhood, the massive Domino Sugar complex remains the greatest challenge and opportunity. With a site of 11.2 acres and a potential for 2200 residential units, including 30 percent of subsidized affordable housing, more than four acres of public open space, and the restoration and adaptive reuse of the landmarked refinery buildings, the Domino site is key to both the past and the future of this evolving neighborhood. The program featured presentations by the principals of the development, design, engineering and construction teams, followed by a panel discussion.
Introduction & History The Refinery Buildings: Historic Preservation & Adaptive Reuse Engineering Issues and the Construction Conundrum New Housing Development and Urban Enhancements Panel Discussion moderated by The exhibitions and programs of The Skyscraper Museum are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
The exhibitions and programs of The Skyscraper Museum are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.
June 20, 2011
At the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, Battery Park City
June 20, 2011
Carol Willis – Founder & Director, The Skyscraper Museum
Frederick A. Bland – Managing Partner, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners
Robert Silman – President, Robert Silman Associates
Frank Sciame – CEO, F. J. Sciame Construction Co., Inc.
Michael Lappin – President & CEO, Community Preservation Corporation
Julie V. Iovine, Exec. Editor of The Architect's Newspaper and architecture & design reporter and critic.
Click here to see further past programs.
