Reglazing Modernism: Strategies for Interventions on Steel Frame Glazed Enclosures

The extensive use of exterior glazed enclosures is one of the character defining features of Modern architecture. After decades of service, many Modern buildings from the pre- and post-war periods of the 20th century have reached an age of maturity and, with it, efforts to preserve them and retrofit them have become a new branch of knowledge within the fields of building physics and historic preservation. As part of these conservation efforts, the need to assess the approaches, scopes and results of interventions on metal frame glazed enclosures in Modern buildings has become paramount. Mr. Ayón will present relevant case studies of interventions on Modern glazed enclosures in the US and Europe. Conceived as a critical assessment instead of as a catalog or technical guide, this book talk will discuss various approaches for intervening on Modern steel frame glazed assemblies.

Angel Ayón, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB is the Principal of AYON Studio Architecture • Preservation, P.C. (AYON Studio) in New York City, which provides comprehensive professional services in the fields of Architecture and Historic Preservation. His experience with Modern architecture includes the rehabilitation and exterior enhancement of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, for which he was the project architect between 2004 and 2008 (prior to founding AYON Studio). He was awarded the 2015 James Marston Fitch Mid-Career Fellowship to undertake research on interventions on Modern glazed enclosures, which will be published by Birkhäuser in fall 2019. Mr. Ayón holds a professional degree as an Architect and a M.Sc. in Conservation and Rehabilitation of the Built Heritage from the Higher Polytechnic Institute “José Antonio Echeverría” in his native Havana, Cuba, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Conservation of Historic Buildings and Archaeological Sites from Columbia University in New York.

Free and open to the public.

Organized as part of the Preservation Lecture Series, an initiative of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia GSAPP.