Buell Dissertation Colloquium

Fri, Mar 28 5pm

Location

For in-person attendance (general public welcome), please RSVP here. If you do not have an active Columbia ID card, please RSVP by March 25. You will receive an email from Columbia University Public Safety containing a QR code, which you will be asked to present along with a matching ID, at campus gates (116th St and Broadway or Amsterdam Ave). Please allow a few extra minutes to pass through campus security.

Faculty Links

Reinhold Martin / Lucia Allais / Ultan Byrne / Maura Lucking / Sonali Dhanpal

URL

buellcenter.columbia.edu/pr...

The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture’s biennial Dissertation Colloquium brings together a select group of doctoral students from diverse institutional and disciplinary backgrounds working on dissertation topics related to the history, theory, and criticism of architecture and the built environment in the Americas.

The event will open on Friday, March 28 with a keynote lecture by Brian Goldstein, titled “‘In the Life of a Building Our Moment is Brief’: J. Max Bond, Jr.‘s Long View.” Goldstein’s talk will be followed by a response from Buell Fellow Maura Lucking, and a reception.

On Saturday, March 29, from 10 am to 5 pm, nine doctoral candidates from across the US and the UK will present their dissertation research. Details on this year’s BDC contributors–Madeline Aquilina (UMich), Melanie R. Ball (UT Austin), Hugo Betting (Harvard GSD), Ultan Byrne (Columbia), B. Jack Hanly (MIT), Rami Kanafani (Penn), Dicle Taskin (UMich), Felipe Aravena (University of Manchester), and Jeremy Lee Wolin (Princeton) can be found here on our website. The panel discussions will be moderated by Buell Fellow Sonali Dhanpal, Reinhold Martin (Columbia), and Jonah Rowen (Pratt).

Since 1995, the biennial Buell Dissertation Colloquium has brought together a select group of doctoral students from diverse institutional and disciplinary backgrounds working on dissertation topics related to the history, theory, and criticism of American architecture, urbanism, and landscape.

Location

Avery 114

Faculty Links

Reinhold Martin / Lucia Allais / Ultan Byrne / Maura Lucking / Sonali Dhanpal

URL

buellcenter.columbia.edu/pr...

Schedule of Events

Friday, March 28, 2025
5:00 PM Welcome: Lucia Allais (Buell Center, GSAPP)

Keynote: “‘In the Life of a Building Our Moment is Brief’: J. Max Bond, Jr.’s Long View,“ Brian Goldstein (Swarthmore).

Response by Maura Lucking (Buell Center, GSAPP)

Saturday, March 29, 2025

10:00 AM Introduction: Lucia Allais (Buell Center, GSAPP)

PANEL 1
10:10 AM “‘Being Signed by me, Becomes my Own’: Bureaucracy and Authorship at the Office of the Supervising Architect,” Ultan Byrne (GSAPP)

10:35 AM “Lichens on Stones: the National Ecologies of Architecture in the United States,” Hugo Betting (Harvard GSD)

11:00 AM “Building the Neighborhood Center: The War on Poverty and the Emergence of the ‘Minority Architect,’” Jeremy Lee Wolin (Princeton)

11:25 AM Discussion moderated by Jonah Rowen (Pratt)

PANEL 2
1:00 PM “Between Co-optation and Critique: Aided Self-Help Housing and the Question of Land in Lima, 1958-1975,” Madeleine Aquilina (UMich Art History)

1:25 PM “General Contractor, General Motors: Architects’ Experiments in the Manufactured Housing Industry, c.1970,” Melanie R. Ball (UT Austin)

1:50 PM “On-Site Modernities: The BRECAST Large-Panel System and the Transformation of Housing Production in Popular Unity Chile, 1972-1974,” Felipe Aravena Tejo (University of Manchester)

2:15 PM Discussion moderated by Sonali Dhanpal (Buell Center, GSAPP)

PANEL 3

3:00 PM “Workers, Conscripts, Peons: Tracing the Construction of the Pan-American Highway and the Mechanics of the ‘Joint’ War Effort,” Dicle Taskin (UMich)

3:25 PM “Public Demands and Private Development in the Age of Ecology: The Case of Sea Ranch v. California Coastal Commission,” B. Jack Hanly (MIT)

3:50 PM “New-Age Environmentalism: The Lindisfarne Association at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine,” Rami Kanafani (Penn)

4:15 PM Discussion moderated by Reinhold Martin (GSAPP)

5:00 PM Concluding Conversation

Graphic design by Morcos Key