The Paul S. Byard Memorial Lecture: Cruz y Ortiz

A lecture by Antonio Cruz, Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos.
Response by Jorge Otero-Pailos

Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos was founded in 1974 by Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz. Recent significant projects include the football stadium for Atlético de Madrid, completed in 2017, the remodeling and expansion of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the University Campus and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Granada and the Councils Building of the Junta de Andalucía.

Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos has won more than 30 national and international competitions. Their work has been widely published in journals and monographs and exhibitions have been held about his work in Europe and the United States. It has been distinguished with numerous national prizes among which the “National Award for Sports Architecture” stands out in 1998 for the La Cartuja stadium in Seville and the 1992 National Architecture Prize for the Central Railway Station in Seville. Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos has been selected to represent Spain at the Venice Architecture Biennial (2014). In May 2014 they were awarded the distinction of Knight of the Royal Order of the Dutch Lion. Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz recently received the 2014 Honor Award from The American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Spanish International Architecture Award CSCAE, the Abbe Bonema Award and the European Aadipa Prize for “intervention in the Architectural Heritage for the work The New Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

About the Paul S. Byard Memorial Lecture

The Paul S. Byard Memorial Lecture celebrates the legacy of Paul S. Byard, Director of Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP from 2000-2008.

"Every act of preservation is inescapably an act of renewal by the light of a later time, a set of decisions both about what we think something was and about what we want it to be and to say about ourselves today.” The Architecture of Additions: Design and Regulation

Paul Byard began his career as a lawyer at Winthrop & Stimson, and worked for the New York State Urban Development Corporation to develop public housing. In 1977, Byard received his Master of Architecture at Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. During his graduate studies, Byard supported the legal defense of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Law. The work culminated in 1978 when the US Supreme Court decision in the Penn Central Transportation Co. vs. The City of New York upheld the constitutionality of historic preservation laws. From 1968 to 1989, while serving on the board of the Municipal Art Society, Byard was the primary author of briefs amicus curiae that helped facilitate the security of the New York Landmarks Law during the Supreme Court Case that saved Grand Central Station.

Paul Byard joined the James Stewart Polshek & Partners architecture firm, and was made a partner in 1981. In 1989, Byard joined Charles A. Platt Partners (later known as Platt Byard Dovell White). He brought his legal experience to Columbia’s Historic Preservation Program by teaching a Preservation Law class. His book, The Architecture of Additions: Design and Regulation, was published in 1998, as a critical review of architectural additions as a creative paradigm, and more specifically, “what ought to happen when architecture is added to distinguished buildings protected by law”. In 2000, Paul Byard was appointed Director of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia, where he served until his death in 2008.

Organized by Columbia GSAPP Historic Preservation Program. Free and open to the public.