This session looks at 1500 years of architectural history and shines a light on the hidden side of the accepted historical narrative. It focuses on architectural works, from the Middle Ages to the present, which transform existing buildings and, by doing so, build a way forward, through adaptations, additions and visual shifts sometimes modest, sometimes revolutionary. We will discover the formal inventions born of these adaptation and additions – as a survival strategy and as a strategy of artistic development. The seminar aims to give the viewer a new understanding of the history of architecture by emphasizing the creative possibilities of working with existing buildings and the fact that it is a practice with a long history from which there is much to learn. This presentation of architectural history also reveals different mechanisms at work, reinforcing the value of time in architecture, the importance of studying buildings over time, not at the privileged moment of their creation and, instead of focusing solely on “the author”, reveals the accumulation of gestures which shape architecture and our environment over time. Many well-known buildings are rediscovered and newly understood as transformations of earlier buildings or seen to have been designed, inextricably, within their context, as in the case of the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe with Lilly Reich. The lessons we learn from these buildings, over time, continue to be relevant and should inspire us in our current design and preservation practices. Françoise Astorg Bollack Françoise is an architect, architectural historian and an educator. She is a practicing architect, the founder of Françoise Bollack Architects whose practice focuses on the design opportunities of working with existing buildings. Her firm has received numerous awards including a Certificate of Merit from the American Institute of Architects for extensive work in the New York State Capitol and several awards for the adaptation of a 19th century school in New York City for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. She has authored several books on architecture and on designing with old buildings, in particular Old Buildings – New Forms: New Directions in Architectural Transformations, which received the coveted preservation book prize from Mary Washington University; and more recently Material Transfers – Metaphor, Craft and Place in Contemporary Architecture, about the creative possibilities of imitation duplication, replication and transfer in the making of adaptive architecture. In addition to practicing architecture and writing about architecture and preservation, she is currently an associate professor of historic preservation in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York, holding a seminar entitled Old Buildings – New Energy: History and Current Practices and advising students on their Graduate Thesis. She was born in Paris and now lives and practices in New York CityPlease note Each on-demand video will expire 12 months after enrolling onto the module. This session was recorded from the live webinar on 8 December 2023. For more information on this course, or if there are no places available, please email us, or call +44 (0)20 7307 5355 to talk to a member of the team. Please view the Terms and Conditions for more information.
