GSAPP Conversations

Current Columbia GSAPP student Jarrett Ley speaks with Zeynep Çelik Alexander, who taught the course "Questions in Architectural History" at GSAPP in the Fall of 2016 and delivered the school's 2017 Detlef Mertens Lecture on the History of Modernity. Alexander is an associate professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. In this podcast, she discusses her ongoing research on the history of modern architecture since the Enlightenment and the meaning of "Gestaltung", the need for developing new language suitable for contemporary practice, and the role of architecture schools within the context of research universities.

“We haven’t yet developed the language with which to understand the world that we live in.”

–Zeynep Çelik Alexander

Third-year M.Arch student Ayesha Ghosh speaks with Fabrizio Barozzi, who co-founded Barozzi Veiga with Alberto Veiga in 2004. The Barcelona-based practice has won numerous competitions and their work has won awards throughout Europe. In this conversation, which took place on the occasion of his lecture at Columbia GSAPP on April 12, 2017, Barozzi describes his process and obsessions – including the role of research and his engagement with history, using this research to construct a narrative for the building, and the qualities he hopes to embed in his work.

“How to find your own voice, starting from a different environment, or a different context … maybe this is one of my obsessions.”

–Fabrizio Barozzi

Third-year M.Arch student Ayesha Ghosh speaks with Fabrizio Barozzi, who co-founded Barozzi Veiga with Alberto Veiga in 2004. The Barcelona-based practice has won numerous competitions and their work has won awards throughout Europe. In this conversation, which took place on the occasion of his lecture at Columbia GSAPP on April 12, 2017, Barozzi describes his process and obsessions – including the role of research and his engagement with history, using this research to construct a narrative for the building, and the qualities he hopes to embed in his work.

“How to find your own voice, starting from a different environment, or a different context … maybe this is one of my obsessions.”

–Fabrizio Barozzi

Third-year M.Arch student A.L. Hu speaks with Catherine Johnson and Rebecca Rudolph of Design, Bitches on the occasion of their lecture at Columbia GSAPP on September 19, 2016. They discuss the firm's origins and the nature of their collaboration; finding inspiration in the rebellious spirit of Los Angeles culture including fashion, contemporary art, and music; and how smaller, fast-paced projects fuel their office both creatively and financially.

"For us, process is the most important thing. The process is what drives the work, more so than the expectation of the end result."

– Design, Bitches

Third-year M.Arch student A.L. Hu speaks with Catherine Johnson and Rebecca Rudolph of Design, Bitches on the occasion of their lecture at Columbia GSAPP on September 19, 2016. They discuss the firm's origins and the nature of their collaboration; finding inspiration in the rebellious spirit of Los Angeles culture including fashion, contemporary art, and music; and how smaller, fast-paced projects fuel their office both creatively and financially.

"For us, process is the most important thing. The process is what drives the work, more so than the expectation of the end result."

– Design, Bitches

Jorge Otero-Pailos, director of Columbia GSAPP's Historic Preservation Program, speaks with British cultural historian Robert Hewison during the Spring 2017 Semester, when Hewison taught the course “John Ruskin and the 19th Century” at Columbia GSAPP. They discuss Hewison’s life-long fascination and study of John Ruskin, teaching students to draw as means of exploring truth, and the influence of Ruskin’s thinking on the field of preservation in particular through his study of Venice. The conversation took place in advance of Hewison’s lecture “John Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye”, held at the School on February 16, 2017.

“Ruskin was an expert in interdisciplinarity, long before interdisciplinarity had been invented. To study Ruskin, you have to study literature, you have to understand art history, you also have to be prepared to think about geology, to think about botany; and you’ve got to think about economics, political economy and all those things. Because as Ruskin’s mind expanded away from just writing about art and architecture, the next step was to write about society, political economy, and so on.”

—Robert Hewison

Jorge Otero-Pailos, director of Columbia GSAPP's Historic Preservation Program, speaks with British cultural historian Robert Hewison during the Spring 2017 Semester, when Hewison taught the course “John Ruskin and the 19th Century” at Columbia GSAPP. They discuss Hewison’s life-long fascination and study of John Ruskin, teaching students to draw as means of exploring truth, and the influence of Ruskin’s thinking on the field of preservation in particular through his study of Venice. The conversation took place in advance of Hewison’s lecture “John Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye”, held at the School on February 16, 2017.

“Ruskin was an expert in interdisciplinarity, long before interdisciplinarity had been invented. To study Ruskin, you have to study literature, you have to understand art history, you also have to be prepared to think about geology, to think about botany; and you’ve got to think about economics, political economy and all those things. Because as Ruskin’s mind expanded away from just writing about art and architecture, the next step was to write about society, political economy, and so on.”

—Robert Hewison

Selva Gürdoğan, director of Columbia GSAPP’s Studio-X Istanbul speak with Ziad Jamaleddine of L.E.FT Architects about his research on the history of mosque design, which was captured in the exhibition Praygrounds at Studio-X Istanbul during March and April 2017. Ziad Jamaleddine is on faculty at Columbia GSAPP, and co-founded L.E.FT with Makram El Kadi in New York in 2005. They have designed residential and cultural projects in New York, Dubai, Turkey, and Beirut, including the recently completed Amir Shakib Arslan mosque located in the remote village of Moukhtara, Lebanon.

Speaking about his long-term research project on the history of mosque design, Ziad Jamaleddine says, "The Islamic City was a statement against the body of knowledge that we have inherited for more than 100 years now. ... What was interesting about the map is that it continues to unravel and we continue to populate it with more and more information, while at the same time undoing this idea of homogeneity or unity in Islamic art and architecture."

Selva Gürdoğan, director of Columbia GSAPP’s Studio-X Istanbul speak with Ziad Jamaleddine of L.E.FT Architects about his research on the history of mosque design, which was captured in the exhibition Praygrounds at Studio-X Istanbul during March and April 2017. Ziad Jamaleddine is on faculty at Columbia GSAPP, and co-founded L.E.FT with Makram El Kadi in New York in 2005. They have designed residential and cultural projects in New York, Dubai, Turkey, and Beirut, including the recently completed Amir Shakib Arslan mosque located in the remote village of Moukhtara, Lebanon.

Speaking about his long-term research project on the history of mosque design, Ziad Jamaleddine says, "The Islamic City was a statement against the body of knowledge that we have inherited for more than 100 years now. ... What was interesting about the map is that it continues to unravel and we continue to populate it with more and more information, while at the same time undoing this idea of homogeneity or unity in Islamic art and architecture."

Third-year M.Arch student Stella Ioannidou speaks with Point Supreme co-founders Konstantinos Pantazis and Marianna Rentzou on the occasion of their lecture at Columbia GSAPP (https://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/463-point-supreme) on March 20, 2017. Point Supreme was founded in Athens in 2008, one year before the Greek economic crisis. Pantazis and Rentzou discuss their use of collage as a visualization tool, the relationship between small and urban scale projects, what it meant to launch a practice during an economic crisis, and the importance of addressing local issues in their work.

“The collage allows us to create a new hierarchy between things. We can get away with changing distances or parameters that somehow are not important or should not be accounted for in mathematical terms. ... The collage allows you to give different emphasis to the different things according to what their actual experiential importance is.”

—Konstantinos Pantazis, Point Supreme