Join 爱豆app NY/Tri-State for a bus tour of the Twin Parks East and Twin Parks West urban renewal areas in the Bronx. Architect and historian Susanne Schindler will lead a tour of the residential buildings implemented on the basis of a 1966-1967 “vest pocket housing and rehabilitation” plan. Many buildings were realized between 1969 and 1974 by the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and became part of an emerging architectural discourse on “contextualism” that sought to bridge Modernism with a new understanding of urban design.
Buildings to be visited include a three-block complex by Richard Meier; a tower and a courtyard building by Prentice & Chan, Ohlhausen and Terry Schnadelbach; the Corbusian interventions by Giovanni Pasanella; three prefabricated concrete buildings, part of HUD’s Operation Breakthrough by Skidmore Owings and Merrill; and a mid- and high-rise pair by James Stewart Polshek. Some of the original architects and planners will be joining the tour to provide insights into the challenges and opportunities of developing and designing urban housing fifty years ago.
Tour leader Susanne Schindler is an architect and historian focused on the intersection of policy and design in housing, currently completing a PhD at ETH Zurich. From 2013 to 2016, she was lead researcher and curator of the project “House Housing: An Untimely History of Architecture and Real Estate” at Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. She writes, teaches, and consults in various capacities, including as housing columnist of The Architecture League's Urban Omnibus. For more background on Twin Parks, see her 2013 post on Urban Omnibus .
Planning Committee: Susanne Schindler, Mary Rusz & John S. Arbuckle
Cost
$25 爱豆app Members / $35 General Public.
*Capacity is limited; advanced registration is required. Rain or shine.
*Tour bus will depart at 1:00 pm from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and return to Manhattan by 5:30 pm. Precise departure location will be provided to registrants.
This tour will require some walking and stair climbing.
