The 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 American architecture, urbanism, and landscape. 

The Buell Conference on the History of Architecture brings together scholars in architectural and urban history to discuss topics in architecture, urbanism, and modernity as broadly understood.

January 24, 1990

Urban Center, 457 Madison Avenue

A conference sponsored by the Committee for New York.

(The original text from the conference is reproduced below)

The new mayoral administration in New York City and major revisions to the City Charter signal a widespread desire for reform in city governance. An urban vision for our own time requires a critical balance: on the one hand, we must respect, and even empower, a diversity of separate groups; on the other, we must enhance the larger public domain of the City, responding to complex shared problems, and utilizing the City's multiple resources. With these ambitious goals in mind, the Committee for New York has convened a two-part conference entitled "Building the City We Need"

This is not the first time New Yorkers have contemplated fundamental changes for the City. Some efforts have been grandiose and market-driven, defined by experts to embrace the City in its entirety; others have been small and community-oriented, at times parochial, at times affirming neighborhood bonds. Appraising these precedents will help us evaluate the reforms now being considered.

This initial section of the conference will take place on Wednesday, January 24, 1990, from 5-7 p.m., at the Urban Center, 457 Madison Avenue. A panel of historians will discuss the precepts, techniques, and priorities which defined each of the previous major plans for New York, from the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 to the 1961 Rezoning Plan. Each speaker will also consider certain smaller community-based reform efforts. Architectural historian Gwendolyn Wright and historian Thomas Bender will comment on the legacies of this history.

This section of the conference is co-sponsored by Columbia University's Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture and is funded in part by the New York Council for the Humanities.

Speakers:
Elizabeth Blackmar, Columbia University, on: The 1811 Plan and Artisans' Housing Organizations of that Epoch
David Scobey, University of Michigan, on: Olmsted's Parks and Parkways Plan and "workers urbanism" of the Epoch
Gwendolyn Wright, Columbia University, on: The Regional Plan of New York and Harlem in the 1920s
John Mollenkopf, CUNY, on: The 1961 Rezoning Plan and Decentralization
Thomas Bender, NYU, Overview