Archinect - News

CCNY’s Spitzer School of Architecture receives $1.5 million Mellon Foundation grant for new center

2023-08-25T12:38:00-04:00

The City College of New York has been awarded a three-year $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The funding will be used to support the new multidisciplinary Place, Memory and Culture Incubator (PMCI) to be housed within the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.

The new center will focus on community-based partnerships and projects in Harlem that engage with the design of the built environment alongside attention to the humanities through a social justice lens. CCNY also sees the center as providing a space for the college community to “engage with one another in the production of more representative and authentic histories.”

Archinect Feature: "Decolonization Is a Gift"—CCNY's Lesley Lokko on Questioning Architecture's Inherited Futures

“This latest project recognizes the historic positioning of the Spitzer School of Architecture in the Harlem community as well as our commitment, in the architectural field and elsewhere in the college, to acknowledging, preservi...

Catherine Seavitt Nordenson to chair the Landscape Architecture Department at the Weitzman School of Design

2023-03-28T15:04:00-04:00

The Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania has announced that Catherine Seavitt Nordenson will be taking over as the next chair of its Department of Landscape Architecture, effective July 1st.

The current Spitzer School of Architecture professor and director of CCNY's Master of Landscape Architecture program will replace Richard Weller and will be the third woman ever to lead the department following Anne Whiston Spirn and professor Sonja Dümpelmann, who had been serving as its interim chair since last spring.

A press announcement from the university called Seavitt “one of the most admired scholar-practitioners of her generation.” Her career began as an Associate at New York’s Atelier Raimund Abraham in 1993 and has made stops at Pei Cobb Freed and Partners in addition to the academic appointments at Parsons, the University of Virginia, and two of her alma maters Princeton and the Cooper Union.

Seavitt, both a registered architect and landscape architect, also ...

A reading room dedicated to the late Michael Sorkin opens at CCNY's Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture

2022-10-27T11:21:00-04:00

The City College of New York (CCNY) is set to open the Sorkin Reading Room, dedicated to the late Michael Sorkin. The esteemed critic, and architect, who was also a Distinguished Professor of Architecture in the institute’s Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, passed away in March 2020 due to complications resulting from COVID-19.

image credit: Nilda Sanchez-Rodriguez

“The reading room will be used by researchers interested in Michael Sorkin’s criticism, pedagogy, and design practice,” said Joan Copjec, Sorkin’s wife and main proponent of the project. “The room itself, designed by Michael’s colleague Professor Elisabetta Terragni, is beautiful and calm.”

image credit: Nilda Sanchez-Rodriguez

Sorkin joined the school in 2000 as a Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design. He also established the annual Mumford Lectures during his tenure, whose speakers have included Theaster Gates (2015), Mike Davis (2005) who passed away this week, and J...

CCNY's Spitzer School of Architecture announces new dean and interim associate dean

2022-07-05T09:00:00-04:00

CCNY's Spitzer School of Architecture has appointed Dr. Marta Gutman as its new permanent dean. The search for a new school leader came after the former architecture dean, Lesley Lokko, announced her resignation in October 2020.

Dr. Gutman, who was appointed interim dean in August 2021, has taught architectural and urban history at CCNY since 2004. The school's provost, Tony Liss, shared in an announcement: "It has been my great pleasure to work closely with Dean Gutman this past year. She has shown extraordinary leadership in the School of Architecture, and it is gratifying to see the enthusiastic support of Architecture colleagues for her permanent deanship."

The licensed architect and historian is also an award-winning author. She received the Catherine W. Bishir Prize in 2021 for her scholarly work and contributions to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes. She has held several leadership positions within committees at the school, including the Committee ...

Lesley Lokko resigns as Dean of CCNY's Spitzer School of Architecture

2020-10-07T13:36:00-04:00

This week Lesley Lokko announces her resignation as Dean of Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. After her appointment in June 2019, there was a lot of excitement about her plans and goals for the school under her leadership. We spoke with Lokko back in November to for an exclusive Archinect Deans List interview. She spoke of her journey towards architecture, her path as an educator, and her pedagogical approaches for the school.

The Spitzer school is New York City's only public school of architecture. Image courtesy of CCNY.

During Dean Lokko's appointment, the world was struck with a pandemic that impacted everyone around the globe. Academic institutions did their best to navigate these challenging times, however, visions for the 2020 academic year were dramatically altered. In a statement shared with the Architectural Record, Lokko explains, "My decision to leave Spitzer after less than a year is fairly straightforward: I was not able to...