The power of architecture at work in the modern city was a theme that emerged from the start at last Thursday night’s Big Ideas, Bold Thinkers, Brilliant Dialogue series at Pratt Institute. This particular conversation featured New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman and Architect Annabelle Selldorf. Moderator Spencer Bailey of Surface magazine used the broad term of “power of architecture” as a catalyst that spawned a conversation on the social responsibility of architecture as we move into an ever‐growing, thickening urban environment.

Selldof’s recent Sunset Park Recycling Center Brooklyn got the discussion going. Selldorf began by explaining why she was so excited to take on an infrastructure project, noting the architectural demands of the site and program were very interesting problems to take on. But the thing that most fascinated her about the project was its capacity to give back to the city by providing an important logistical hub to New York City as well as community access to the site for education and public programs.

In stark contrast to the recycling center, the classic disaster Pruitt‐Igoe was the next focus of the conversation. “The great symbol of mid‐century modernism failure,” said Kimmelman, was not purely architectural. The projects of that scale require a massive amount of economic and social support to succeed, Kimmelman added, and cited several New York City “towers in the park” that are great success stories.

Here, the real underlying theme of the night emerged. With projects like the One 57 building soon to become the norm as our urban density increases, Architecture will have to take. Take views, take open space. If this is the future; we have to start asking what it can give.

In an act of expert moderating, Bailey, quickly switched to a image of David Adjay’s Sugar Hill Development, in the Bronx. Kimmelman, explained the importance of projects like this one that integrates a school into the housing development, literally in this case as an extinction of the public side walk. Although not architecturally perfect, the project is an excellent example of architectural power at work for the everyday New Yorker.

As the chat continued, the question about public service of a structure was put to several other buildings. Galleries, which Selldof noted, provide a free public cultural service. Even New York’s public library system is struggling to redefine itself in the age of E‐books. The question of architecture’s public debt has been with the profession since its genesis and has been redefined throughout the centuries. Thursday’s talk at Pratt seemed like a reminder to the profession of the new challenges for urban occupation on the horizon.