Date: October 7th 2008

Community Room, Amalgamated Dwellings (Grand Street, NY)

Place and Progress: Contextualizing common room
Anthony Schuman with David Burney

Friday October 10, 6pm

Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place
New York, NY 10012

Please join us for a discussion with Anthony Schuman and David Burney.

The international cooperative movement generally traces its roots to the Rochdale Pioneers, a group of weavers organized by Robert Owen in the 1840s to purchase food collectively and thus reduce the daily cost of living for their members. Owen’s success in Rochdale, and the set of principles elaborated by the cooperators there, made a lasting impression on Abraham Kazan, President of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Credit Union in the 1920s, who led the union’s efforts in cooperative enterprise. To make cooperative housing affordable to working class tenants, apartments were sold as limited equity coops at very low per room prices. Tenants’ monthly payments went to cover operating costs and interest in the mortgage, but did not increase their equity. In other works, to maintain the units as affordable housing, the union placed the emphasis on building community rather than equity, on social assets rather than monetary ones.

The emphasis on education, training and information calls into play the second tradition, beyond the socio-economic concept of cooperative organization, and that is the translation of these goals into physical form through the provision of meeting rooms, classrooms, child care facilities, libraries, and other facilities. The union was quick to pick up on this tradition in building its early coops in New York. The Bronx Amalgamated for instance had a theater, artist studios, and child care facilities. This promising start was abandoned as the public housing became a form of warehousing for the poor. Happily, David Burney, during his tenure as Director of Design at the NYC Housing Authority, brought renewed attention to this neglected tradition in the form of new and renovated community centers of high quality design.

common room fits into this tradition not only by virtue of its physical location on the Lower East Side within Seward Park Housing, but in the use of their physical space and the larger conversation they seek to engage through their practice. It remains to be seen how common room translates into larger projects as the practice grows, but the themes so clearly enunciated and espoused at the start situate the group within a venerable trajectory of associating place with progress.

 

Anthony W. (Tony) Schuman is a registered architect and Graduate Program Director at the New Jersey School of Architecture, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where he is an Associate professor. He is a past president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), which represents the 142 accredited architecture programs in the U.S. and Canada. His articles on housing design and community development appear in twelve books and numerous scholarly journals and conference proceedings. Tony was a founding member of a series of advocacy and activist organizations in the architecture and planning professions, including Urban Deadline, The Architects' Resistance (TAR), Homefront, and the Planners Network. He is past chair of the New York Chapter of Architects/Designers/ Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR). He serves on Montclair (NJ) Housing Commission, in his hometown, and is a trustee of the Newark P reservation and Landmarks Committee and the Lincoln Park/Coast Cultural District, also in Newark. His article on the cooperative housing movement in New York can be found at http://www.lesonline.org/cv/LABOR AND HOUSING IN NEW YORK CITY.pdf

David J. Burney, AIA was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction (“DDC”) in January 2004, by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. DDC manages capital projects for a variety of City agencies including the Departments of Transportation and Environmental Protection; and for the many cultural institutions such as libraries and museums that receive City capital funds. With Mayor Bloomberg’s support, David Burney launched a City-wide “Design and Construction Excellence Initiative” with the goal of raising the quality of design and construction of public works throughout New York City. Prior to joining DDC, Mr. Burney was Director of Design and Capital Improvement at the New York City Housing Authority where, in 2002, the agency was awarded a National Design Award Special Commendation by the Smithsonian Institute. From 1982 to 1990 Mr. Burney practiced architecture with the New York Firm of Davis Brody & Associates where he was involved in a variety of projects including the Zeckendorf Towers on Union Square and the Rose Building at Lincoln Center. Mr. Burney was educated at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and at the University of London. He was the recipient of the AIA NYC Chapter Public Architect Award in 1996 and received a Sloane Public Service Award in 2003.

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This discussion is taking place as part of the the common room installation for the New Practices New York/2008 exhibition at the Center for Architecture, which for the month of October addresses the theme Local context ‘common room’.

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common room
465 grand street 4c
new york, ny 10002

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