“Building Institution. The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York 1967–1985”
"Building Institution" chronicles the expansion of architecture as a profession and discipline in the postmodern era. Kim Förster traces the compelling history of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, which was active in New York from 1967 to 1985. Drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories, he constructs a collective biography that details the Institute's diverse roles and the dynamic interplay between research and design, education, culture, and publishing. By exploring the transformation of cultural production into a practice as well as the culturalization and global postmodernization of architecture, the volume contributes significantly to the institutional history of architecture.
funding
Published with the support of The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago Illinois, and the Swiss National Science Foundation, Bern.
research
As part of my archival research, I worked primarily at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, where documents relating to the Institute have been located since 1998, first in the Peter Eisenman Collection (fonds 143), and second in the IAUS Collection (fonds 57). As of 2016, other documents relating to the Institute are also in the Kenneth Frampton Collection (fonds AP 197) at the CCA, particularly those relating to the Institute’s only building project, which Frampton was in charge of. Other collections and records from archives and museums (MoMA, Walker Art Center), universities (primarily Sarah Lawrence College, but also Columbia University, Princeton University, and Yale University, such as the documents relating to a variety of public events in the Robert A.M. Stern Collection and the photographs of events by Dorothy Alexander in the Beinecke Library), research centers (Getty Research Institute and the graphic designs of Massimo Vignelli in the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at Rensselaer Institute of Technology), and other institutions in the United States, government agencies (Internal Revenue Service), foundations (New York Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities), associations (American Institute of Architects), etc.
In addition, I have conducted interviews with the following individuals (in alphabetical order): Diana Agrest, Stan Allen, Emilio Ambasz, Andrew Anker, Samuel Anderson, Stanford Anderson, George Baird, Jonathan Barnett, Andrew Bartle, Michael Bierut, Thomas Bender, Vincent Benedetto, Barry Bergdoll, Deborah Berke, Rosemarie Bletter, David Buege, Colin Campbell, Walter Chatham, Kees Christiaanse, Nathaniel Coleman, Roger Conover, Joan Copjec, Douglas Crimp, Peggy Deamer, Livio Dimitriu, Linda Dukess, Peter Eisenman, William Ellis, Kurt Forster, Kenneth Frampton, Suzanne Frank, Mario Gandelsonas, Deborah Gans, Paul Goldberger, Peter Greenberg, Robert Gutman, Sarah Halliday, Laurie Hawkinson, Henry Hecker, Christian Hubert, Thomas Hut, Margot Jacqz, Louise Joseph, Brian Kaye, Kevin Kennon, Jonathan Kirschenfeld, Silvia Kolbowski, Randall Korman, Rosalind Krauss, Lawrence Kutnicki, Robert Lane, John Leeper, Theodore Liebman, Kevin Lippert, Peter Lynch, Andrew MacNair, Mary McLeod, Jay Measley, Richard Meier, Tom Mellins, Robert Meltzer, David Mohney, Elizabeth Moule, Joan Ockman, Miguel Oks, Kyong Park, Patrick Pinnell, Alan Plattus, Stephen Potters, Tim Prentice, George Ranalli, Mark Robbins, Joseph Rykwert, Pat Sapinsley, Michael Schwarting, Richard Sennett, Lindsay Shapiro, Coty Sidnam, Robert Silman, Carla Skodinski, Michael Sorkin, Suzanne Stephens, Robert Stern, Jon Stouman, Mimi Taft, Frederieke Taylor, Bernard Tschumi, Anthony Vidler, Massimo Vignelli, Lauretta Vinciarelli, Laura Waltz, Peggy Weil, Richard Wengenroth, Terrance Williams, Peter Wolf
dissemination
On education "A Postmodern School of Architecture. Education at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies" In Histories of Architecture Education in the United States, edited by P. L. Laurence. (London: Routledge, 2023), 98-117.
On culture, "Institutionalizing Postmodernism: Reconceiving the Journal and the Exhibition at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in 1976,", In Mediated Messages: Periodicals, Exhibitions, and the Shaping Postmodern Architecture, edited by Véronique Patteeuw and Léa-Catherine Szacka (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 213-229.
On research and design, "The Housing Prototype of The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. Negotiating Housing and the Social Responsibility of Architects Within Cultural Production", Candide 5, March 2012, 57-92.
"Wallace K. Harrison: New York Architect (press release)," In Architecture Itself and Other Postmodern Myths, edited by Sylvia Lavin (Montréal: CCA and Leipzig: Spector Books, 2020), 121-124.
"The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies," In The Other Architect, edited by Giovanna Borasi Montréal: Canadian Centre for Architecture and Leipzig: Spector Books, 2015), 374-376.