Tag: center for architecture foundation

A Visit to New Amsterdam

It was perfect walking tour weather as a group of 20 traced the outlines of New York City’s early days as New Amsterdam in the area below Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. The first of the Center for Architecture Foundation’s Reading the Streetscape walking tours this spring, the New Amsterdam tour on 04.12.14 kicked off a series of three walks chronicling how the grew, from its early days as a Dutch company town to today’s modern metropolis.

The tour, led by CFAF Design Educator and architectural historian Jane Cowan, began at Bowling Green, the small park at the foot of Broadway, which dates back to the 1600s when the Dutch West India Company ran New Amsterdam as a trading post specializing in beaver skins to ship to Europe. The park was used at that time for ninepins bowling games, hence the name, and the fence that stands there today pre-dates the Revolutionary War, when the tops of its finials were chopped off to melt down for ammunition. Continue reading “A Visit to New Amsterdam”

CFAF Young Patrons Tour the Judd Foundation

On 03.26.14, the Center for Architecture Foundation Young Patrons Committee ushered in Spring with a tour of the Judd Foundation followed by a reception at Garis & Hahn Gallery on the Bowery. Despite the bitter cold, 40 attendees gathered in SoHo for a guided tour of the recently restored Judd Foundation at 101 Spring Street, the former home of the late artist Donald Judd and his family. The restoration of the five-story building, designed by Nicholas Whyte and completed in 1870, was led by Architecture Research Office/ARO with exterior restoration architect Walter B. Melvin Architects (the project won an Architecture Honor in the 2014 AIANY Design Awards). Continue reading “CFAF Young Patrons Tour the Judd Foundation”

Design Education: Essential or Optional?

The Center for Architecture Foundation recently hosted Chris Whitwood, a British graduate student from York St. John’s University, for a two-week international placement as part of his program in primary school education. This cross-cultural experience provided both CFAF and the student with an opportunity to compare notes on teaching and to take a fresh look at our own practices. Whitwood’s undergraduate degree in product design made him a good match for CFAF’s design-based programs, and he participated in several, including Student Day workshops for school groups visiting the Center, Learning By Design:NY in-school residency programs, and a teacher training session. Continue reading “Design Education: Essential or Optional?”