Talk and curator's tour of the exhibition at the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City, followed by a reception with refreshments at the Museum. Please RSVP for this event by emailing [email protected] if you would like to attend.
“The Modern Concrete Skyscraper” finds a new narrative line in skyscraper history by using a material lens to trace the evolution and embrace of reinforced concrete as the standard material for tall building construction. What art history has usually framed as the story of steel can instead be viewed as two thematic chapters, the first in steel, the second in concrete. Willis will explain the research process and questions raised in crafting the story line for the show with her collaborator Thomas Leslie.
Carol Willis is an architectural and urban historian and the founder, director, and curator of the Skyscraper Museum in lower Manhattan, where she has curated more than thirty exhibitions. She taught for three decades as an adjunct professor the program “The Shape of Two Cities, New York / Paris” at GSAPP and in Spring 2025 she taught an undergraduate seminar, “American Architecture: Skyscrapers and Urbanism,” in the Department of Art History and Archeology at Columbia. Next semester, in Spring 2026, she will lead a seminar for undergraduate and graduate students titled “Making Modern New York.”
