On December 7, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) will host the 2024 Fitch Colloquium in New York City. Held in Wood Auditorium at GSAPP’s Avery Hall, the day-long annual event—named after James Marston Fitch, founder of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia—brings together students, alumni, and guests to engage in discussion over current issues in preservation. With past colloquiums focusing on preservation in China (2022) and the role of digital technology in the field (2019), the gathering on Saturday, which will include three panels, focuses on the reuse and repair of existing buildings and the pivotal role that architectural education can and must play in the movement away from new construction. Inspired by and named after a conservation published earlier this year by Places Journal titled Repairing Architecture Schools, the 2024 Fitch Colloquium is co-organized by Jorge Otero-Pailos, professor and director of the Historic Preservation Program at GSAPP, and Nancy Levinson and Frances Richard, editor/executive director and senior editor of Places, respectively.

Both Otero-Pailos and Levinson are participants in Repairing Architecture Schools, joined by a range of design professionals representing practice, academia, and publishing. They include RECORD editor in chief Josephine Minutillo and (in alphabetical order): Nick Axel (e-flux Architecture); Erica Avrami (GSAPP); Daniel Barber (TU Eindhoven); Deborah Berke (Yale School of Architecture); Shumi Bose (UAL Central Saint Martins, Koozarch); Mario Gooden (GSAPP); Olaf Grawert (bplus.xyz, station.plus, D-ARCH, ETH Zurich); Mireille Roddier (University of Michigan); and Andrea Roberts (the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, UVA School of Architecture).

The 2024 Fitch Colloquium is free and open to the public although advance registration is required for campus access. A reception requiring separate registration will follow.

Below is a full description of Repairing Architecture Schools provided by the event organizers.

Architecture, preservation, and the professions of the built environment are undergoing a profound sea change in their collective ethos and practices the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Industrial Revolution. Yet most schools have not adjusted to the new reality. Professions once centered on new construction are now focusing on the care and repair of existing buildings. In the United States, 49.3 percent of all income earned by architects now comes from renovations, restorations, additions, and preservation work—a higher percentage than the global average of 37 percent. The U.S. construction industry estimates that these percentages will continue to increase, as 40 percent of the country’s building stock is 50 years or older and built with poor materials. Climate change is also driving the industry to pay more attention to existing buildings, which constitute 40 percent of all carbon emissions. New laws and regulations are requiring the mass-scale renovation of existing buildings to meet new climate standards. Taken together these facts suggest that there is growing demand for professionals with the knowledge and skills to creatively reimagine the existing building stock.

Yet, architecture schools in the U.S. are either unwilling or unable to acknowledge the changing professional marketplace, and equally importantly, the new reality of our human condition. The majority continue to teach students as if their future professional activity will mainly be new construction. How can we accelerate academia’s adaptation to the new exigencies of society—and the planet? What would architecture schools look like if many more courses focused on existing buildings? What ideal of the professional architect would schools present to aspiring students? How can change in architecture schools be spurred by journals and other institutions that recognize and celebrate professional excellence?

Inspired by the eponymous article on Places, this year’s colloquium will explore the pedagogical imagination, and consider what it would take to rebalance the relative importance of preserving existing buildings in the pedagogy of architecture schools. While focusing on architecture and preservation, the symposium will also explore the impact of such pedagogical innovations in all the professions of the built environment, including urban planning, real estate development, urban design, engineering and others.