Old Buildings, New Businesses

Authenticity and Innovation explores preservation in contemporary New York City, a particularly relevant topic for a metropolis characterized by perennial change. Here, old buildings moor a rapidly transforming cityscape as it is continually reshaped by development pressures, evolving architectural tastes, and, as explored in this program, new patterns in how we work today.

Join a distinguished panel of architects and historians as they discuss projects ranging from Google’s New York City headquarters within a massive Art Deco structure in Chelsea to shared and flexible workplaces on Wall Street and in Brooklyn. These conversions and more represent a range of strategies for the creative reuse of old buildings that takes place outside of the official historic preservation mainstream, as resourceful  developers, owners, tenants, and architects recognize the potential for housing new functions never imagined by their original builders.