New York’s Cultural Infrastructure: Branch Libraries

With the arrival of digital publishing and storage technologies, libraries have shifted away from being central sources of information to public meeting spaces and key cultural destinations. Architects must respond to this shift accordingly and give shape to what the public library represents to a digitally-engaged community – a central location for the community to gather and be exposed to new ideas. Explore why public libraries remain integral to New York City’s cultural infrastructure in a conversation between architectural photographer Elizabeth Felicella and architecture critic Alexandra Lange of Curbed. 

Speakers:
Elizabeth Felicella, Photographer, “Reading Room: A Catalog of New York City’s Branch Libraries”
Alexandra Lange, Architecture Critic, Curbed

Elizabeth Felicella lives and works in New York City. Her commissioned work has appeared in numerous publications, including Architecture, Architectural Record, Abitare, Dwell, Frame, Grid, Interior Design, Metropolis and Vogue. Elizabeth has received support for her own projects from the New York State Council for the Arts, the Design Trust for Public Space, the Fulbright Commission, and the MacDowell Colony. Her eight-year project photographing all 210 NYC public library branches resulted in more than 2,000 photographs, and culminated in the Center for Architecture’s current exhibition “Reading Room: A Catalog of New York City’s Branch Libraries.”

Alexandra Lange is the architecture critic for Curbed. Her essays, reviews, and profiles have appeared in Architect, Domus, Dwell, Medium, MAS Context, Metropolis, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. She has been a featured writer at Design Observer and an opinion columnist at Dezeen. She has taught design criticism at the School of Visual Arts and New York University. She was a 2014 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Organized by: AIANY Public Architecture Committee