Architecture Newsletter Praises CCNY Faculty Book

“Research & Design: Faculty Work, The City College of New York - Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture,” by George Ranalli, (Oscar Riera Ojeda Publications, 2010), the catalog accompanying the school’s opening exhibit, was chosen one of the ten best architecture books for 2010 by ArchNewsNow, an architecture online newsletter.

“From the over-the-top Hotel Jellyfish for Tianjin, China, by Michael Sorkin that straddles a line between zoomorphic and dadamorphic design, all to way to the dignified apollonian civility of Dean George Ranalli’s Saratoga Community Center in Brooklyn, NY, the architecture students at CCNY luck out by having a teaching faculty practicing with so much visionary panache,” wrote architecture journalist Norman Weinstein in praising the book.

“All of the Spitzer School's faculty are practicing architects and designers,” noted Mr. Ranalli, who is the school’s dean.   “We’re extremely proud of this acknowledgement, especially since showcasing their professional work through this publication recognizes their contributions to the field and serves to inspire our students.”

The book features built and un-built works that were exhibited in the atrium of the Spitzer School of Architecture shortly after the school moved into its new quarters on CCNY’s south campus at the start of the fall 2009 semester.  The work represents a “blend of rigorous academic ideas with the practical application of theories placed into the public realm,” Dean Ranalli wrote in the book’s frontispiece. 

The architects teaching in the Spitzer School draw upon the experience they gathered from practice as the basis for ideas that they can refine by utilizing the school as a laboratory, he added.  These ideas, which originated in built and un-built works, can be explored more fully through studio projects, unencumbered by the practical realities of clients, budgets and programs.

“Research & Design: Faculty Work, The City College of New York - Bernard and Anne Spitzer School Of Architecture” is available for purchase on Amazon.com

MEDIA CONTACT

Ellis Simon
p: 212.650.6460
e: esimon@ccny.cuny.edu