Carpenters' Hall Hosts Aaron Betsky Discussion on Adaptive Reuse

Join members of The Carpenters' Company on Feb. 27 at Carpenters' Hall (320 Chestnut St.) for a book talk with esteemed architecture critic and educator Aaron Betsky, whose latest book is Don't Build, Rebuild: The Case for Imaginative Reuse in Architecture.

As climate change has escalated into a crisis, the reuse of existing structures is the only way to even begin to preserve our wood, sand, silicon, and iron, let alone stop belching carbon monoxide into the air. Our housing crisis means that we need usable buildings now more than ever, but architect and critic Aaron Betsky shows that new construction—often seeking to maximize profits rather than resources, often soulless in its feel—is not the answer. Whenever possible, it is better to repair, recycle, renovate, and reuse—not only from an environmental perspective, but culturally and artistically as well.

Architectural reuse is as old as civilization itself. In the streets of Europe, you can find fragments from the Roman Empire. More recently, marginalized communities from New York to Detroit—queer people looking for places to gather or cruise, punks looking to make loud music, artists and displaced people looking for space to work and live—have taken over industrial spaces created then abandoned by capitalism, forging a unique style in the process. Their methods—from urban mining to dumpster diving—now inform architects transforming old structures today.

Register here:

https://company.carpentershall.org/event/book-talk-aaron-betsky-don-t-build-rebuild-the-case-for-imaginative-reuse-in-architecture

Questions? Email [email protected].