Avery Library partnered with GSAPP’s Historic Preservation program on an exhibition of architectural fragments organized by Richard Pieper, Norman Weiss and Mika Tal. The fragments come from the collection of the Preservation Technology Laboratory and the private collections of the organizers and professionals in the field. The exhibition can be found in the display cases outside of Drawings & Archives.

In the accompanying label text, the organizers have described the meaning of each fragment and elucidated the complex stories of historic building technologies and aesthetics. The exhibition serves as a teaching tool for students in the historic preservation program and anyone interested in the evolution of building materials over time.

Visitors to Drawings & Archives researching Frank Lloyd Wright can view multiple fragments from buildings designed by Wright, including a portion of high-density laminate flooring from Taliesin, some tongue-and-groove board from the master bedroom terrace at Fallingwater and a cement-based composite block from the Ennis House in Los Angeles.

Aficionados of New York history will be especially excited to see a piece of steel cable (“wire rope”) from the Brooklyn Bridge, one of over a thousand used to suspend the bridge’s roadway. The collector acquired this piece from renovations that took place in 1986 nearly a century after the Roeblings designed the original structure.

Numerous other treasures await visitors who can visit the exhibition through the end of January. Please not that campus access is still restricted. If you do not have an active Columbia ID and would like to visit the show, please contact avery@columbia.edu for assistance.