American Condominium Metabolism

The Condominium is a form of automatic architecture shaped by its marketing context, bypassing its architects while notably neglected by the academic research. We propose a systematic study and inventory documentation of New York’s Condominium real estate development, revealing the latent intelligence embedded in its conception, design and performance. The American Condominium Metabolism atlas, will undertake the task of researching the typology of the condominium in the city of New York, as an attempt to scrutinize this urban phenomenon, currently placed outside the boundaries of the architectural academic discipline. How do we face the fact that a building type that has failed as the social and collective housing of the 50s and 60s proved a stunning success with the middle and upper class consumers in the States?

Borrowing inadvertently from both the modern tradition and the metabolism movement how come the american condominium is still an architectural taboo?

American Condominium Metabolism is an ongoing research project Funded by the New York State Council of the Arts via Storefront for Art and Architecture.