The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.

Factory Conversation Series

Vertical Urban Factory features the innovative architectural design, structural engineering, and processing methods of significant factory buildings from the turn of the 20th century to the present. In conjunction with the exhibit, The Skyscraper Museum presents a series of discussions & tours examining the relationship between industry and cities.

All events are free and open to the public, except where otherwise noted. To RSVP, please email programs[at]skyscraper[dot]org or call 212-945-6324.

NINA RAPPAPORT, guest-curator and architectural historian, opens the series with a gallery tour and discussion of the impetus behind VUF and the state of manufacturing in cities. Rappaport is the Publications Director at the Yale School of Architecture, author of Support and Resist: Structural Engineers and Design Innovation (Monacelli Press 2007), and an adjunct professor in the Syracuse in NYC program.

*The February 4 event will take place at 5 PM.

Filmmaker ERIC BREITBART leads an overview discussion of the relationship between early motion pictures and industrial production, exploring how factories were depicted on film and the ways film was used to increase efficiency. For VUF, Breitbart created an impressionistic film juxtaposing archival & contemporary images to give a sense of the scope of vertical industrial production over the last hundred years.

Industrial historian MARY HABSTRITT discusses New York's rich industrial heritage and ongoing preservation efforts. Habstritt was a consultant for VUF and is the director of the LILAC Preservation project, a decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard vessel that served as a lighthouse tender. She also contributed to the Save Brooklyn's Industrial Heritage website of the Municipal Art Society.

Photographer John Bartelstone discusses The Brooklyn Navy Yard (powerHouse Books 2009), his first monograph offering a quiet and striking look at the Yard as a time capsule of industrial New York, where the fusion of the sublime and the practical, the past and the present, results in a place without time.

An evening with architects & manufacturers featured in VUF including Andrew Kimball, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Navy Yard; Kian Go from SUPER-INTERESTING! Architects, consultants to the Brooklyn-based recycled glass & concrete surfaces company Icestone; and Markus Jacobi, of the German firm Henn Architekten, designers of the Dresden VW Transparent Factory.

Guest-curator Nina Rappaport and Inaki Abalos of the Spanish firm Abalos Herreros (now Abalos Sentkiewicz), designers of the Madrid recycling plant Valdeming�mez featured in the exhibition, lead a gallery tour and discussion on industrial architecture.

*The April 10 event will take place at 3 PM.

Photographer Anthony Hamboussi discusses Newtown Creek: A Photographic Survey of New York's Industrial Waterway (Princeton Architectural Press 2010), which extensively documents the forgotten landscape of Newtown Creek over the course of five years.

Manufacturers discuss their space and the industrial squeeze in New York. The evening will feature Jonathon Taylor and Stephen Lynch of Caliper Studios, Williamsburg; Michael Pinkus of Sussman Corp., Long Island City; and Joseph Sultan of Chilewich, Manhattan.

Architectural Historian Jean Louis Cohen discusses Architecture in Uniform (Yale University Press 2011), offering a new perspective on the architectural history of the Second World War, which previous accounts viewed as a hiatus between peaceful periods of production.

Guest-curator Nina Rappaport will lead a gallery tour and discussion on industrial architecture. Tour is open to the public and free with the cost of admission.

Join Nina Rappaport, guest-curator and DOCOMOMO-NY/Tri-State board member for an evening gallery talk at The Skyscraper Museum. A reception will follow the talk.

*The May 11 event will take place at 6 PM.

Guest-curator Nina Rappaport will lead a gallery tour and discussion on industrial architecture. Tour is open to the public and free with the cost of admission.

Join Nina Rappaport, architectural historian and guest-curator of Vertical Urban Factory; Henn Architekten's Markus Jacobi, architect of the Volkswagen Factory in Dresden; and Rob Lane, Director of the Design Program at the Regional Plan Association for a rich dialogue across various fields. The panelists will answer the questions: What is the potential of revival of urban manufacturing in the density of cities and how does manufacturing contribute to a sustainable economic and ecological system?

*The June 1 event will take place at 6:30 PM and will be held at Trespa Design Centre, 62 Greene Street. RSVP here by June 1.

A tour of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, America's model for sustainable urban manufacturing, will be held on the afternoon Thursday, June 2. See the City-landmarked dry dock and industrial spaces. The suggested contribution is $35 to be paid online at: www.verticalurbanfactory.org -- Contribute, or bring a check made to New York Foundation for the Arts to the event. Ending at Re-Bar in Dumbo for a drink after. Rain or shine.

*The June 2 event will take place at 5:15 PM and will meet at the York Street - F Train stop for a shuttle bus. RSVP to jamie.chan[at]gmail[dot]com by May 31.

In the ongoing reinvention of Williamsburg's richly�historic industrial waterfront into a�burgeoning residential neighborhood,�the�massive�Domino Sugar complex remains the greatest challenge and opportunity. The�program�will�feature presentations by the principals of the development, design, engineering and construction teams, followed by a panel discussion and Q & A.

*The June 20 event will take place at 6 PM and will be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place, Battery Park City.