The Architectural League of New York
594 Broadway, Suite 607
The Architectural League of New York presents All the Queens Houses, an exhibition of 273 photographs of residences in Queens, NY, by architect/artist Rafael Herrin-Ferri.
All the Queens Houses is an ongoing photographic survey by Herrin-Ferri looking at the themes of identity, differentiation, and adaptation in the low-rise housing stock of Queens. It is an investigation into the (in)formal qualities of the borough’s attached, semi-detached, and detached houses and small apartment buildings, exploring how they reflect the incredible diversity of the borough’s population, often regarded as the most ethnically and linguistically diverse place in the world.
Herrin-Ferri began the project in 2012 and has documented one third of the borough to date in over 5,000 photographs. The League’s exhibition comprises 273 photographs of just as many individual houses located in 34 neighborhoods across the borough. Herrin-Ferri’s forensic documentation has focused on façades and side elevations as well as distinctive building features. The exhibition includes 259 “house portraits” (5.25” x 7”) and 14 blow-up details (11.5” x 15”). Together, they represent the most eclectic examples each neighborhood has to offer. Herrin-Ferri installed the photographs by neighborhood in alphabetical order, starting with Astoria. The often humorous titles are a linguistic mix that reflects the difficulty of categorizing these hybrid structures by style: part academic, part broker listing, part New York magazine caption.
Read an interview with Herrin-Ferri in Urban Omnibus.
The exhibition is co-curated by Herrin-Ferri and Emily Schmidt, Manager of Housing Initiatives at the League. The League will host a talk and reception with Herrin-Ferri and urban historian Joseph Heathcott on November 9, 2017.
