Graham Professor of Practice in Architecture Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi of WEISS/MANFREDI took New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman on a virtual walking tour of their daily commute from Brooklyn Heights, across the Brooklyn Bridge, and to the WEISS/MANFREDI studio in Lower Manhattan.
Weiss and Manfredi narrate the tour with personal anecdotes about architectural landmarks, like the Woolworth Building, and more subtle observations, like the topography of the Brooklyn Bridge's wooden planks.
“During the late ’60s, when I was a child, I visited New York for the first time with my family…I saw the Brooklyn Bridge, with its wonderful arc, and the skyscrapers, which looked to me like they were floating. I thought New York was Oz,” said Manfredi.
“We can still get chills walking over the bridge into Lower Manhattan — in the morning light the Woolworth Building, the Gehry building, the Municipal Building all dematerialize," said Weiss.
Weiss and Manfredi were recently awarded 2020 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, the highest honor given by the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.