Amy D. Finstein

Visual Arts Architectural Studies Co-Advisor Urban Studies Advisor Environmental Studies  Assistant Professor Ph.D., University of Virginia Fields: Modern architecture and urbanism

Biography

Amy Finstein specializes in modern architecture and urbanism in America and Europe. She is interested in how the built environment reflects moments of societal change and modernization at multiple scales, ranging from high-style Modern residences to Art Deco elevated highways. Her current research includes the re-discovery of an early residential design by Bauhaus icons Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, a commission that encapsulates their early years in the U.S., the commodification of their design approach, and the eventual dissolution of their short-lived partnership. She is also interested in how major urban infrastructure projects synthesize changing architectural, technological, and societal norms, a topic reflected in her book, Modern Mobility Aloft: Elevated Highways, Architecture, and Urban Change in Pre-Interstate America (Temple University Press 2020). She is a contributing author to the Atlas of Boston History (University of Chicago Press 2019), and has published previously in Journal of Planning History, Preservation Education and Research, and ARRIS: Journal of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians. She served as Consulting Historian to the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy in 2018-19, and serves on the Board of Directors for the New England Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Book

Modern Mobility Aloft: Elevated Highways, Architecture, and Urban Change in Pre-Interstate America, (Temple University Press 2020)

In the News

• How will COVID-19 Reshape New York City’s Streets?  A Holy Cross Professor Examines the History

• The Conversation- New York opens traffic-clogged streets to people during pandemic, the city's latest redesign in times of dramatic change

• Holy Cross Professor’s Greenway Art Project Uses Augmented Reality to Take Visitors Back in Time

• An Augmented Reality Experience On The Greenway Reminds Us Of Life Before The Big Dig

• Boston Globe - August 2019- "What better way to tell the story of a place than through its buildings?"

• See Holy Cross students partner with Worcester Tree Initiative

• Worcester Tree Initiative (WTI)  Student built website

• The age of the Worcester skyscraper has been replaced by street-level interactions