Jorge Otero-Pailos

Jorge Otero-Pailos is Professor and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where he also directs the Columbia Preservation Technology Lab. A licensed architect, artist and scholar, he is internationally recognized for advancing experimental approaches to the preservation of built heritage.

His practice and scholarship bridge architecture, the arts and technology, pioneering the use of new materials, sensory media, and environmental technologies in preservation. His artworks, derived from the preservation of heritage sites, have been commissioned and exhibited by institutions including the Venice Biennale, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Artangel at the UK Parliament, SFMoMA, La Gallerie Louis Vuitton, and the National Museum of American Diplomacy.

He is the author or editor of several influential books, including Architecture’s Historical Turn, Experimental Preservation (with E. Langadlen and T. Arrhenius), Preservation is Overtaking Us (with Rem Koolhaas) and Historic Preservation Theory: An Anthology. He is also the founding editor of Future Anterior, a scholarly journal dedicated to the history, theory, and criticism of historic preservation.