Amy Finstein
Associate Professor, Architectural Studies Co-Advisor, Urban Studies Advisor
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 to the stories of individual designers and leaders.
Her previous scholarship 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 award-winning 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 Winterthur Portfolio, Journal of American History, Journal of Planning History, Preservation Education and Research, and ARRIS: Journal of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.
Her current research focuses on the early twentieth-century career and impact of the first female member of the American City Planning Institute.
Research
Modern Mobility Aloft: Elevated Highways, Architecture, and Urban Change in Pre-Interstate America, (Temple University Press 2020)
In the News
- Vernacular Architecture Forum announces 2024 Buchanan Award Recipient
- “Using Century-Old Documents to Research Boston's Landscape,” Holy Cross Magazine (Spring 2023)
- “New Stories from Before Displacement,” Blog article, Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library (March 2023)
- “Before Displacement: An Urban History,” Blog article, Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library (June 2021)
- “New Books in Architecture podcast,” New Books Network (June 2, 2021)
- Modern Mobility Aloft book talk for Skyscraper Museum (February 9, 2021)
- 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