Arts for Living offers an alternative, multifaceted history of an iconic cultural institution, The Abrons Arts Center. Located in New York City’s Lower East Side, the center was designed by Prentice and Chan, Ohlhausen, and built during the crisis-ridden 1970s as a community art center with educational facilities for a local low-income population. A rare interview with architect Lo-Yi Chan that elucidates the design process as well as essays by Alan Moore on the East Village art scene that arose out of the 1970s fiscal crisis and Kim Förster on pedagogical programs in architecture for youth in New York are accompanied by a color-photo essay by Jason Fulford depicting the current social life of the arts center. Designed by Geoff Han, and including original archival documentation, Arts for Living is an important architectural case study of a public space designed to foster community life in a multiethnic, changing neighborhood.

(Text via RAM Publications)