On March 3, sixty people gathered at the AIA headquarters in Washington, D.C., for a panel discussion related to the exhibition, Context\Contrast: New Architecture in Historic Districts, 1967-2009. After being on view at the New York Center for Architecture from October 2009 to January 2010, the exhibition was moved to AIA headquarters.

“It is a historic occasion,” stated Rick Bell, FAIA, executive director of AIANY, at the start of the event. The evening’s subject was only one level of “historical” significance. That the free, public program was taking place at AIA National Headquarters, making it feel more like the “American Center for Architecture” than an association headquarters was another distinction for the event. That two historic district review board heads—Robert Tierney, chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) in New York, and Tersh Boasberg, chair of the Historic Preservation Review Board in Washington, DC—were gathered with practitioners from New York and D.C. for a candid conversation on the approval process added a third level of significance.