03.27.25 Exhibition Lecture | Zara Pfeifer and Daniel Jonas Roche: The Social Life of Cooperativ...

Photographer Zara Pfeifer and author Daniel Jonas Roche will present their research about the life and career of Herman Jessor, a New York architect who designed more than 40,000 units of cooperative housing between 1921 and 1980. This will be the first public lecture Pfeifer and Roche give together about their shared research project, which started in 2023.

Prior to documenting Jessor’s oeuvre, Pfeifer spent years living in and photographing Alt-Erlaa, a late modern cooperative housing complex in Vienna by architect Harry Glück. Pfeifer will present her photography from both Vienna and New York, and discuss her approach. Roche will present a brief biographical overview of Jessor, and talk about the context in which Jessor operated, namely how he was able to remarkably oversee the construction of so many affordable homes under the United Housing Foundation’s tutelage.
This lecture will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition Thank you, Herman Jessor showing in the Third Floor Hallway Gallery.

Zara Pfeifer is a photographer based in Berlin and Vienna. She teaches at TU Vienna and recently received the MAK Schindler Scholarship in Los Angeles.

Daniel Jonas Roche is news editor at The Architect’s Newspaper. He teaches at Parsons and is co-authoring a new book, Antifascist Architecture (Park Books: 2025).

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.