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Campuses Closed on Sunday, January 19, and Monday, January 20, Due to Weather

Due to the winter weather forecast, all classes and activities at Kean’s main campus in Union, Kean Ocean and Kean Skylands are canceled on Sunday, January 19, and Monday, January 20. Normal operations are expected to resume on Tuesday, January 21. Only personnel who are essential during weather emergencies should report to work as required on Sunday and Monday. Employees with questions about their status should consult their supervisors. Keanu’s Kitchen will be open for on-campus residents from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday and 9 a.m. to midnight on Monday.

Nina Rappaport

Lecturer
Office Location
Hutchinson Hall, 104D
Email
nrappapo@kean.edu
Phone
(908) 737-5326
Kean Lecturer Nina Rappaport

Courses Taught

  • 1000: Introduction to the History of the Global Built Environment (developed new GE class)
  • 2203: Global Modernism
  • 2204: Quote and Innovation in the 18th and 19th Century
  • 3304:  Renaissance and Baroque Rome, in Rome
  • Special Topics 4003: Working Rome through literature, film, and urbanism, taught in Rome
  • 3205: Industrial Artifacts of New Jersey
  • 5601: Industrial Palimpsest: Fact and Artifact
  • 5601:  Hybrid Factory/ Hybrid City  

Research Interests

Nina Rappaport’s research focuses on urban manufacturing regeneration and industrial reuse looking at the intersection of production spaces, architecture, and the role of the factory worker through her writings, consulting, and exhibitions. She also focuses on the role of the engineer as designer, coining the term "Deep Decoration" with her essay in 306090 in 2006.

Publications

  • Vertical Urban Factory (Actar 2015, paperback 2020)
  • Hybrid Factory/Hybrid City (Actar 2023).
  • Design for Urban Manufacturing (Routledge 2020), co-editor with Robert Lane
  • Support and Resist: Structural Engineers and Design Innovation (The Monacelli Press, 2008)
  • Connecting the Arts: Long Island City, co-editor with Colin Cathcart and David Reinfurt (Design Trust for Public Space, 2006)
  • With students at Kean she has published:
  • Industrial Palimpsest: Newark (Vertical Urban Factory/Actar, 2022)
  • Trenton, Unfinished City (digital pdf, 2023)

Essays

She has authored numerous essays including in Yale’s Perspecta, Harvard Design Magazine, Praxis, Scapes, Architectural Record, Architects Newspaper, Architect, Domus, Clog, Log, Detail, Docomomo International, Acadia, among others and she was news editor of Oculus.

She has contributed essays to books including Engineered Transparency, Reopening of a City, Technoscape, Lifelines, Industrious City, City Made, Encountering Things, among others.  

Exhibitions

Vertical Urban Factory, a traveling exhibition that began in 2011 at the Skyscraper Museum in New York and since then has been to 4 venues including the School of Public Architecture (2016), Torino, Lugano, Brussels, Lausanne, Rotterdam, Detroit, and Toronto.

A Worker’s Lunch Box – an installation of films by Nina of factory workers in New York and Philadelphia

Other Activities

Nina has also taught at Parsons School of Constructed Environment, Barnard College, City College, Syracuse in NYC, Yale School of Architecture, and was a Visiting Professor at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy.

She is on the steering committee of the Western Queens Community Land Trust, the program committee of the Design Trust for Public Space, and the preservation committee of the Municipal Art Society.

She co-founded Docomomo US and New York/Tri-State, a chapter of the modernist preservation organization, in 1996.