In June 2025, Françoise Astorg Bollack was elected president of HDC’s Board of Directors. Françoise is an architect, architectural historian and an educator. She is a practicing architect, the founder of Françoise Bollack Architects, whose practice focuses on the design opportunities of working with existing buildings. She has authored several books on architecture and on designing with old buildings; most recently Old Buildings – New Ideas: a Selective History of Additions, Adaptations, Reuse and Design Inventions. In addition to practicing architecture and writing about architecture and preservation, she is currently an associate professor of historic preservation in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York, holding a seminar entitled Old Buildings – New Energy: History and Current Practices and advising students on their Graduate Thesis. At HDC, Françoise also co-chairs HDC’s Advocacy Committee and has most recently advocated for the preservation of Midtown South and the reuse of the historic Roosevelt Hotel.
Françoise Astorg Bollack is an architect, architectural historian and an educator. She is a practicing architect, the founder of Françoise Bollack Architects whose practice focuses on the design opportunities of working with existing buildings. Her firm has received numerous awards including a Certificate of Merit from the American Institute of Architects for extensive work in the New York State Capitol and several awards for the adaptation of a 19th century school in New York City for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.
She has authored several books on architecture and on designing with old buildings; most recently Old Buildings – New Ideas: a Selective History of Additions, Adaptations, Reuse and Design Inventions published by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2023, and Old Buildings – New Forms: New Directions in Architectural Transformations, which received the coveted preservation book prize from Mary Washington University; and Material Transfers – Metaphor, Craft and Place in Contemporary Architecture, about the creative possibilities of imitation duplication, replication and transfer in the making of adaptive architecture. Earlier publications include Everyday Masterpieces – Memory and Modernity: a Study of an International Vernacular between the two World Wars (as a co-author) as well as articles in architectural and preservation magazines including the editorial “Reflection on the Art of Incompleteness” published in AREA Addition #148 – Rivista Internazionale Di Architettura E Arti Del Projetto, and “The Design of Memory – Rebuilding at the World Trade Center Site in New York City” in CONTORNI – Quaderni di Restauro Architettonico. In addition to practicing architecture and writing about architecture and preservation, she is currently an associate professor of historic preservation in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York, holding a seminar entitled Old Buildings – New Energy: History and Current Practices and advising students on their Graduate Thesis. She was born in Paris and now lives and practices in New York City.