"The borough of Queens has long been celebrated as the melting pot of America. Over a million foreign-born residents call it home, yet its houses are relatively unknown. Starting in 2013, Spanish-born architect and artist Rafael Herrin-Ferri made these buildings the subject of a block-by-block photo survey project that concluded seven years later in 2020. This first comprehensive publication features over two-hundred images of highly idiosyncratic residential structures that characterize the global building aesthetic of Queens. Frontal, New Objective-style house portraits are accompanied by interpretive texts revealing a colorful history of alterations and architectural references, while full page details shots and street perspectives reflect on the 'World's Borough' from a more personal and pedestrian point of view" -- Page [ 4] of cover.
The borough of Queens has long been celebrated as the melting pot of America. It was the birthplace of North American religious freedom in the seventeenth century, hosted two Worlds Fairs in the twentieth, and is currently home to over a million foreign-born residents participating in the American experience. In 2013, Spanish-born artist and architect Rafael Herrin-Ferri began to paint a portrait of the Worlds Boroughnot with images of its diverse population, or its celebrated international food scene, but with photographs of its highly idiosyncratic housing stock. While All the Queens Houses is mainly a photography book celebrating the broad range of housing styles in New York Citys largest and most diverse county, it is also a not-so-subtle endorsement of a multicultural community that mixes global building traditions into the American vernacular, and by so doing breathes new life into its architecture and surrounding urban context.
With an introductory essay by Joseph Heathcott
