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EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION
Conceiving the Plan: Nuance and Intimacy in the Construction of Civic Space
Opening Reception Thursday, April 7
Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery | 6:30 PM
In Honor of Diane Lewis (1951 –2017)
First exhibited as part of the Italian Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia October 8 – November 21, 2021
In a series of post-2020 civic architecture projects for different sites, Conceiving the Plan inaugurates a dialogue with the legacy of the late architect and longtime Cooper Union Professor Diane Lewis AR’76. It asks the following questions: How can civic spaces be imbued with nuance? In what ways does such a quality persist in the city? Can one discuss intimacy in architectural terms? In her built and unbuilt works, teaching, and writing, Diane Lewis upheld the capacity of architecture to profoundly and intimately embody our collective life. For Lewis, the city was not only the result of a great number of inextricable historical strata of form and memory, it was also a proposition about a moral and ethical life together. She approached the city as a mental universe all its own, greater than the sum of its individual architectures. Her unique presence—her unmistakable voice—is among the most characteristic distillations of the architectural “message” of The Cooper Union from the 1970s to the mid-2010s.
This exhibition is free and open to the public.
Image: Trading, Tracing, and Telling Stories: The Alchemies of Exchange - Catherine Ann Somerville Venart.
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SYMPOSIUM
Nuance and Intimacy in Civic Space
Saturday, April 9
Arthur A. Houghton Gallery and Zoom | 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM
In a series of post-2020 civic architecture projects for different sites, Conceiving the Plan inaugurates a dialogue with the legacy of the late architect and longtime Cooper Union Professor Diane Lewis AR’76. It asks the following questions: How can civic spaces be imbued with nuance? In what ways does such a quality persist in the city? Can one discuss intimacy in architectural terms? In her built and unbuilt works, teaching, and writing, Diane Lewis upheld the capacity of architecture to profoundly and intimately embody our collective life. For Lewis, the city was not only the result of a great number of inextricable historical strata of form and memory, it was also a proposition about a moral and ethical life together. She approached the city as a mental universe all its own, greater than the sum of its individual architectures. Her unique presence—her unmistakable voice—is among the most characteristic distillations of the architectural “message” of The Cooper Union from the 1970s to the mid-2010s.
This event is free and open to the public in-person in the Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery and through Zoom. Zoom account registration is required, please register in advance here.
Image: Star Stories. Sotirios Kotoulas.
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VISITING LECTURE
Jonathan Tate: Thoughts on Housing
Tuesday, April 12
315F and Zoom | 12:00 PM
This lecture will take a look at work by OJT that specifically addresses housing. The talk will provide a summary of the office's approach and conceptualization of the type at various scales and points of entry.
The lecture will be followed by a discussion moderated by Stephen Rustow and Daisy Ames.
Jonathan Tate is principal of OJT (Office of Jonathan Tate), an architecture and urban design practice in New Orleans. The office engages in numerous design-related activities, including applied research, opportunistic planning, strategic development and conventional architectural practice. Their work has received numerous awards, including National AIA Housing Award and the National AIA Honor Award in Architecture. The office has been recognized as a 2017 Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York, a Next Progressive by Architect Magazine and a 2018 finalist for the international Architecture Review Emerging Architect Award. Tate is the recipient of the 2020 Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The in-person lecture is open to Cooper Union students, faculty, and staff in room 315F only. This event is accessible to the public through Zoom. Zoom registration is required, please register in advance here.
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FARIBA TEHRANI LECTURE
The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth Presented by The Red Nation
Thursday, April 14
315F and Zoom | 6:30 PM
The Red Deal is a political program for the liberation that emerges from the oldest class struggle in the Americas—the fight by Native people to win sovereignty, autonomy, and dignity. As the Red Nation proclaims, it is time to reclaim the life and future that has been stolen, come together to confront climate disaster, and build a world where all life can thrive. One-part visionary platform, one-part practical toolkit, The Red Deal is a call to action for everyone, including non-Indigenous comrades and relatives who live on Indigenous land. The stakes are clear, decolonization or extinction.
Justine Teba (she/they) is from the Pueblo tribes of Santa Clara, Tesuque, and Acoma in New Mexico and has been a member of The Red Nation since 2018. Justine is a member of leadership in The Red Nation and has been a part of almost every campaign during their time in the organization. Their career is with Red Media, an offshoot of The Red Nation and the co-publisher of The Red Deal.
Kiley Guy (she/her) is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She has been a member of The Red Nation since 2018 and has held various leadership positions. Kiley is the Program Director of Red Media, a press and media project for and by Indigenous People and co-publisher of The Red Deal.
The Fariba Tehrani Lecture was initiated in honor of Biba Tehrani, whose decades-long commitment to education has served as a radical alternative to the very models of conventional pedagogies of which she is both beneficiary and victim. Her commitment to discursive interaction, speech, and oratory makes this endowment an apt tribute for her contributions to generations of students.
This event is organized in partnership with the Cooper Climate Coalition.
The in-person lecture is open to Cooper Union students, faculty, and staff in room 315F only. This event is accessible to the public through Zoom. Zoom registration is required, please register in advance here.
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INTRADISCIPLINARY SEMINAR / PLURIVERSAL, BEWILDERED, AND OTHERWISE LECTURE
Léopold Lambert, "Mapping the Colonial Continuum"
Tuesday, April 19
Zoom | 7:00 PM
What can a trained architect bring to the study of colonial history? What would the concept of space-time, if taken seriously, bring to our study of and struggle against colonialism? By way of spatial analysis, Léopold Lambert examines 74 years of occupation of Palestine as well as the various movements of liberation that challenged French colonialism — in particular the 1954-62 Algerian Revolution, the 1984-88 Kanak insurrection, and the 2005 banlieues uprising — in order to reflect on what constitutes the colonial continuum as a surface of space-time, and how to represent it in maps and diagrams.
Léopold Lambert is a trained architect living in Paris. He is the founding editor of The Funambulist, a print and online bimestrial magazine dedicated to the politics of space and bodies and the cultivation of internationalist solidarities. He is the author of Weaponized Architecture: The Impossibility of Innocence (dpr-barcelona, 2012), Topie Impitoyable: The Corporeal Politics of the Cloth, the Wall, and the Street (punctum, 2015), La politique du bulldozer: La ruine palestinienne comme projet israélien (B2, 2016), and États d’urgence: Une histoire spatiale du continuum colonial français (PMN, 2021).
The IDS Public Lecture Series is part of the Robert Lehman Visiting Artist Program at The Cooper Union. We are grateful for major funding and support from the Robert Lehman Foundation for the series. The IDS Public Lecture Series is also made possible by generous support from The Open Society Foundations. Léopold Lambert's lecture is presented in collaboration with The Cooper Union's The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.
This event is free and open to the public through Zoom. Registration is required. Please register in advance here.
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EXHIBITION
Lyrical Urbanism: The Taipei Music Center
On View Thursday, April 7 through Friday, April 29
Third Floor Hallway Gallery
Lyrical Urbanism: The Taipei Music Center celebrates and communicates the vibrant energy and intensity of the recently completed Taipei Music Center that was designed by architects and Cooper alumni Jesse Reiser AR’81 and Nanako Umemoto AR’83 of Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture. The exhibition introduces the complex’s iconic architecture to an American audience through large-scale photographs, videos, music, and architectural models and drawings. Lyrical Urbanism illustrates the many ways the Music Center is currently inhabited—from informal daytime outdoor markets to organized evening-time music festivals—and how it has become an important urban district where Taiwanese music and culture is cultivated, celebrated, and projected toward a global audience.
In advance of the exhibition opening, a lecture, panel discussion, and musical performance will be held in Cooper Union’s Great Hall at 6:30 pm on April 6, 2022. Click here for details.
This exhibition is free and open to the public.
Image: Taipei Music Center. Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture. Yana Zhezhela & Alek Vatagin, photographers.
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ELEANORE PETTERSEN LECTURE
Samia Henni: Colonial Toxicity — France's Nuclear Heritage in the Sahara
Tuesday, April 26
315F and Zoom | 12:15 PM
Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial authorities detonated their first nuclear bombs in colonized Algerian Sahara. They secretly built two military bases: one in Reggane, in the Tanezrouft Plain, approximately 1,150 kilometers south of Algiers, and another one in in Ekker, in the Hoggar mountains, about 600 kilometers south-eastern of Reggane. The use of the Sahara as a nuclear firing field spread radioactive fallout across Africa and the Mediterranean and caused irreversible contaminations among human and nonhuman bodies, natural and built environments. This talk examines the spatialities and temporalities of France’s colonial toxicity in the Sahara and explores the lives and afterlives of radioactive debris and nuclear wastes.
The presentation will be followed by a conversation moderated by Nora Akawi.
Samia Henni is an architectural historian and Assistant Professor of History of Architecture and Urbanism at the Department of Architecture, College of Architecture, Art and Planning, Cornell University. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (gta Verlag, 2017, EN; Editions B42, 2019, FR), the editor of War Zones (gta Verlag, 2018) and Deserts are Not Empty (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2022), and the maker of exhibitions, such as Housing Pharmacology / Right to Housing (Manifesta 13, Marseille, 2020) and Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria (Zurich, Rotterdam, Berlin, Johannesburg, Paris, Prague, Ithaca, Philadelphia, Charlottesville, 2017–22). She received her Ph.D. In the History and Theory of Architecture (with distinction, ETH Medal) from ETH Zurich and taught at Princeton University, ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, and Geneva University of Art and Design. Her teaching and research interests include the history and theory of the built, destroyed, and imagined environments in relation to colonialization, displacement, gender, natural resources, nuclear weapons, and wars. Her current book project examines how the French military authorities toxified and transformed the Saharan territories and environments in the aftermath second world war. Henni is the Albert Hirschman Chair (2021-22) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Marseille and the Co-Chair (2021-22, with Ralph Ghoche) of Beyond France, The University Seminar at Columbia University.
This lecture will be conducted in-person and through Zoom. For Zoom attendance, please register in advance here. For In-Person attendance, please register in advance here.
Image: Fig. 1. France's Saharan Center for Military Experiments, Reggane, Algerian Sahara, December 1960. Copyright Jean-Michel Pinaut / SCA / ECPAD
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CURRENT WORK
Michael Maltzan
Wednesday, April 27
The Great Hall and Zoom | 7:00 PM
Michael Maltzan is the founding principal of Michael Maltzan Architecture (MMA), an architecture and urban design practice based in Los Angeles. Since its founding in 1995, the firm’s projects have crossed a wide range of programs, scales, materials, and economies. From exhibition design to large-scale urban infrastructure, Maltzan’s work is “dedicated to engaging the public realm, to exploring the complexity and possibility inherent in architecture,” according to the firm.
Recent projects include:
• Star Apartments, a mixed-use complex in downtown Los Angeles whose program includes social services, community recreational facilities, and residential units for formerly unhoused individuals;
Michael Maltzan holds an MArch from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and BFA and BArch degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, the AIA Los Angeles Gold Medal, and the Society of Architectural Historians Change Agent Award. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 2020.
MMA’s work has been recognized with five Progressive Architecture Awards, the Rudy Bruner Foundation’s Gold Medal for Urban Excellence, and the Zumtobel Group Award for Innovations for Sustainability & Humanity in the Built Environment. Several of the firm’s projects have received local, state, and national recognition from the AIA, including a 2020 Best of the Millennium AIA LA Honor Award.
The lecture will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with architectural consultant and critic Karen Stein.
This event is free and open to the public in-person and through Zoom. Registration is required. For in-person attendance, please register in advance here. For virtual attendance, please register in advance here.
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SUMMER PROGRAM
DIGITAL FABRICATION: Design-Build Education
Applications are now open.
The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union announces our upcoming intensive Design-Build Education Summer Program. This full-time in-person course offers advanced high school, undergraduate and graduate level students and professional participants a comprehensive foundation to digital fabrication workflows and technologies via the unique studio ethic of the School of Architecture.
Program participants from all academic fields are welcome and encouraged to apply. Prospective students need not be currently enrolled in an academic institution but are required to have completed coursework in or have practical knowledge of Rhino 3D as covered in our Introduction to Architecture Online summer programs or elsewhere.
Applications are currently open and all potential students are encouraged to apply early.
July 5 - July 29, 2022 | 4-weeks | In-Person Monday - Thursday, 11AM-2PM EST. | Apply Now
Image courtesy of Grace Ballo AR’24, Daniel Park AR’24, Julia Penchaszadeh Robert AR’24.
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SUMMER PROGRAM
Introduction to Architecture Online: Summer 2022
Applications are now open.
The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union announces our upcoming summer intensive program that features a virtual curriculum accessible to high school and college students worldwide. As an institution that is committed to the pursuit of excellence and learning, we view our current circumstances as an opportunity to advance our thinking through radical experimentation between various forms of online engagement, digital interface, virtual modeling and representation techniques. The pleasure of making and experimentation are fundamental to our discovery of architecture and the innovation of the discipline, as well as a deeply thoughtful form of social and cultural dialogue where the imaginary becomes possible.
Applications are currently open and all potential students are encouraged to apply early.
High School Student Program Dates: July 5 - August 5 | Apply Now
College Student Program Dates: July 5 - July 29 | Apply Now
You may watch our public Live Information Session to get an overview of the program's curriculum, pedagogy, and focus for this year. The video features examples of former participants' work and presentations by faculty and staff.
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ANNOUNCEMENT
Coronavirus Response
For campus-wide COVID-19 updates and resources, please visit The Cooper Union's website.
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NADAAA (Nader Tehrani, Arch dean/fac, principal) | Featured | "Walton Family Foundation Builds on Design Excellence Program’s Diversity, Breadth," WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE, January 10, 2022
John Hejduk AR’50/Arch dean & fac emeritus (deceased) | Article | John Hejduk: London Masque. ‘Widow’s House’ at the heart of the RA," METALOCUS, March 22, 2022
Anthony Vidler, Arch fac | Respondent | Architecture Unbound: Alternative History of Alternative Architecture, Center for Architecture, April 4, 2022, NYC
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Diana Agrest, Arch fac | Featured Interview | “GOOD NEWS: women in architecture,” MAXXI Museum, December 16, 2021 through September 11, 2022 (min. 2:20) | Featured | "MAXXI Museum Celebrates Female Architects Through "Good News. Women in Architecture" Exhibition," ARCHDAILY, January 14, 2022
LEVENBETTS (Stella Betts, Arch fac) | Featured | "Walton Family Foundation Builds on Design Excellence Program’s Diversity, Breadth," WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE, January 10, 2022
Thomas Phifer, Arch fac | Podcast | "DESIGN:ED Podcast: Thomas Phifer on Experience, Form, and Light," ARCHITECTURAL RECORD, March 30, 2022
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Toshiko Mori AR’76 | Featured | "Walton Family Foundation Builds on Design Excellence Program’s Diversity, Breadth," WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE, January 10, 2022 | Publication | “THE WOMEN WHO CHANGED ARCHITECTURE”, by Jan Cigliano Hartman (Editor), Amale Andraos (Introduction), Beverly Willis (Foreword), Princeton Architectural Press, March 2022
Liz Diller AR’79 | Article | "MAXXI Museum Celebrates Female Architects Through "Good News. Women in Architecture" Exhibition," ARCHDAILY, January 14, 2022
Stan Allen AR’81 | Group Exhibition | Edge Effects, Post-Professional M.Arch Thesis Exhibition, April 1–22, 2022, Princeton University School of Architecture, a83 gallery, NYC
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Shigeru Ban AR’84 | Featured |"19 houses designed by outstanding architects you can sleep in," DOMUS, March 30, 2022 | Article | “Architect Shigeru Ban’s designs are giving Ukrainian refugees some much-needed privacy," FAST COMPANY, March 31, 2022
Murray Legge AR’90 | Featured | "Walton Family Foundation Builds on Design Excellence Program’s Diversity, Breadth," WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE, January 10, 2022
Rayyane Tabet AR’08 | Group Exhibition | Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, April 6–September 5, 2022, NYC
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Open Calls & Opportunities |
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NEW
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
DEADLINES APPROACHING
CALL FOR ENTRIES
NYCxDESIGN Awards invites product design entries including but not limited to accessories, architectural products, fabric, furniture, kitchen & bath, lighting and wall coverings from graduate and undergraduate students in an accredited design program in NYC. Deadline: April 7
CALL FOR FELLOWS
The Emerging Architect Fellowship at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, at the University of Toronto, invites applications for a two-year fellowship in areas of architectural research and design. Deadline: April 10
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
CALL FOR REGISTRANTS
International VELUX Award invites students of architecture to explore the role of daylight and sunlight as sources of energy in architecture and inspire new thinking. Deadline: April 15, 2022
CALL FOR ENTRIES
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
The IESNYC Scholarship is open to full-time, graduate degree candidates in architectural lighting who enrolled in an accredited college or university in New York State. Deadline: April 18
CALL FOR ENTRIES
MICROHOME - Small living, huge impact is an ideas competition open to students and professionals that prompts participants to design a new concept of small-scale architecture. Deadline: April 19
CALL FOR ENTRIES
Iceland Volcano Coffee Shop is a project competition that prompts participants to design a coffee shop at the base of an Icelandic volcano. Deadline: April 20
CALL FOR ENTRIES
Caramel Shore Traveller Rooms is a project competition open to all that prompts participants to design eco-friendly cabins in Europe’s greenest country. Deadline: April 20
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
CALL FOR FELLOWS
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
Full Time Architecture Teacher The Dalton Visual Arts Department seeks a dynamic and collaborative teacher (full or part time) beginning in late August 22. Deadline: Rolling
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
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ONGOING
OPEN CALL
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
CALL FOR ENTRIES
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
CALL FOR ENTRIES
Lyceum Fellowship 2022 Competition: UNDERLAND challenges students to create a solution for the Friesenhahn Cave site, an important paleontological site outside of San Antonio and managed by Concordia University in Austin, Texas. Deadline: May 26, 2022
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
MIT Press | Thresholds 51 Journal: Heat is particularly invested in alternative architectural and aesthetic mobilizations of heat — in the contestation of thermal violence, in the activation of ritual, or in the warmth of community, desire, and lust. Deadline: June 1
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
The Cooper Union Grant Program is open to any Cooper Union employee or student and funds projects that enhance Cooper Union students’ learning experiences; our faculty teaching, scholarship, and practice. Deadline: July 1
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
FREE GROCERIES
The College Student Pantry welcomes all college students in need of groceries. Open first and third Wednesdays from 3-5pm. Stop by 602 E 9th St in the East Village (corner of Ave B) for a free bag of groceries. Ongoing: 1st and 3rd Wednesdays at 3PM.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Harvard Design Press seeks book proposals from researchers, practitioners, theorists, historians, and critics, among others. Deadline: Rolling
CALL FOR SUPPORT
Mophradat: Support the Arts in Beirut Prioritizing those already disadvantaged, and those who influence the community around them in a thoughtful manner, Mophradat offers resources to artists, visual thinkers and architects. Deadline: Rolling
CALL FOR ALLIES
CALL FOR STUDENT PROPOSALS
Write for Urban Omnibus! Shaped by a wide range of contributors In an effort to advance the collective work of city making, Urban Omnibus calls for students and professionals to submit article proposals. Deadline: Ongoing
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
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