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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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COOPER FACULTY PRESENTS
Lydia Kallipoliti
Thursday, April 28
Zoom | 6:30 PM
On campus and around the world, The Cooper Union’s accomplished faculty are engaged in critical research, advancing knowledge, exploring complex issues, and solving global problems. Most critically, their teaching provides opportunities for a brighter future for the next generation, as they share their passion for scholarship, commitment to rigor, and desire to change the world with our students. At a time when the disciplines of The Cooper Union are so critical to rejuvenating our cities and our people, their voices are more important than ever.
Lydia Kallipoliti, Assistant Professor in the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, will present a lecture titled Low Bubble Problems; An archeology of Infection of Environmental Control. This talk will examine pandemic space as both a scientific and ontological project and explore architectures of containment to find new ways to fathom legacies of interiorization, climatic control, the idealization of comfort, biocontrol and the fear of infection.
This event is free and open to the public through Zoom. Registration is required. Please register in advance here.
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VISITING LECTURE
Shigeru Ban Architects: Sustainability + Design
Thursday, April 28
315F and Zoom | 6:30 PM
A presentation on Shigeru Ban Architects’ approach to sustainability and design with a detailed exploration of several notable projects.
The lecture will be followed by a discussion moderated by Samuel Anderson.
Dean Maltz is Managing Partner of Shigeru Ban Architects. Maltz began working with Shigeru Ban Architects in 1999 and is responsible for all SBA projects in North and South America. Notable projects include the AIA National Honor Award-winning Aspen Art Museum (2014), Metal Shutter House (2011), and the Nomadic Museum (2005). Maltz is currently overseeing the design of a 420-acre bourbon distillery park for Kentucky Owl in Bardstown, Kentucky, as well as the construction of the Terrace House condominium in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Upon completion, Terrace House will be one of the tallest hybrid mass timber towers in the world. Recently, Maltz has completed a luxury condominium, the Cast Iron House in New York, NY, published in September, 2021 issue of Architectural Record.
Dean Maltz is a licensed architect in New York and five other states and provinces in the United States and Canada. Maltz is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Architecture (Bachelor of Architecture, 1984) and Harvard Graduate School of Design (Master of Architecture, 1986). He has taught at numerous institutions, including Columbia University, Washington University, and Cornell University.
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, you may register 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.
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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EXHIBITION
Conceiving the Plan: Nuance and Intimacy in the Construction of Civic Space
On View April 7 through April 29
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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CURRENT WORK
DnA_Design and Architecture
Tuesday, May 31
Zoom | 7:00 PM
DnA_Design and Architecture is an interdisciplinary practice founded in Beijing, China, in 2004. Its founding principal, Xu Tiantian, practices what she calls “architectural acupuncture”: a subtle, localized approach to the revitalization of rural China’s built environment. In collaboration with village communities and provincial governments, DnA has built over 20 public structures in China’s mountainous Songyang County and other rural regions. Using natural materials and local craft, its work celebrates each site’s cultural heritage while opening new social and economic futures in the places where it works.
Recent projects include:
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Hakka Indenture Museum, a village museum that incorporates the site’s original irrigation pattern into its design;
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Huiming Tea Space, a workshop that showcases the local tea production process and functions as a sundial for the Chinese zodiac;
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Jinyun Quarries, an ongoing transformation of nine abandoned quarries into public spaces for social and cultural activities.
Xu Tiantian received a master’s degree in urban design from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a baccalaureate in architecture from Tsinghua University in Beijing. She has received numerous awards, including The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, the Design Vanguard Award, two WA China Architecture Awards, and The Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture. In 2020, she was appointed an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Xu’s work is included in the current MoMA exhibition, Reuse, Renew, Recycle: Current Architecture from China.
The lecture will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with Calvin Tsao. A founding principal of Tsao & McKown, Tsao serves on the boards of the American Academy in Rome and The Architectural League of New York.
The event is co-sponsored by The Architectural League of New York.
This event is free and open to the public through Zoom. Registration is required. 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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Nader Tehrani, Arch dean/fac | Featured | "Lyrical Urbanism: an exhibition dedicated to the Taipei Music Center Opening April 6 at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture in New York," March 25, 2022, THE PLAN magazine
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Anna Bokov, Arch fac | Lecture | "First Post-Modern: 'Elements of Spatial Composition' and Soviet Architecture in the 1930s," gta invites/ETH Zurich, April 13, 2022, zoom
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RUR Architecture (Jesse Reiser AR’81, Nanako Umemoto AR’83) | Article | "Lyrical Urbanism: an exhibition dedicated to the Taipei Music Center Opening April 6 at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture in New York," March 25, 2022, THE PLAN magazine
Laurie Hawkinson AR’83 | Exhibition | To Be Rather than to Seem, North Carolina Museum of Art, April 2–July 17, 2022, Raleigh, NC
Shigeru Ban AR’84 | Article | "Shigeru Ban’s shelters accomodate Ukrainian refugees," DOMUS, April 9, 2022
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Anik Pearson AR’95 | Featured | "2 Nevertheless, They Persisted," ARCHITECTURE NEW YORK STATE, March 2022
Anthony Titus AR’98 | Speaker | “Chromatic Undercurrents,” J. Irwin Miller Symposium: Object Lessons, Yale School of Architecture, New Haven, CT, April 9
Angelique Pierre AR’10 | Featured | "2 Nevertheless, They Persisted," ARCHITECTURE NEW YORK STATE, March 2022
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Open Calls & Opportunities |
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DEADLINES APPROACHING
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
CALL FOR APPLICANTS
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
ONGOING
OPEN CALL
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
CALL FOR ENTRIES
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
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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 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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