Published Pioneers

POSTED ON: November 21, 2011

Molecular Driving Forces: Statistical Thermodynamics in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Nanoscience
2nd Edition
Ken Dill and Sarina Bromberg (A’75)
Garland Science, 2010, 720 pages

This introductory statistical thermodynamics text describes the principles and forces that drive chemical and biological processes. Following her studies in art at The Cooper Union, Bromberg went on to earn a PhD in molecular biophysics from Wesleyan University and completed her postdoctoral training at the University of San Francisco, California. She writes, edits and illustrates scientific textbooks.
 
The How and Why of Jewish Prayer
Israel Rubin (ME’54)
Arba Kanfot Press, 2011, 731 pages

The aim of Rubin’s book is to give the reader a basic familiarity with the synagogue service, as well as the movements and actions associated with Jewish prayer. Yet more than just a primer, the book is both a reference book and a book for reading as it seeks to answer questions about prayer postures, gestures and positions, and much more.
 
 
Masseria: The Italian Farmhouses of Puglia
Text by Diane Lewis (AR’76); Photography by Mark Roskams
Rizzoli, 2011, 240 pages

Lewis’s original essays provide rich context for this chronicle on historic rustic structures on Italy’s southeast coast. Formerly used as farmhouses and travelers’ way stations, these buildings have been renovated into residences with beautiful interiors, providing a striking contrast with brick and stone that dates from the Middle Ages.

 
Landform Building: Architecture’s New Terrain
Stan Allen (AR’81) and Marc McQuade
Schirmer/Mosel, 2011, 416 pages
Allen co-authored and edited this examination of the many manifestations of landscape and ecology in contemporary architectural practice. This includes an exploration of the new techniques, technologies and demand for enhanced environmental performance that have instigated a rethinking of architecture’s relationship to the ground.
 
 
Oculus
Ken Schles (A’82)

Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht, 2011, 96 pages
Schles’ fourth monograph is a photographic book about images, memory and the metaphor of light. The photographer incorporates text with visuals to extend his investigations on the connection between image and memory by exploring the agency and nature of the image itself.

 

Thinking with Type
2nd Edition
Ellen Lupton (A’85)
Princeton Architectural Press, 2010, 224 pages
This “critical guide for designers, writers, editors and students” provides straightforward demonstrations and exercises to show how to be inventive within the systems of typographic form. Lupton’s second edition of the essential design book is expanded
from its 2004 version to include 48 additional pages of content.

 

Amy Cutler: Turtle Fur
Amy Cutler (A’97)

Hatja Cantz, 2011, 160 pages
In her second monograph, Cutler’s unsettling, whimsical imagery is vivid in depictions of such scenes as women literally mending tigers or chopping pies with axes in front of a roller coaster in the woods. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at SITE Santa Fe, Turtle Fur provides a survey of Cutler’s gouaches and drawings from the late 1990s to the present.
 

 


 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.