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Exhibition Event — Lebbeus Woods: Zagreb Free Zone Revisited

POSTED ON: April 9, 2021

On April 13, at 12 pm EDT (6 pm CET) the Oris House of Architecture will broadcast an online opening event for its current exhibition Lebbeus Woods: Zagreb Free Zone Revisited. This exhibition recreates Zagreb Free Zone—a show originally held at the Zagreb Museum of Arts and Crafts (MUO) in 1991 by former School of Architecture faculty member Lebbeus Woods (1940 – 2012).

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 Zagreb Free Zone, 1991

Woods taught at The Cooper Union for 25 years, and his commitment to educating architects is extensively documented in the School of Architecture’s Student Work Collection database. The School is also working closely with the Estate of Lebbeus Woods to finalize a donation of his pedagogical records to the Architecture Archive. These records, which document his design studios and seminars at The Cooper Union, will be available for educational and research use. 



Lebbeus Woods: Zagreb Free Zone Revisited presents the same set of large prints shown 30 years ago at MUO. As a companion to the exhibition, an extensive monograph traces Woods’ subsequent work on the project, including original drawings, notebooks, models, and documents related to the planned construction of a Freespace structure in Zagreb.

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    Zagreb Free Zone, 1991

Event participants are Joseph Becker and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); Maristella Casciato (The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles); Steven Holl (Steven Holl Architects, New York); Peter Noever (Noever Design, Vienna); Leo Modrčin, Lovorka Prpić and Fedja Vukić (Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb); Andrija Rusan (Oris House of Architecture); Sven Sorić (graphic designer, Zagreb), and Aleksandra Wagner (Executor of the Estate of Lebbeus Woods).



The exhibition is co-organized by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Architecture, Oris House of Architecture, and the Estate of Lebbeus Woods, New York, with the Zagreb Museum of Arts and Crafts as the exhibition partner. The project also received support from the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia. 



The exhibition’s catalogue Lebbeus Woods: Zagreb Free Zone Revisited—edited by Leo Modrčin, Lovorka Prpić, and Aleksandra Wagner—can be purchased through the Oris House of Architecture. 

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Zagreb Free Zone, 1991

The exhibition is on view through April 24, 2021 at the Oris House of Architecture (Kralja Držislava 3) in Zagreb, Croatia. 



Inset drawings by Lebbeus Woods, © Estate of Lebbeus Woods.

  • 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.