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Master of Architecture II Advanced Design Studio 2016-17 Graduate Thesis Exhibition: A Leap Into the Void

Thu, Sep 14, 6:30pm - Fri, Sep 29, 2017 7pm

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Manhattan Density Diagnostic: 2045 – Jacob Lehman

Manhattan Density Diagnostic: 2045 – Jacob Lehman
Desert Land: Mining Water in the Desert – Michal Rosenfeld

Desert Land: Mining Water in the Desert – Michal Rosenfeld
Remediating the Boundary between the Natural and the Artificial – Hsin Yin Tu

Remediating the Boundary between the Natural and the Artificial – Hsin Yin Tu

The Master of Architecture II Advanced Design Studio is culminating the 2016-2017 academic year with an exhibition of its graduate thesis work.

Thesis positions the architectural studio as a space for the exploration, experimentation and production of new forms of knowledge and design innovation. In a semester-long endeavor of architectural research, students both negotiate and interrogate a vast range of issues with complex and often contradictory impulses, particular to the advancement of disciplinary knowledge.

Inevitably, it is a leap into the void, an exploration of the uncharted territories where architectural research dwells. A leap into the unknown entails an instance of suspension on the rational to embrace the irrational. This temporary suspension of reason is necessary to challenge the grounds of our architectural clichés.

This "leap" has yielded 13 projects across 5 continents, negotiating erotic desires, social struggles, environmental decadences, paranoid secrecies, material instabilities and political folly. The work is deeply personal and provocative, as many students take their theses "home," to research local conditions in familiar sites all over the world, perpetually confronting questions of tradition, difference and architectural particularity with global concerns.

Opening Thursday, September 14 - 6:30-8:30 PM
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 12 - 7 PM 

This exhibition is free and open to the public.

Located in the Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery, 7 East 7th Street, 2nd Floor, between Third and Fourth Avenues

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  • 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.