Fall 2024 Lectures and Events

Design by A83

 

LECTURES    
Fall 2024 All School Assembly Tuesday, September 3 at 2:00PM in The Great Hall Convocation
Dorte Mandrup: A Dialogue Between Place and Form
Moderated by Mersiha Veledar
Tuesday, September 17 at 6:30PM in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium [Watch here] Visiting Lecture
Charles Waldheim: Agricultural Modernization and Collective Memory — 50 Species-Towns
Moderated by Vasily Chumakov
Thursday, September 19 at 6:30PM in room 315F and Zoom [Watch here] The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series
Alumnus Shigeru Ban Gives the 2024 YC Foundation Lecture
Moderated by Hayley Eber
Friday, September 27 at 6:30PM in the Great Hall and Zoom  YC Foundation Lecture
Ana Miljački and Amanda Reeser: On Collaboration Tuesday, October 1 at 6:30PM in Room 315F [Watch here] Book Talk
Robin Hood Gardens
Moderated by Steven Hillyer
Friday, October 4 at 6:30PM in room 315F Screening
Laura Britton: Timber in Architecture — An Interdisciplinary Approach to Design and Construction
Moderatedy by Hayley Eber
Tuesday, October 8 at 6:30PM in 315F [Watch here] Visiting Lecture
Casey Mack: Who Decides When About What? –Scenarios of "Artificial Land" Housing in Japan
Moderated by Benjamin Aranda
Thursday, October 10 at 6:30PM in 315F [Watch here] Book Talk
Zachary Mollica and Valerie Trouet: Close Readings of Wood and Tree Pieces
Moderated by Benjamin Aranda
Tuesday, October 15 at 6:30PM in the Rose Auditorium [Watch here] Exhibition Lecture
Farshid Moussavi: Architecture and Micropolitics
Moderated by Michael Young
Friday, October 18 at 6:30PM in the Great Hall Ornamental Metal Institute of New York Lecture
Hana Kassem: Resonance — Mind and Matter in Architecture
Moderated by Nora Akawi
Tuesday, October 22 at 6:30PM in 315F [Watch here] Visiting Lecture
Liza Heilmeyer and Stephan Birk: Building the Future — The Untapped Potential of Timber Monday, October 28 at 3:30PM in 215F In-Class Lecture
Sharon Johnston: Art and the City
Moderated by Nader Tehrani
Tuesday, October 29 at 6:30PM in the Rose Auditorium [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] The Eleanore Pettersen Lecture
Homing the Machine in Architecture
Moderated by Zach Cohen and Galo Canizares
Thursday, November 7 at 6:30PM in the Library Atrium [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Book Talk
Billie Tsien and Jennifer Dempsey: Unfinished
Moderated by Diana Agrest
Tuesday, November 12 at 6:30PM in The Great Hall [Register here] and Zoom Current Work
Mohamad Nahleh: Worlding in the Brightness of Imperial Savagery
Moderated by Yudi Luo
Thursday, November 14 at 6:30PM in 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series
Mona Chalabi, Gauri Bahuguna + Martina Duque González in Conversation with Christina L. De Leon: Making Home with Data Tuesday, November 19 at 6:30PM in The Great Hall [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Making Home Lecture Series
Skylar Tibbits: Self-Assembly and Programmable Materials
Moderated by Julian Palacio
Thursday, November 21 at 6:30PM in 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Exhibition Lecture
Pelin Tan 
Moderated by Jayne Miller
Tuesday, December 3 at 6:30PM in 315F and Zoom [Register here] The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series
Questions as Tools in Art, Science and the Humanities Wednesday, December 4 at 6:30PM in the Rose Auditorium [Register here] American Academy in Rome Screening
Brad Samuels Thursday, December 5 at 6:30PM in the Rose Auditorium [Register here] Visiting Lecture
Carrie Mae Weems Saturday, December 7 at 2:00PM in The Great Hall Wendy Evans Joseph on Art and Architecture
EXHIBITIONS  
AA Folios: 1983-1985 Tuesday, September 3 — Tuesday, September 24 in the Third Floor Hallway Gallery. 
Zachary Mollica: Other Wood Pieces Tuesday, October 1 — Monday, October 21 in the Third Floor Hallway Gallery.
Self-Assembly Lab, MIT: Experiments in Programming Matter Friday, November 1 — November 24 in the Third Floor Hallway Gallery.

 

The Eleanore Pettersen Lecture Series

The Eleanore Pettersen Lecture, established through a generous gift to The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, is dedicated to the voices of women in architecture as a lasting tribute to Ms. Pettersen's significant impact in the world of architecture and her love of The Cooper Union. Pettersen, who had worked as an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright and would later design the post-White House home of Richard M. Nixon, was one of the first women to be licensed as an architect in New Jersey, and developed a successful practice there that spanned over fifty years.

Lectures in this series have been given by Toshiko Mori (2005), Phyllis Lambert (2006), Elizabeth Wright Ingraham (2008), Billie Tsien (2009), Francine Houben (2011), Sarah Wigglesworth (2013), and Farshid Moussavi (2014), Mabel Wilson (2020), Lesley Lokko + Sumayya Vally (2021), Samia Henni (2022). 

The Fariba Tehrani Lecture 

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.

The YC Foundation Lecture

The YC Foundation, Inc., New York, makes grants for lectures in Architecture that inspire young architects to leadership through the experiences and stories of the lecturers.

The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series 2024-25

The 2024-25 Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series focuses on storytelling within the practices of art and architecture. Storytelling is a force which is capable of constructing and deconstructing the narratives of our lives, communities, and surroundings. Architecture is not a frozen concept within the space it has engineered, but a transmutable narrative – a story that is embedded within the landscape it occupies, the community it serves, and the Ever-changing reality it reflects. 

Our speakers, a diverse group of sociologists, artists, set designers, urbanists, and architects, will bring a tapestry of perspectives to an atmosphere which questions the role of design in the construction of not only physical spaces, but the cultural, socio-political, and ecological contexts which surround and inhabit them. We will explore the invisible currents that flow through our cities, the contested groups that hold stories of resilience and adaptation, and the intersections where architecture meets art, activism, and performance.

This lecture series will look at how architecture speaks – through its provocation of thought and elicitation of emotion, its ability to cultivate experience, and its manipulation as a force of control or tool of colonial repression. Architecture shapes the way we experience the world, and in one that is marked by uncertainty and the looming threat of global conflict, the spaces and narratives we uphold have never been more critical.

We invite our audience to engage with these transformative ideas, to listen closely to the stories embedded within the spaces around us – and those far from us – and to become active participants in the ongoing dialogue about the future of our built environment. 

The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series is endowed by Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown.

Current Work

Current Work is a lecture series co-sponsored with The Architectural League of New York featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art.

  • 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.