LECTURES     Fall 2026 All School Assembly Tuesday, September 1 at 2:15PM in The Great Hall Convocation Riley Watts Thursday, September 3 at 3:00PM in 315F and Zoom [Register here] In-Class Lecture James Wines, Suzan Wines, and Philip Denny in Conversation Tuesday, September 15 at 6:30PM in 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Exhibition Talk and Discussion Bernard Tschumi: Circular Tuesday, September 22 at 6:30PM in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] YC Foundation Lecture Dan Kershaw: Ephemeral Exhibitions and Impermanent Permanent Museum Design Thursday, September 24 at 6:30PM in Room 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series School of Architecture Dinner + Charrette Thursday, October 1 at 6:30PM in the Third Floor Lobby Community Dinner + Charrette Maintenance Artist— Toby Perl Freilich, Tom Finkelpearl, and Diana Agrest in Conversation Tuesday, October 6 at 6:30PM in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium [Register here]  Screening and Panel Discussion AT-HH, Malin Heyman + James Hamilton: Cutting Together Apart — Approaches to Building Thursday, October 8 at 6:30PM in 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Visiting Lecture Handmade Utopia Irene Cheng, David Jacob Kramer, Michael Schmelling, Alexandra Lange, Christopher Larson Tuesday, October 13 at 6:30PM in 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Exhibition Lecture Noah Garcia: Real State for Architects Tuesday, October 20 at 12:00PM in 314F  CU @ Lunch “Fascism/Anti-Fascism” with Maria Gonzalez Pendas, Sarah Lopez, and Dan Roche Tuesday, October 20 at 6:30PM in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Visiting Lecture and Discussion Christine Chang Thursday, October 29 at 6:30PM in 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series Jaeyoung Byun: Portfolio Building Workshop Tuesday, November 3 at 12:00PM in 314F CU @ Lunch PBS American Masters: Elizabeth Diller — Architect Provocateur Tuesday, November 10 at 6:30PM in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium [Register here]  Screening Mark West: Seeing Things, Paredolia and the Discovery of Form Thursday, November 12 at 6:30PM in Room 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Visiting Lecture Sean Lally: Snags, Glitches, and Unintended Consequences Tuesday, November 17 at 6:30PM in 315F [Register here] and Zoom [Register here] Visiting Lecture / Exhibition Lecture

EXHIBITIONS   What Else Could It Mean? Drawings & Writings by James Wines Thursday, September 3 — Sunday, September 27 in the Third Floor Hallway Gallery. Exhibition Talk and Discussion Tuesday, September 15.  Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California Saturday, October 3 — Friday, October 30 in the Third Floor Hallway Gallery. Exhibition Lecture and Reception Tuesday, October 13.

 

The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture is pleased to announce its Fall 2025 lecture series. The focus this semester is on attending to what is built, what is imagined, and what it means for the world we share. With an emphasis on conversation, we ask: What is our agency as architects and designers? This lecture series is presented in collaboration with The Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series, whose mission this year is to honor the ongoing interest in inviting architects whose work represents alternative practices.  

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 2025-26
Behind every design decision is a framework: a set of values, assumptions, and ideas about how things are or should be. Architecture makes these frameworks material, spatial, and experiential, shaping not only what a space looks like but how it is understood and inhabited. The 2026–2027 Diane Lewis Student Lecture Series asks how design teaches -- through what it makes explicit and what it leaves implicit. How do spaces guide our movement, attention, behavior, and interpretation? How do exhibitions construct narratives through arrangement? How do materials, environments, and forms reveal systems of production and value? By estranging the ordinary and looking closely at decisions we often make without thinking twice, we can uncover the ideas embedded within design and question what our spaces are teaching us.
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.