Nader Tehrani, professor at and former dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, was invited this year by the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. to present a new endowed lecture named after the late Cooper Union alumnus and renowned architect of government buildings Ed Feiner. Tehrani’s talk, “The Diminishing Public,” was delivered on September 16, 2025, as the inaugural Edward A. Feiner Lecture for Public Architecture, part of the museum’s Spotlight on Design series with additional support from the Edward A. Feiner Fund for Public Architecture and the American Institute of Architects.

Feiner, who graduated from The Cooper Union in 1969, rose to prominence as the first chief architect of the General Services Administration, which manages all federal buildings and real estate. He was described by Esquire as “the most powerful architect in America,” overseeing designs for more than 140 government buildings and leading one of the most extensive federal programs for architecture since the New Deal era. Feiner, who served as an Alumni Trustee of The Cooper Union, passed away in 2022.

Professor Tehrani is the founding principal of NADAAA, an award-winning interdisciplinary practice with work that spans infrastructure, urbanism, architecture, and installations—operating at scales from city planning to fabrication. His firm is currently leading a major renovation of the galleries of Art of Ancient West Asia and the Art of Ancient Cyprus at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.