This event will be conducted through Zoom. Please register in advance here. Zoom account registration is required.

The subject of the body has deep roots in Western Architecture from the texts of the renaissance reading of Vitruvius we can fast forward to the culture of disembodiment brought about as a result of cybernetics, information, mediatization, virtual reality and in the long stretch in between all forms of architectural constructions of the body.

But, what body is the body in question?

(Excerpt from Diana Agrest’s Advanced Research Studio, MS Architecture Spring 2017 and 2018) 

Diana Agrest is an internationally renowned architect well known for her unique and pioneering approach to architectural and urban design practice and theory. She is a founding partner of Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects. Her designed and built projects globally ranging from urban projects, housing complexes and master plans to single family residences and interiors that have received numerous awards.

Agrest is a Full time Professor at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. She has taught at Princeton University and Columbia and Yale Universities. She was a Fellow of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City from 1972 to 1984.

Both her theoretical writings and her work have been widely published.

Her books include: Architecture of Nature/ Nature of Architecture; The Sex of Architecture, (edit. Agrest, Conway, Weismann); Agrest & Gandelsonas: Works; Architecture from Without: Theoretical Framings for a Critical Practice; A Romance with the City.

Her work has been exhibited in museums, galleries and universities globally including:  MoMA; Schenzen Biennial; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Walker Art Center; The Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art; Center Pompidou; Milano Triennale; The German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt, etc.

She has written, produced and directed the feature documentary film "The Making of an Avant-Garde: The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies 1967-1984 " for which she was entirely financed by numerous grants and which was premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in NY in 2013. 

Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer and scholar. She holds a Diploma in Architecture and Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), a SMArchS in design and building technology from M.I.T, as well as a Master of Arts and a PhD from Princeton University.  Prior to Cooper Union, Kallipoliti was an Assistant Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where she directed the MSArch Program, an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University and an Assistant Professor Adjunct at Columbia University [GSAPP] and at the Cooper Union, where she served as a Senior Associate at the Institute for Sustainable Design, and as the Feltman Chair in Lighting.  Her research focuses on the intersections of architecture, technology and environmental politics and more particularly on recycling material experiments, theories of waste and reuse, as well as closed and self-reliant systems and urban environments. 

The In Conversation Lecture Series is predicated on the need for discourse that involves faculty, students, and the greater community, alike. Short presentations will be given by the invited faculty in response to the lecture topic, and will be followed by a student-moderated Q&A period. 

There is a time and place for the expert monologue. This lecture is not it. 

This event is free and accessible to the public. 

View the full Fall 2020 Lectures and Events List.