This Friday at 6pm is the opening of an exhibition I've been helping with for the past four months. Cooper Union is 150 years old this semester, and to partially celebrate, an show tracing the history of architecture from its birth to present has been created. The show contains, among many things, original drawings of the Foundation Building from almost 150 years ago, sketches of John Hejduk when he redesigned the interior, a catalogue of posters, books, and exhibitions produced from the school, and a digital reconstruction of the Foundation Building, tracing the changes and evolution of the building through animations.

So, if you're in the city, stop by!



The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union presents
the exhibition:
ARCHITECTURE AT COOPER 1859-2009

Opening Reception: Friday, 23 October 6-8 PM

The Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery
The Cooper Union, 7 E. 7th St., 2nd floor, New York, NY 10003

The exhibition will be on view from 23 October through 4 December 2009.
Gallery Hours are Monday-Friday 1-7 PM, Saturday 12-5 PM.

Architecture at Cooper 1859-2009 traces the successive transformations of
Cooper Union’s architecture, beginning with its landmarked, 19th century
brownstone Foundation Building designed by Frederick Petersen --
extensively renovated by Leopold Eidlitz in the 1880s and 90s; transformed
internally in 1975 by John Hejduk; and restored externally in 2002 -- to
its new academic building at 41 Cooper Square designed by Thom Mayne, and
completed in 2009. The exhibition also examines how the education of
architects -- beginning with the first drawing classes of 1860 to the five
year undergraduate professional degree program and post-professional
master’s program -- has been informed and structured within the careful
design and re-design of its buildings.

The exhibition includes recently discovered blueprints of the Foundation
Building from the Eidlitz reconstruction work in the 1880s and design
phase blueprints from the 1975 interior renovation overdrawn with notes
and sketches by John Hejduk; historic artifacts such as an original
drawing fragment of the Foundation Building by Petersen; a digital
reconstruction of the architectural evolution of the Foundation Building;
images of student exhibitions; and publications from 1965 to the present
demonstrating the development of the school’s pedagogy, which has
influenced the study and teaching of architecture worldwide. A
comprehensive timeline from 1859 to the present links the development of
The Cooper Union’s buildings, programs and pedagogy across its rich
150-year history.

http://archweb.cooper.edu/currentevent.html