The Conflict Between Nature and Architecture: an Interview with Diana Agrest

2019-09-06T10:50:00-04:00

How should an architect situate their work against the natural environment? This has been a central question posed to those in the profession since its principles were first established in Vitruvius’ Ten Books of Architecture; The question has gained a unique urgency in the 21st century. Diana Agrest, a highly influential theorist and long-time professor at The Cooper Union school of architecture, is the latest to challenge common attitudes towards the built and natural environments by considering their interchangeability.

Agrest’s newest book, Architecture of Nature/Nature of Architecture, collects the student work of Agrest’s eponymous studio at The Cooper Union over the last eight years. Asked to represent geologic forces with the same attention to detail and use of tools they had otherwise ascribed to architecture, Agrest’s students have expanded the limits of architectural representation by including scales of time and space too vast to be comprehended in human lifetimes. I in...

The Proust Questionnaire: Diana Agrest

2017-09-28T09:29:00-04:00

Diana Agrest is a practicing architect, urban designer, and theorist known for her unique and pioneering approach. She has been teaching since 1972—at Cooper Union, where she currently is, since 1977—and has been profiled as one of 50 Great Teachers by NPR.

Read her answers to our Proust Questionnaire below to find out her favorite architect, both living and dead, her favorite type of project, her greatest indulgence and more!

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The Conflict Between Nature and Architecture: an Interview with Diana Agrest

The Proust Questionnaire: Diana Agrest