On May 12th Cooper Union alumni in Berlin gathered in front of the Kreuzberg Tower, designed by John Hejduk to show solidarity with Free Cooper Union. This action is in correlation with a student occupation of 50+ students who have currently been occupying the president of Cooper Union, Jamshed Bharuch’s office, since May 8th. The recent string of protests, and petition of no confidence in the president, is in reaction to Cooper’s Board of Trustees decision to charge tuition for the first time in the historically free school, and a variety of other community grievances with the administration and Board of Trustees. 

The Kreuzberg Tower was part of the Inernational BauAfstellung Program in 1987, and is one of John Hejduk’s very few built works. The founder and first Dean of Cooper’s Architecture school, John Hejduk viewed the Cooper Union as a spiritual space, “A place that believes one of society's prime social responsibilities is towards learning and education in the deepest sense.”

Berlin Alumni in Solidarity: Mia Goyette (Art '11), Matthew Lutz-Kinoy (Art '07), Max Pitegoff (Art '11), Calla Henkel (Art '11), Britta Thie (Art Exchange '10), Megan Francis Sullivan (Art '98),  Ken Okiishi (Art '01), Nick Mauss (Art '03), Doug Boatwright (Art '04), Tore Wallert (Art Exchange '10), Clemens Jahn, Julia Zange, Dan Keller

http://cusos.org/55-hours/