The Earth Architect: Diana Agrest

Interdisciplinarity: Right Here, Right Now is a virtual lecture series hosted by the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Weitzman School of Design throughout the spring semester.

Diana Agrest is an internationally renowned architect, urbanist, theorist, author and film maker, well known for her pioneering and influential approach to architectural and urban discourse in practice and theory. She is the founding partner of Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects in NY. as well as having developed her own individual projects. She has designed and built projects ranging from, master plans, urban design projects, housing complexes, institutional and residential buildings to single family residences and visionary projects in the USA, Europe, South America and Asia, and was the recipient of 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, being the first woman architect to teach there, Columbia and Yale Universities and the Unité Pédagogique 8, Paris, France. She was a Fellow of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City, Both her work and writings are included in numerous books, encyclopedias. and journals national and internationally and she was in the editorial board of Oppositions. Her books include: Architecture of Nature/ Nature of Architecture,2019; 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 the Museum of Modern Art; Schenzen Biennial; Canadian Center for Architecture; 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. and her work is in several collections. 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 was entirely financed by numerous grants and which was premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in NY in 2013 and has since been screened in festivals, museums, architectural institutions and schools of architecture globally. She graduated from the School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires and did post graduate studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études*, VI Section, where she studied with Roland Barthes among others and at Centre de Recherche d' Urbanisme, Paris, France.

*School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

If you require any accessibility accommodation, such as live captioning, audio description, or a sign language interpreter, please email news@design.upenn.edu to let us know what you need. Please note, we require at least 48 hours’ notice. If you register within 48 hours of this event, we won’t be able to secure the appropriate accommodations.