Diana Agrest / 50 projects

Diana Agrest, FAIA, is an internationally renowned architect well known for her unique and pioneering approach to architecture and urbanism developed both in practice and theory. She is a founding principal of Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects in New York City. She has been involved in the design and building of architecture, urban design projects, and master plans in the USA, Europe, South America, and Asia, and has 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, Columbia University and Yale. She was a fellow of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City from 1972 to 1984.

Agrest has been a pioneer in critically articulating film and the city. She created and directed the program “Framing the City: Film, Video, Urban Architecture,” at The Whitney Museum of American Art in 1993, where she developed a new pedagogical approach. She wrote, produced, and directed the documentary film "The Making of an Avant-Garde: The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies 1967-1984" which premiered at MoMA in 2013.

She has worked on the subject of Nature in practice, theory, and education since 1989, bringing a new approach to the subject in her studios "Architecture of Nature/Nature of Architecture" since 2008.

As part of the series "50 Great Teachers," the April 21, 2015 broadcast on "All Things Considered" focused on Professor Agrest's sometimes surprising methods for approaching the study of architecture. Listen to the full story here.

She has published:

Architecture of Nature/Nature of Architecture, 2019, ad+d and The Cooper Union.

The Sex of Architecture, eds. Diana Agrest, Patricia Conway and Leslie Kanes Weisman, Harry N Abrams, New York, 1996. Agrest and Gandelsonas: Works, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1995.

Architecture from Without: Theoretical Framings for a Critical Practice, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1991.

Places and Memories: Photographs by Roberto Schezen, ed. by Diana Agrest, Rizzoli 1987.

A Romance with the City: Irwin S. Chanin, editor, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, 1982.

Her work and writings have been included in numerous books, encyclopedias, guides, journals and newspapers nationally and internationally.

Her work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and universities in the US, Europe, Asia and South America, including: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Shenzhen Biennial, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; PS1, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art; The Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA; Leo Castelli, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Milano Triennale; Frankfurt Architecture Museum; Yale University Gallery, New Haven; Princeton University, etc.

Diana Agrest received her Diploma Architect from the University of Buenos Aires School of Architecture and Urbanism in 1967, and did Post Graduate Studies from 1967-1969 at the Centre de Recherche d'Urbanisme and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, VI Section, in Paris, France.