Avery Library Events
UPCOMING EVENTS
As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic there will be no onsite events at Avery for the 2020-2021 academic year.
Past Events
Deluxe Edition, Tinfoil-bound
Lecture: Lucy Mulroney, Associate Director for Collections, Research, and Education
Beinecke Library, Yale University
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
6 - 8:30pm
Butler Library, Room 523
535 W. 114 St., New York, NY 10027
Through documents in Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library and interviews with Warhol’s collaborators, Art historian Lucy Mulroney sheds new light on the iconic twentieth-century artist’s lifelong interest in publishing.
This lecture is part of the Book History Colloquium series, and is presented by Columbia's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library and Avery Library.
Image credit: Sir William Beechey & Studio, Portrait of George III, King of Great Britain, early 19th century, oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 24 5/8 in. (90 x 62.5 cm), Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Gift of Mrs. Mary Hill Hill (C00.771).
EVENING AT AVERY: BRITISH PORTRAITURE
(private event)
Thursday, April 4, 2019
6-8:30 pm
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library
Wallach Study Center for Art & Architecture
Avery is hosting a special evening event in conjunction with the current exhibition Hoppner, Beechey, Fisher, Lavery: Researching Columbia’s Portraits, now on view in Avery Library until May 10, 2019.
Speakers:
Roberto C. Ferrari, Ph.D (Curator of Art Properties, Avery Library, Columbia University)
Meredith Gamer, Ph.D (Assistant Professor, Dept of Art History & Archeology, Columbia University)
Mateusz Mayer (Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Art History & Archeology, Columbia University)
An Evening with Avery: Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Kurt Forster & Barry Bergdoll in Conversation
Followed by reception and book signing
December 6, 2018
6-8 pm
Stronach Center
8th Floor Schermerhorn Hall
Please join us for a very special Evening with Avery celebrating our recent acquisition of Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Werke der hoheren Baukunst. Professors Kurt Forster (Professor Emeritus, Yale School of Architecture) and Barry Bergdoll (Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History, Columbia University) will discuss this incomparable portfolio of Schinkel’s work and Forster’s recently published Schinkel: A Meander Through His Life and Work (Birkhauser, 2018).
Model Projections
Gallery talk by Jennifer Gray and reception
November 29, 2018
6-8 pm
Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Buell Hall
Sponsors:
Avery Library, Department of Drawings & Archives
Avery Friends
Digital Serlio Symposium
October 19-20, 2018
Locations: Avery Library, Fayerweather 200S
Co-organizers:
Francesco Benelli
Carole Ann Fabian
Sponsors:
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library
Avery Friends
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation
Sidney J. Weinberg, Jr. Foundation
Looking East: James Justinian Morier & Nineteenth Century Persia
Exhibit opening
September 25, 2018
5 - 7 pm
Wallach Study Center for Art and Architecture
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library
Sponsors:
Avery Library, Art Properties
Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Art in Life: Engravings by Robert Nanteuil (c. 1623-1678) from the Frederick Paul Keppel Collection
Lecture by Frédérique Baumgartner
April 25, 2018
6:30-8:00 pm
Avery Library Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Center for the Study of Art and Architecture
Sponsored by Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and Avery Friends
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Columbia Early Modern Architecture Workshop
Friday March 23, 2018
The lectures in 612 Schermerhorn Hall are open to the public. The number of participants in the afternoon workshop at Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library is restricted. For this reason, we kindly ask you to confirm your attendance for one or both of the sessions. Please email <ColumbiaEarlyModArchWorkshop@gmail.com> by March 20th. If you have any questions, please email Eleonora Pistis.
Lectures (612 Schermerhorn Hall, open to the public)
10:00 Piranesi on-site, off-site: 297 new drawings at Karlsruhe and some more
Christoph Frank
Weinberg Fellow in Architectural History and Preservation, The Italian Academy, Columbia University and Istituto di Storia e teoria dell'arte e dell'architettura, Accademia di architettura, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano/Mendrisio
10:45 From Figure to Press
Heather Minor
Professor of Seventeenth- & Eighteenth-Century Art, Department of Art, Art History & Design, and Director of the Rome Global Gateway Program, University of Notre Dame
11:30 Piranesi's Bookplates
Carolyn Yerkes
Assistant Professor of History of Architecture, Department of Archaeology, Princeton University
12:15 Piranesi's Pantheon
John Pinto
Howard Crosby Butler Memorial Professor of Art and Archaeology Emeritus, Department of Archaeology, Princeton University
Workshop (Avery Seminar Room, Mirian & Ira D. Wallach Center for the Study of Art and Architecture [*registration is required*])
2-3:30pm Workshop with Christoph Frank: The State of the Art of Piranesi Studies: Outlook and Perspectives
Moderated by Eleonora Pistis
Assistant Professor Art History & Archeology Department, Columbia University
Professor Frank’s contribution will be dedicated to the recent identification of two albums from the estate of the German neoclassical architect Friedrich Weinbrenner which contain some 297 drawings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi and members of his workshop and which are undergoing an extensive inter-institutional investigation. This new evidence allows us for the first time to evaluate Piranesi's workshop practice in some detail as well as the very concrete dissemination of his ornamental language throughout Europe.
Christoph Frank is one of the three main applicants of a related research project funded by the German Research Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation which is under way. He specializes in eighteenth-century European art and architecture and is currently Weinberg Fellow in Architectural History and Preservation at The Italian Academy of Columbia University.
All the participants will be encouraged to contribute to the discussion.
We thank all the speakers, the Department of Art History and Archeology at Columbia, the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia, and the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library for making possible this event, which is aimed to foster discussion on architectural history among friends, colleagues and PhD students in New York.
Living in America: Frank Lloyd Wright, Harlem and Modern Housing
Keynote: September 28, 7:00-8:30 pm
Lecture by Dianne Harris, University of Utah
"Where was Jim Crow Living in Wright's America"
Museum of Modern Art, Titus 2 Auditorium
Symposium: September 29, 10 am - 5:30 pm
Lenfest Center for the Arts, 615 W. 129 St., New York, NY 10027
Frank Lloyd Wright. Lenkurt Electric Company, perspective. 1955 (detail)
The Bay Area Evidence: Wright's San Francisco Projects and Clients
The Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer Lecture
Talk by Paul V. Turner, Wattis Professor of Art, Emeritus, Stanford University
June 15th, 2017
6:30 pm
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Extending over nearly sixty years, Frank Lloyd Wright’s San Francisco Bay Area works are distinctive for their diversity and the unprecedented creativity of many of them. They demonstrate, perhaps more than his buildings in any other comparable location, the amazing variety and innovation of his creations, and the fertility of his imagination. Paul V. Turner (Wattis Professor of Art, Emeritus, Stanford University) draws on his extensive research in the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives at Avery Library, not only to examine Wright’s Bay Area projects, but also to uncover a richly nuanced and personal portrait of Wright and his public persona amidst his circle of San Francisco clients and associates.
This event is cosponsored by Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, The Museum of Modern Art Department of Architecture and Design, and the Omomuki Foundation.
Location:
Celeste Bartos Theater
The Museum of Modern Art
The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
4 West 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
Norman Jaffe. Site plan, Sam's Creek. Bridgehampton, NY. 1972 (detail)
Pencil, Pen, Print: images of architecture at Avery
A display of selected works and reception in honor of Janet Parks, Curator of Avery Drawings & Archives on the occasion of her retirement.
Friday May 12th, 2017
Display & Reception: 6:00-9:00 pm
Remarks: 7:30pm
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library
Columbia University
"Reconstruction of the intersection of the Via Appia and Via Ardentina" from Le antichità romane, opera del cavaliere Giambatista Piranesi, architetto veneziano, divisa in quattro tomi, vol. 2 Roma, , 1784.
Piranesi and Architectural Magnificenza
Lecture by John Pinto, Howard Crosby Butler Memorial Professor of Art and Archaeology Emeritus at Princeton University
March 29th, 2017
6:30-9:00 pm
Classics Reading Room, Avery Library
Piranesi famously remarked, “speaking ruins have filled my spirit with images,” leading his posthumous biographer, Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi, to characterize him as the “Rembrandt of ruins.” Indeed, the alchemy of Piranesi’s etching needle gave voice to mute stones, with the result that the ruins took on a new role in the form of speaking architecture. Among the many challenges he faced was the need to convey the spatial complexity and imposing grandeur of the ruins within the restricted format of two dimensional plates. Many of his prints go beyond the mere documentation of fragmentary architecture to present sophisticated analysis and polemic in visual terms. Join us to view select materials from Avery Library’ world-class collection of Piranesi prints and to examine the strategies employed by Piranesi to express what he termed the “magnificenza” of Roman architecture.
Image: Harrison & Abramovitz, architects. H. Blake-Smith, artist. Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, New York,: View of lobby and cafe, 1961
An Evening at Avery Library
in celebration of our 125th anniversary year
Friday May 13, 2016
Curators: Janet Parks, Teresa Harris, Roberto Ferrari, Chris Sala
Display: 4:00 - 8:30 pm
Reception: 5:30 - 8:30 pm
Remarks: 6:30 pm
Coloring Books & Jigsaw Puzzles
May 3-11, 2016
All Day
Stressed? The Libraries are here to help! Join us for any or all of our stress-relief activities. No RSVP required.
Preservation Master Plan for Taliesin West
Monday, November 16, 2015 at 6:30 pm
Lecture:
Preservation Master Plan for Taliesin West
Talk by T. Gunny Harboe, FAIA (Harboe Architects)
The Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer Lecture
Co-sponsored by Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and The Museum of Modern Art
Location: MoMA, The Celeste Bartos Theater
4 West 54th St., New York, NY 10019
For more information contact: Avery-Friends@libraries.cul.columbia.edu
Celebrating Avery's 125th Anniversary: highlights from the permanent collections
November 2, 2015 3:00 - 9:00 pm
Curators: Carole Ann Fabian, Janet Parks, Teresa Harris, Roberto Ferrari
Exhibit & reception: Avery Library reading rooms
Archiving Practice
Sponsored by Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (GSAPP)
April 17, 2015 noon - 2:00 pm
Ware Lounge, Avery Hall
Digital design raises many questions for the archive. How can designers best preserve a record of their iterative work, and how should archivists acquire and shape legacies of contemporary practice? Some firms archive in ad hoc or idiosyncratic fashions, while others forge relationships with institutional partners. This conversation led by GSAPP and the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library brings these questions and strategies to the fore. It is grounded in work by the Society of American Archivists, Yale University Library, and the firm MOS to explore ways to institute archival standards and practices into office culture today.
Speakers:
Carole Ann Fabian, Director, Avery Library
Suzanne Noruschat, Architecture Records Archivist, Yale University Libraries
Aliza Leventhal, Corporate Librarian and Archivist, Sasaki Architects
Hilary Sample, Architect & Associate Professor (GSAPP)
David Benjamin, Principal The Living and Assistant Professor (GSAPP)
OBJECT-CENTERED LEARNING:
Experiencing the Authentic in a Digital Age
Symposium sponsored by Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University Libraries
February 17, 2015 9:00 am - 12:30 pm
Butler Library, Room 523
Columbia University
535 W. 114th St., New York, NY
An engaging discussion of how close interactions with art works and cultural artifacts enhance classroom teaching across the disciplines, where digital presentation is often the norm. If you are in town for College Art Association’s annual conference in New York City, be sure to stay a few days longer and attend this free symposium, open to the public at Columbia University.
Speakers include:
Deborah Cullen, Director and Chief Curator
Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University
The Object in the Gallery: Teachable Moments in and along the Way
Roberto C. Ferrari, Curator of Art Properties
Avery Library, Columbia University
Buddhas, Bronzes, Ceramics, and a Cradleboard: Columbia’s Art Collections in the Classroom
Senta German, Andrew M. Mellon Foundation Teaching Curator
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford
Teaching and Learning at the First University Museum: The University Engagement Programme of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford
Michele D. Marincola, Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of Conservation
Institute of Fine Arts Conservation Center, New York University
Partnering with Conservators for Object-Based Study and Learning
Avinoam Shalem, Riggio Professor of the History of the Arts of Islam
Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
What Do Objects Want?
Celebrating the Arthur Rothstein Photograph Collection at Avery
October 28, 2014 6:30-8:00 pm
Speaker: Noam Elcott
Exhibition & Lecture with reception following
Avery Library Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Center for the Study of Art and Architecture
Sponsored by Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and Avery Friends
Columbia Libraries press release
Rothstein Collection Finding aid
Sylvan Cemetery: Architecture, Art & Landscape at Woodlawn
October 25, 2014 1:00-6:00 pm
Speakers: Susan Olsen, Charles D. Warren, Andrew Dolkart, Alice Frelinghuysen, Janet Parks
Symposium with reception following
Schermerhorn Hall & Wallach Art Gallery
Sponsored by:
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, The Woodlawn Conservancy, and the Wallach Art Gallery
Exhibition website
Symposium Program
Piranesi Day 2014
October 2, 2014
Avery's annual exhibition of prints, drawings, and books by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) was held this year on Thursday, October 2, from 4:00pm-5:30pm. It combined favorites like the rare first and second states of the Carceri series with a selection of highlights of his most important publications. Held in the Wallach Seminar Room, this event was organized to coincide with GSAPP professor Mary McLeod's survey on the History of Architecture.
ICAM 17: International Confederation of Architecture Museums Conference
Sept. 21-28, 2014
Sponsored by: Canadian Centre for Architecture, The Museum of Modern Art, and Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library
Architecture & Diplomacy
September 9, 2014
6:00-8:00 pm
Program details
Keynote speakers: Jane Loeffler, Architectural historian, author of "The Architecture of Diplomacy"
Jean-Louis Cohen. Professor of History of Architecture, New York University
Panel moderator: Victoria Phillips, Lecturer in History, Columbia University
Panelists:
Amale Andraos, Dean, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
Kadambari Baxi, Professor of Professional Practice in Architecture, Barnard College
Casey Jones, Deputy Director, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations
Craig Konyk, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
Jorge Otero-Pailos, Associate Professor of Historic Preservation, Columbia University
Symposium with reception following
East Gallery, Buell Hall
Co-Sponsored by:
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University and the Blinken European Institute
Sylvan Cemetery: Architecture, Art & Landscape at Woodlawn
September 5, 2014
6:30-8:00 pm
Exhibition opening reception
Wallach Art Gallery and The Stronach Center
Schermerhorn Hall , 8th floor
Sponsored by: The Woodlawn Conservancy and The Wallach Art Gallery
Display of Recent Acquisitions 2014
May 19, 2014 3:00-8:00 PM
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library
Sponsored by Avery Friends & the Friends of the Columbia University Libraries
Image Credit: François Lecoy. Méthode simple et facile pour lever les plans, suivie d’un traité dunivellement et d’un abrégé des règles du lavis … (Paris: Duponcet, 1805).
Frank Lloyd Wright and The New Deal
May 9, 2014 6:00PM
Bartos Theater, The Museum of Modern Art
Co-sponsored with Columbia University's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture
Speaker: Professor Ira Katznelson
Image Credit: Frederick C. Robie residence, 1909. Courtesy of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
Image credit: Jonathan Alger
Guastavino's Palaces for the People: from archive to exhibition
April 11, 2014 Noon-2:00 PM
Butler Library, rm. 523
The speakers discussed the history of the Guastavino archive, from its last-minute discovery and rescue by Columbia University professor George R. Collins to the creation and design of the exhibition, Palaces for the People.
John Ochsendorf, MIT
The Guastavino Company and the exhibition, Palaces for the People
Janet Parks, Avery Library, Columbia University
The Guastavino Archive: from acquisition to exhibition
Chysanthe Broikos, National Building Museum
Nature of Architectural Exhibitions
Daniel Fouad, C&G Design
Designing for architectural exhibition
15 MINUTES
Andy Warhol’s Photographic Legacy
Friday, April 4, 2014, 4:30 pm – 8 pm
One-Day Exhibition of Works from Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, and Public Program Sponsored by the School of the Arts, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, and the Department of Art History & Archaeology, in conjunction with The Brant Foundation Art Study Center
Art Properties page on exhibition
Image credit: Roberto Ferrari
Practice post-50: Edgar Tafel in New York
Co-presented by AIA-NY at Edgar A. Tafel Hall
January 23, 2014 6:00 PM
Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place
Selections: Avery Special Collections
October 30, 2013
Avery welcomed members of the Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation to a display of Selections: Avery Special Collections.
The October 30th evening exhibit and reception showcased highlights from Avery Classics (rare books) and Avery Drawings & Archives. The program included remarks by Carole Ann Fabian (Director) and Curators Carolyn Yerkes and Janet Parks.
"Frank Lloyd Wright and His Taliesin Letters"
October 8, 2013
Avery Library hosted a lecture by Anthony Alofsin, Roland Roessner Centennial Professor in Architecture, Professor of Art and Art History, The University of Texas at Austin.
Piranesi Day 2013
September 26, 2013
Avery's annual exhibition of prints, drawings, and books by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) was held this year on Thursday, September 26, from 4:00pm-5:30pm. It combined favorites like the rare first and second states of the Carceri series with a selection of highlights on this year's special theme: infrastructure. Held in the Wallach Seminar Room and in the Drawings and Archives reading room, this event was organized to coincide with GSAPP professor Mary McLeod's survey on the History of Architecture.
Avery Library New Acquisitions Event 2013
May 20, 2013
Avery Library hosted our annual Recent Acquisitions event. Featured were a selection of works by Frank Lloyd Wright, Hugh Ferriss, John Russell Pope and others.
Sponsored by Avery Friends & the Friends of the Columbia University Libraries.
Celebrate: Avery Hall at 100 !!!
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Columbia University
November 10, 2012
November 10, 2012 marked the first day of Avery Hall’s second century. Designed by the legendary architecture firm McKim, Mead, and White, Avery Hall is home to the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and the renowned Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library. Together, the School and the Library support a culture of innovation and discovery of the ever dynamic fields of architectural practice and research. GSAPP and Avery Library hosted a symposium, exhibition and celebratory reception to honor Avery Hall’s storied history with remarks by faculty, scholars and staff who’ve participated in the life of the building throughout its hundred-year history.
Piranesi Day 2012
September 27, 2012
Avery Classics hosted its annual Piranesi Day event, a one-day exhibition that celebrates Avery's spectacular collection of works by the architect-etcher Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778). Held in conjunction with GSAPP professor Mary McLeod's History of Architecture lecture course, Piranesi Day is an opportunity to share highlights from this collection with students, faculty, and staff.
This year's display, which was exhibited in the Wallach Seminar Room and in the Drawings and Archives reading room, included first- and second-state examples from the Carceri series of etchings, presentation drawings of Piranesi's project for San Giovanni in Laterano, the monumental prints of the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, and many bound volumes of prints, among other highlights.
Avery Library New Acquisitions Event 2012
May 14, 2012
This one-night only exhibit featured a selection of highlights acquired this year in each of Avery’s collections: Avery Classics (rare books), Drawings & Archives, Art Properties, and Avery’s research collections in art and architecture.
Felix Candela Symposium
February 11, 2012
In conjunction with the exhibition Felix Candela, the Wallach Art Gallery and the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library present a symposium on his life and work.
Avery Library New Acquisitions Event 2011
May 16, 2011
Amidst treasures from across Avery’s collections, selections from Avery Classics included items from the Herbert Mitchell bequest, early to mid-20th century works on city planning and the modern housing movement in Europe and Latin America, contemporary artist books on architectural subjects, and an extraordinary display of Japanese architecture and design from the interwar period.
