Following the co-presentation of Diana Agrest’s film The Making of An Avant-Garde at the Hammer Museum on February 19, the MAK Center hosted an intimate discussion on the theoretical concerns of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, and the role of women in its intellectual activities.

About the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies

The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, founded by Peter Eisenman in 1967 with close ties to the Museum of Modern Art, sparked international architectural debate and redefined architectural discourse in the United States. A place of immense energy and effervescence, its founders and participants were young and hardly known at the time but would ultimately exert a profound influence on architectural practice and theory for decades. Participants included Peter Eisenman, Kenneth Frampton, Emilio Ambasz, Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey, Mario Gandelsonas, Diana Agrest, Rem Koolhaas, Rafael Moneo, Anthony Vidler, Frank Gehry, Aldo Rossi, and Philip Johnson. Agrest’s film documents and explores the Institute’s fertile beginnings and enduring significance as a locus for the avant-garde.