WORKS: fall 2026 public program

What if what we need was already here? Parts of the yet-to-come are already being tested, bodied, inhabited. This year, Columbia GSAPP, a School that has taken seriously its commitment to critically anticipate the future since 1881, turns to the WORKS that are already changing what our fields do. Works that refuse the separation of thinking from acting, affirming the futurities worth pushing for. 

The year long program WORKS convenes the leading actors involved in projects selected through conversations across the School's faculty and student body. The complex trajectories of DS+R’s, Field Operations’ and Piet Oudolf’s High Line; Wang Shu/Lu Wenyu’s Ningbo Museum, Lacaton & Vassal’s and Frédéric Drouot’s Plus/Tour Bois-le-Prêtre; Forensic Architecture; Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu/AgwA’s CHAPEX; and the BPP’s Community Survival Program, among others, will be examined by GSAPP’s students and faculty, through dedicated summary sessions. 

GSAPP shares New York’s great advantage: concentration and density. The School exploits it, bringing to Avery Hall an unapologetical density of people who have changed the terms of their respective fields, including Liu Jiakun, Hito Steyrl, Barbara Kruger, Liz Diller, James Corner, Leopold Banchini, Laurie Hawkinson, Wang Shu, Lu Wenyu, Ziad Jamaleddine, Emanuel Admassu, Olalekan Jeyifous, Thomas Keenan, Mark Wasiuta, Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat, Jack Halberstam, and Sumayya Vally, among many others.

John Foerster ‘64 Fund Lecture
September 14, 6:30pm
Liu Jiakun
Introduction: Dean Andrés Jaque / Responses: Jing Liu (GSAPP, SO–IL), Bart-Jan Polman (GSAPP)

Inside Outside: Working Collaborations in Public
September 24, 6:30pm
Laurie Hawkinson (GSAPP, SMHA) with Jonathan R. Cole (Columbia), Catherine Ingraham (Pratt), Barbara Kruger, Reinhold Martin (GSAPP), Guy Nordenson (Princeton), and Kate Orff (GSAPP, SCAPE)

The Library is Open 30: After Concrete
September 25, 1pm
Lucia Allais (GSAPP), Forrest Meggers (Princeton), Michael Faciejew (Dalhousie), and Dan Steingart (Columbia)

Fitch Colloquium
Preserving Independence: Architecture and Heritage in Western Africa
Curated by MS in Historic Preservation
October 2, 1:30pm
Jeanne Autran-Edorh and Fabiola Büchele (Studio NEiDA), Stephen Battle (WMF), Rachel Engmann (CAHP), Prita Meier (NYU), Ishanlosen Odiaua (WHIPIC), Ikem Okoye (UDEL), Francis Sossah, Martino Stierli (MoMA), and Ola Uduku (University of Liverpool) / Responses: Lucia Allais (GSAPP), Mabel Wilson (GSAPP/AAADS) / Moderation: Jorge Otero-Pailos (GSAPP), Erica Avrami (GSAPP)
Co-Organized with MoMA

Detlef Mertins Lecture
October 5, 6:30pm
Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat (TAU Lab of Spaces-in-Transition)
Introduction: Ateya Khorakiwala (GSAPP) / Response: Ralph Ghoche (Barnard) 

Anarchitecture After Everything
October 7, 6:30pm
Jack Halberstam, in conversation with Claire Bishop (CUNY), Julia Q. Bryan-Wilson (Columbia), Mabel Wilson (GSAPP/AAADS), and Sarah Haley (ISSG)

The Library is Open 31: Dear Mazie, Sanctuary, Speculation, and Sky
October 9, 1pm
Amber Esseiva (ICA VCU)

WORKS 1: The High Line
October 12, 6:30pm
Liz Diller (DS+R, Princeton), James Corner (Field Operations), and others

At the Edge of Where God Built: Language, Concepts, Islamic Architecture
October 16, 2pm
Ziad Jamaleddine (GSAPP, L.E.FT) with Waleed Arafa (DAA) Nebahat Avcıoğlu (Hunter College), Iheb Guermazi (USC), Nasser Rabbat (MIT), Kishwar Rizvi (Yale), Avinoam Shalem (Columbia), and Sumayya Vally (GSAPP, counter-space)

The Status of the Document
October 19, 12pm
Mark Wasiuta (GSAPP), Thomas Keenan (Bard), and Hito Steyerl

WORKS 2: The Ningbo Museum
October 19
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu (Amateur Architecture Studio)

Architecture and the Right to Heal
October 19, 6pm
Esra Akcan (Cornell)
Response: Laura Kurgan (GSAPP)
Co-sponsored by the Department of Germanic Languages 

Buell Abundance Talks: "The Alibi of Capital”
October 22, 12pm
Timothy Mitchell
Response: Zeynep Çelik Alexander

Open House Lecture
October 26, 6:30pm
Emanuel Admassu (GSAPP, AD–WO) and Olalekan Jeyifous
In conversation with Dean Andrés Jaque

The Library is Open 32: Shelter Cookbook
Leopold Banchini (GSAPP, Leopold Banchini Architects)
October 27, 1pm

Celebrating 10 Years of e-flux Architecture
November 4, 6:30pm
Nick Axel and Nikolaus Hirsch (e-flux); Jean Im, Dean Andrés Jaque, and Bart-Jan Polman (GSAPP); with: Lucia Allais, Emanuel Admassu, Erin Besler, Peggy Deamer, Keller Easterling, David Gissen, Catherine Griffiths, Brooke Holmes, Nahyun Hwang, Lydia Kallipoliti, Laura Kurgan, Mae-Ling Lokko, Iván López Munuera, Reinhold Martin, David Moon, Amelyn Ng, Jorge Otero Pailos, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Enrique Ramírez, Hilary Sample, Felicity Scott, Meredith TenHoor, Julia Van Den Hout, Mark Wigley, Mabel Wilson, and others.

Buell Encounters Series: “Environmental Machines”
November 5, 12pm
John López and John Davis
Response: Frederik Braüner  

The Library is Open 33: Material Variance
November 6, 1pm
Lola Ben-Alon (GSAPP)
Introduction: Isabelle Kirkham-Lewitt (CBAC) and Joanna Joseph (CBAC) / Responses: Felecia Davis (Penn State), Mae-Ling Lokko (Yale), Jorge Otero-Pailos (GSAPP), Jonsara Ruth (Parsons)

Buell Encounters Series: "the Arab Component in Ibero-American Architecture”
November 11, 12pm
Fernando Nespral 
Response: Ziad Jamaleddine (GSAPP, L.E.FT)

Constructing (Unorthodox) Practice
November 13, 9:30am
Dominique Petit-Frère (Limbo Accra), Juliana Ayako & Caruls Zebulun (Ayako), Ardy Hartono Kurniaway (Dua), Alkistis Thomidou & Berta Gutierrez (forty five degrees), Gigi Shukakidze (Wunderwerk), Miles Gertler & Igor Bragado (Common Accounts), Andre Bonnice & Anna Jankovic (Simulaa), Mahsa Malek & Alex Yueyan Li (11x17), Dechophon Rattanasatchatham, Pongsatorn Swadchatchwan, & Rungroj Tansukanun (Yangnar), Nguyễn Hà (ARB), Laurens Bekemans (BC), Sébastien Martinez Barat, Benjamin Lafore, Florian Jomain (MBL)
Curated by Juan Herreros (GSAPP, estudio Herreros)
Moderated by: Lydia Kallipoliti (GSAPP, ANAcycle), Mireia Luzárraga (GSAPP, TAKK), Marc Tsurumaki (GSAPP, LTL), Lola Ben Alon (GSAPP)

The Library is Open 34: Max Bond
November 19, 12:30pm
Brian Goldstein (Swarthmore College)
Responses: Shelley Hayreh (Avery), Shawn Rickenbacker (CUNY) 

Terence Riley Curator’s Summit
Friday, December 4, 2pm
Curated by Bart-Jan Polman (GSAPP)
Noura Al-Sayeh Holtrop (BACA), Giovanna Borasi (CCA), Dahyoung Chung (CAC), Brendan Cormier (V&A), Omar Degan (Pan African Biennale), Fredi Fischli & Niels Olsen (ETH), Gabriela de Matos (Sao Paulo Biennal), Michelle Fisher (Cooper Hewitt), Beatrice Galilee (TWA), Carlos Minguez (ArkDes), Vyjijanthi Rao (Sjarjah Triennial), Raymund Ryan (Carnegie), Martino Stierli (MoMA), Irene Sunwoo (ARTIC), Tau Tavengwa (Sjarjah TriennIal), Abraham Thomas (MET), Gong Yan (PSA), Guillerme Wisnik, and others          

GSAPP’s Program is curated by Bart-Jan Polman and Dean Andrés Jaque, with GSAPP faculty and students.

Please visit GSAPP's events calendar for more information. All events will be livestreamed on GSAPP's YouTube unless otherwise noted.