This exhibition features formative works by architects who are among the most celebrated figures today—including John Hejduk, first Dean of the School of Architecture, Cooper Union professor Michael Webb, Cooper alumni Daniel Libeskind, as well as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi. Highlights range from Eduardo Paolozzi’s appropriations of pop culture to the technological utopianism of Archigram’s David Greene and Webb to the gestural mark-making of Libeskind and Peter Wilson.

Drawing Ambience highlights the collection of drawings assembled by the late Alvin Boyarsky during his pivotal tenure as chairman of the Architectural Association (AA) in London. Boyarsky argued that architecture was not only a profession but also an artistic venture—a practice that comprises drawing and publication as much as it engages design and construction. During his time leading the school, he orchestrated an ambitious exhibition and publication program, a sister to the exhibition and publication program simultaneously being developed at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture by late Dean John Hejduk, that situated drawing as not only a representational tool, but as a form of architecture in its own right. Drawing Ambience explores Boyarsky’s role as a collector of drawings and also, metaphorically speaking, of the ideas and people that have come to define a key moment in architectural history.