Written by Janet Parks, retired Curator of Drawings & Archives In August 2024, Avery Classics acquired a third copy of John Wood’s work, The Origin of building. While it is rare for the collection to add copies of books it already holds, this copy was truly exceptional. An inscription facing the book’s title page […]
2025 MA in Art History Presents
From 2017 to 2024, candidates in the MA in Art History program have worked with Art Properties to organize small in-house exhibitions related to the University’s art collection, resulting in both in-person and online presentations showcasing their curatorial research. In 2025, this program, MA in Art History Presents, launched a new initiative that offers candidates an opportunity […]
Columbia GSAPP presents PEOPLE CROSS AGAINST THE LIGHT: Michael Sorkin’s New York
Columbia GSAPP presents PEOPLE CROSS AGAINST THE LIGHT: Michael Sorkin’s New York, on view from February 26 through June 26, 2026 at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery in Buell Hall. The exhibition focuses on eight speculative architectural projects that Michael Sorkin and collaborators designed for New York City between 1987 and 1996—a period during which […]
Drawings & Archives Acquires Oral Memoirs of SOM Partners
Avery Drawings & Archives recently acquired a collection of oral memoirs documenting the reminiscences and reflections of twenty-five Skidmore, Owings & Merrill partners including Gordon Bunshaft and David M. Childs, Srinivasa Iygenar and J. Walter Severinghaus. Founded in 1936, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) is one of the world’s largest and most influential architecture, […]
Fragments: Pieces of our Past
Avery Library partnered with GSAPP’s Historic Preservation program on an exhibition of architectural fragments organized by Richard Pieper, Norman Weiss and Mika Tal. The fragments come from the collection of the Preservation Technology Laboratory and the private collections of the organizers and professionals in the field. The exhibition can be found in the display cases […]
Shelley Hayreh named Curator of Drawings & Archives
We are pleased to announce Shelley Hayreh as the new Curator of Drawings & Archives. Shelley joined the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University in 2010, serving as the Archivist & Collection Manager in the Department of Drawings & Archives. In this role, she was responsible for overseeing the physical and intellectual […]
Wright-ing the Women In: Updating and Linking Archival Data in Avery Library’s Frank Lloyd Wright Collections
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library is continuing to expand the Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) Digital Archive, an online resource launched in August 2024. Approximately 13,500 drawings are now publicly available online, and more will go live in the year ahead as additional material is digitized and processed. It became evident as the project progressed […]
New Archigram facsimile to be published
Staff from Avery Classics have worked closely with Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. (D.A.P.) and Designers & Books as they created a meticulous facsimile of the nine and a half issues of Archigram magazine. Editors used Avery Library’s copies of the magazine (call number AB Ar2179F) to ensure the accuracy of the facsimile, comparing the proofs […]
New life for an old friend: Ming Dynasty sculpture on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Anyone who has visited the Faculty Room in Low Library over many decades may recall seeing a cheerful statue of a child made of gilded bronze. Sometimes a work of art on view in the same location can lead to its eventual “invisibility,” so when an opportunity was offered to showcase this sculpture from Art […]
SITE James Wines: a selection of slides
Avery Library is pleased to announce that we have digitized almost 3,000 slides selected by James Wines from the SITE architectural records and James Wines papers which were donated in 2020. These slides are now available through JSTOR. Wines co-founded S.I.T.E. (Sculpture In The Environment) in 1970 with his colleague Alison Sky. The archival collection […]