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 […]
Category: Drawings & Archives
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Avery Library launches Frank Lloyd Wright Digital Archive
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library is pleased to announce the launch of a new online resource, the Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) Digital Archive. This resource is the product of an ongoing, three-year initiative at Columbia University Libraries to digitize and make available more than 15,000 residential drawings from the Frank Lloyd Wright archival collections. […]
Avery Library Announces Major Gift of the Michael Sorkin Collection: Internationally Renowned Architecture Critic, Designer, Urbanist, & Professor Devoted to Social Justice
Avery Library is pleased to announce the major gift of Michael Sorkin’s papers, architectural records, and drawings to the Drawings & Archives department. This significant collection comprises approximately 40 linear feet of records related to Sorkin’s architectural projects, articles, films, exhibitions, and other works, over 2,000 drawings (primarily conceptual sketches and site plans), as […]
Avery Library Celebrates the Opening of Frank Lloyd Wright and the World: The Imperial Hotel at 100
Avery Library’s Drawings & Archives department is pleased to participate in a landmark touring exhibition about the international influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright and the World: The Imperial Hotel at 100. Opening to the public on October 21, 2023 at Japan’s Toyota Municipal Art Museum, the exhibition is organized by the […]
Avery welcomes Michelle Jackson-Beckett
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Michelle Jackson-Beckett as Curator of Avery Drawings & Archives. Michelle received her Ph.D. from the Bard Graduate Center in May of 2022. Her dissertation entitled “Vienna’s Other Modernism: Design and Dwelling 1918-1938” examines critical challenges to western European paradigms of modern architecture and interiors, focusing especially on […]