Island Editions: Cynthia Davidson in Conversation with Elizabeth Diller

In celebration of the Gensler Family AAP NYC Center's relocation to Cornell Tech's Tata Innovation Center on Roosevelt Island, join us on campus for a remarkable series of conversations with some of architecture's leading practitioners, hosted by critic Cynthia Davidson and architect Peter Eisenman (B.Arch. '55).

The Spring 2026 series features Cynthia Davidson in conversation with Elizabeth Diller (February 25), Toshiko Mori (March 9), and AAP Dean Meejin Yoon (B.Arch '95) (April 9).

The Spring talks follow Island Editions' inaugural Fall 2025 events: Peter Eisenman in dialogue with New York–based, Swiss-French architect Bernard Tschumi (October 21), Steven Holl (November 12), and Nader Tehrani (December 2).

The series is free and open to the public. Each guest must be registered in order to access the Gensler Family AAP NYC Center. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
* NOTE: Guests who arrive without advance registration may be asked to wait until registered guests are seated, depending on capacity. Unregistered guets may be admitted but we cannot guarantee seating in the event gallery. We will have an adjacent overflow room.
For updates, please follow us on Eventbrite, LinkedIn, and Instagram: @CornellAAPNYC @CornellAAP

If you would like to be notified when tickets for forthcoming events are released, please fill out this form.

PHOTO CREDITS: Elizabeth Diller profile by Geordie Wood. DS+R High Line Park by Iwan Baan.

Co-Founding Partner,
Professor, Princeton University School of Architecture

Elizabeth Diller is the Co-Founding Partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), a New York-based design studio founded in 1981 whose practice spans architecture, installation art, multi-media performance, and print. With a focus on cultural and civic projects, DS+R’s work addresses the evolving role of institutions and the future of cities. The studio today comprises over 100 staff led by partners Elizabeth Diller, Charles Renfro, and Benjamin Gilmartin. She is a member of the UN Council on Urban Initiatives and a Professor of Architectural Design at Princeton University.

Diller has led many cultural projects that have reshaped New York including The Shed, the expansion of MoMA, the High Line, and the renovation and redesign of Lincoln Center. She also co-created, -directed and -produced The Mile-Long Opera, an immersive choral performance staged on the High Line. Most recently, she completed the Al-Mujadilah Center and Mosque for Women in Doha, the first purpose-built women’s mosque in the Muslim world, and the V&A East Storehouse in London. In Los Angeles, she is currently leading the expansion of The Broad, extending DS+R’s original building to meet the museum’s evolving curatorial, operational, and public needs.

Alongside partner Ricardo Scofidio, Diller’s cross-disciplinary work has earned recognition on TIME’s list of the “100 Most Influential People,” the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship ever awarded in architecture, and the Wolf Prize in Architecture.

Cofounder and Executive Director,

Visiting Lecturer, Gensler Family AAP NYC Center

Cynthia Davidson is cofounder and executive director of the nonprofit Anyone Corporation, an architecture think tank in New York City. She is the editor of the international architecture journal , which she launched in 2003, and previously ANY magazine, an architecture theory tabloid (1993–2000). She is also responsible for more than 40 books in print, including 28 books in the Anyone project’s Writing Architecture series, published with MIT Press. She cocurated The Architectural Imagination, an exhibition of speculative projects for Detroit, which was first shown in the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, and she started the pop-up architecture gallery Anyspace in New York in 2017. Davidson is currently visiting faculty at Princeton University School of Architecture and Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning program in New York City. The American Academy of Arts and Letters recognized her work with its Architecture Award in 2014.

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Host or Publisher Cornell University, Gensler Family AAP NYC Center