Island EDitions: Peter Eisenman + Bernard Tschumi

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 architect Peter Eisenman (B.Arch. '55) and critic Cynthia Davidson.

The Fall 2025 series kicks off with Eisenman in dialogue with New York–based, Swiss-French architect Bernard Tschumi (October 21, 7 pm).
The series continues with Steven Holl (November 12) and Nader Tehrani (December 2), hosted by Eisenman. The Spring 2026 series features Davidson in conversation with AAP Dean Meejin Yoon (B.Arch '95), Elizabeth Diller, and Toshiko Mori (dates TBD).

For updates, please follow on Instagram @CornellAAP @CornellAAPNYC. Follow us on Evenbrite to be notified when tickets for future events are released.

The series is free and open to the public. Registration required.

Bernard Tschumi

Bernard Tschumi is widely recognized as one of today's foremost architects. First known as a theorist, he drew attention to his innovative architectural practice in 1983 when he won the prestigious competition for the Parc de la Villette, a 125-acre cultural park based on activities as much as nature. The intertwining concepts of "event" and "movement" in architecture are supported by Tschumi's belief that architecture is the most important innovation of our time. Tschumi often references other disciplines in his work, such as literature and film, proving that architecture must participate in culture's polemics and question its foundations.

Since then, he has made a reputation for groundbreaking designs that include the new Acropolis Museum, Le Fresnoy National Studio for the Contemporary Arts, the Vacheron-Constantin Headquarters, the Richard E. Lindner Athletics Center at the University of Cincinnati, two concert halls in Rouen and Limoges, and architecture schools in Marne-la-Vallée, France and Miami, Florida, as well as the Alésia Archaeological Center and Museum, among other projects. The office's versatility extends to infrastructure projects and master plans. Major urban design projects under Tschumi's leadership include master plans in Beijing, Shenzhen, New York, Montreal, Chartres, Lausanne, and Santo Domingo. Recently completed are the Hague Passage and Hotel in the Netherlands, a Philharmonic Hall for Institut Le Rosey, an expansion of the headquarters for Vacheron Constantin, a renovation and redesign of the Paris Zoo, and the Binhai Science Museum in Tianjin, China. The 800,000-square-foot Biology-Ph*rm*cy-Chemistry Center for the University of Paris-Saclay opened in 2022, while a Center for Sciences and Entrepreneurship is currently under construction near Geneva, to open in 2025.

Tschumi was awarded France's Grand Prix National d'Architecture in 1996 as well as numerous awards from the American Institute of Architects and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and an international fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in England. He has also been the recipient of distinguished honors from the Collège International de Philosophie and the Académie d'Architecture in France that include the rank of Officer in both the Légion d'Honneur and the Order des Arts et des Lettres. In 2024, the Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded Tschumi the Grand Prix d'Architecture (Charles Abella Prize).

The many books devoted to Tschumi's writings and architectural practice include the five-part Event-Cities series (MIT Press, 1994, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2024); The Manhattan Transcripts (Academy Editions and St. Martin's Press, 1981 and 1994); Architecture and Disjunction (MIT Press, 1994); and the monograph Tschumi (Universe/Thames and Hudson, English version, and Skira, Italian version, 2003). The Monacelli Press has published a series of conversations with the architect under the title Tschumi on Architecture (2006). Other recent publications include the bilingual French/English and Chinese/English catalogues documenting Tschumi's retrospective exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (Centre Pompidou Press, 2014) and Power Station of Art in Shanghai (China Academy of Art Press, 2016); Tschumi Parc de la Villette (Artifice, 2014); Notations (Artifice, 2014), as well as Architecture Zoo (Somogy Editions, 2014). The most important and comprehensive documentation on Bernard Tschumi's oeuvre is Architecture Concepts: Red is Not a Color (Rizzoli 2012), a 776-page volume of texts and images that narrates his career since the 1970s.

A graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Tschumi has taught architecture at a range of institutions, including the Architectural Association in London, Princeton University, and the Cooper Union in New York. He is a Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, where he was Dean from 1988 to 2003. Tschumi is a permanent resident of the United States and has French and Swiss citizenship.

Tschumi's work has been widely exhibited, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Venice Biennale, the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, the Pompidou Center in Paris, as well as art galleries in the United States and Europe. A major retrospective exhibition of Tschumi's work, first exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, has traveled internationally to the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel and to the Power Station of Art in Shanghai.

(Photo / Chris Wiley)

Peter Eisenman (B.Arch. '55), an internationally recognized architect and educator, is founder and design principal of Eisenman Architects, an architecture and design office in New York City. He is also a Visiting Critic at Cornell University's Gensler Family AAP NYC Center (AAP NYC).

Award-winning projects by Eisenman Architects include the Wexner Center for the Arts and Fine Arts Library at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio; the Koizumi Sangyo Corporation headquarters building in Tokyo; and in Berlin, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and IBA Housing at Checkpoint Charlie, each of which received a National Honor Award for Design from the American Institute of Architects.

Eisenman is also a distinguished author and teacher. Among his many books are Written Into the Void: Selected Writings, 1990–2004 (Yale University Press, 2007) and Ten Canonical Buildings, 1950–2000 (Rizzoli, 2008), which examines the work of ten architects since 1950. His new book, (MIT Press, October 2025), with contributions by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mario Carpo, and Daniel Sherer, will be presented at AAP NYC on Thursday, November 6.

Eisenman holds a B.Arch. from Cornell University, a M.S. in architecture from Columbia University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Cambridge University. He holds an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Pratt Institute, Syracuse University, and the Brera Academy of Art in Milan; and an honorary doctorate in architecture from the Università La Sapienza in Rome.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Cornell University, Gensler Family AAP NYC Center