One of the first things you see when you enter The Cooper Union is a model of the Foundation Building, dating from 2014, the first year in the school’s then-155-year history that students were charged tuition at the formerly merit-based, free institution. The model was built by the first-year architecture studio to be wheeled around New York and placed in front of various landmarks (the Flatiron Building, the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Union Square), in what the students called a “social poetic act of architecture…making visible the long, deep bonds between the institution and the city.” The model currently sits in the lobby of the Foundation Building as part of the exhibition "Model Behavior," as a kind of silent reminder of Cooper’s fractured relationship with the city, and the turmoil that erupted after the imposition of fees in a place that was a symbol of freedom and experimentation for art and design students across socio-economic divides.
Exterior of the Foundation Building. Photo by Olympia Shannon
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