The Berlage

The Making of an Avant-Garde: The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, 1967–1984A documentary written, produced, and directed by Diana Agrest The Making of an Avant-Garde: The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies,1967–1984 presents the creation and existence of the IAUS in the architectural, cultural, and political climate of the time, from the anti-War riots, the Women's Movement to the Paris May 1968 revolution and the crime ridden and the bankrupt New York City of the 70s, through rich and abundant footage portraying the period. The Institute, founded in 1967 with close ties to The Museum of Modern Art, made New York the global center for architectural debate and redefined architectural discourse in the United States. A place of immense energy and effervescence, its founders and participants were young and hardly known at the time but would ultimately become some of the most influential figures in the field shaping architectural practice and theory for decades. The Institute became the most significant and energetic crossroad in the path of rethinking architecture and the city and it's influence is still felt today. This story is told through the director's own archival footage, extensive archival photographic images and twenty-five new interviews with participants as well as the younger generations, telling compelling stories about the place and about their own personal experiences that were never made public before. Agrest's film documents and explores the Institute's fertile beginnings and enduring significance as a locus for the architectural avant-garde. The film features Peter Eisenman (founder and director), Diana Agrest, Kenneth Frampton, Mario Gandelsonas, Emilio Ambasz, Anthony Vidler, Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey, Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, Mark Wigley, Robert Stern, Barbara Jakobson, Deborah Berke, Bernard Tschumi, Joan Ockman, Julia Bloomfield, Peter Wolf, Frederiecke Taylor, Stan Allen, Suzanne Stephens, Paul Lewis, Lucia Allais, among others.

Diana Agrest is a New York-based architect, internationally renowned for her unique and pioneering approach to architecture and urbanism practice and theory. Over the course of her career she has developed an approach to urbanism based in great part on film and film theory, and was a pioneer in bringing this subject to the fore through the publication of essays, lectures, and teaching. She has been the recipient of many awards for her work in the design and building of architecture, urban design projects, and the creation of master plans in the USA, Europe, South America and Asia. She is Professor of Architecture at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union; and has taught at Princeton, Columbia, and Yale Universities. She graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and did postgraduate studies in Paris at the Ecole Pratique des Haites Etudes, VI Section and at the Center for Urban Research, before settling in New York. Shortly after arriving in New York she became a Fellow at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and held a position of full-time faculty at Princeton University School of Architecture, where she was the first woman architect to teach.