Island Editions Conversation Series at the Gensler Family AAP NYC Center Fall 2026
Gensler Family AAP NYC Center, New York
Overview Island Editions is an extraordinary conversation series that invites leading architects to offer candid reflections on their work, the evolution of their careers, and the broader professional and cultural landscapes that shape their thought and practice. Launched in Fall 2025 to mark the NYC program’s move to its new permanent home in the Tata Innovation Center (Cornell Tech campus, Roosevelt Island), the series is curated and hosted by faculty members Cynthia Davidson and architect Peter Eisenman (B.Arch. ’55). Previous guests included Bernard Tschumi, Steven Holl, Nader Tehrani, Elizabeth Diller, Toshiko Mori, and J. Meejin Yoon. The series is open to the public. Registration is required. Fall 2026 Preston Scott Cohen + Peter Eisenman Monday, October 26 at 7 p.m. Gensler Family AAP NYC Center Tata Innovation Center, 4th Floor; Cornell Tech Billie Tsien + Cynthia Davidson Wednesday, December 2 at 7 p.m. Gensler Family AAP NYC Center Tata Innovation Center, 4th Floor; Cornell Tech Spring 2027 Speakers TBD View the Fall 2025 conversation series. Cynthia Davidson, Cofounder and Executive Director, Anyone Corporation; Visiting Critic, Cornell AAP 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 Log, 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. The American Academy of Arts and Letters recognized her work with its Architecture Award in 2014. Davidson is a Visiting Critic at the Gensler Family AAP NYC Center (AAP NYC). She also teaches at Princeton University. Peter Eisenman, Founder and Principal, Eisenman Architects; Visiting Critic, Cornell AAP 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 most recent book is Rewriting Alberti (MIT Press, October 2025), with contributions by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mario Carpo, and Daniel Sherer. Eisenman holds a B.Arch. from Cornell University, an 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, as well as an honorary doctorate in architecture from the Università La Sapienza in Rome. October 26: Preston Scott Cohen + Peter Eisenman Please join us on Monday, October 26 at 7 p.m. for a conversation with Preston Scott Cohen, hosted by Peter Eisenman. Anhui Province Science Center (2025). photo / Preston Scott Cohen Preston Scott Cohen, Principal, Preston Scott Cohe