What's ahead: Cornell AAP spring 2026 highlights

Across campuses that span Ithaca, New York City, and Rome, the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) opens the Spring 2026 semester with the announcement of special guests, new course and program offerings, and events that will challenge and inspire the college community.

Department of Art

The department is set to present remarkable exhibitions and lectures. The Teiger Mentor in the Arts program continues due to a generous $500,000 gift from Teiger Foundation. This semester, interdisciplinary artist Mary Mattingly, who cares deeply about water and believes in the power of public art, will take up the role, leading a graduate-level class and delivering a lecture about her art on April 9. In addition, Jeffrey Gibson, a multidisciplinary Indigenous American artist (Choctaw/Cherokee) known for blending Native American traditions with pop culture, queer theory, and modernist aesthetics in vibrant sculptures, paintings, and installations, will be the guest speaker for the John A. Cooper Visiting Artist Lecture Series on March 24.

Strauch Early Career Fellow in Art Mark Anthony Brown Jr. will lecture on his practice, which is research-driven and interdisciplinary. He will exhibit his work in the Bibliowicz Family Gallery and give his talk in April.

The exhibition A Book Is a Conversation With a Stranger in the Future, curated by Art Lecturer Carla Liesching, Faye Pamintuan (M.F.A. '26), and Melaina Thompson (B.F.A. '26), will continue the recurring AAP tradition of such exhibitions and explore the idea of books as a conduit for human connection.

Department of Architecture

The architecture department will offer two new option studios that will travel to the Midwest and the West Coast this semester. Kim Yao, principal at New York's Architecture Research Office and a recognized educator, is the Spring 2026 Gensler Visiting Critic and will co-teach Museum of the City: Columbus with Architecture Professor Andrea Simitch. The studio will explore the vernacular cultural landscape of this Indiana city, culminating in a project that both serves the community and reflects its unique architectural heritage.

Also offered is the advanced urban design option studio Reparative Urbanism: Los Angeles River Basin, led by Architecture Professor Milton S. F. Curry. Curry's studio will focus on analysis, research, and speculations on the future of the 51-mile engineered waterway and adjacent lands that cut across multiple municipalities in Los Angeles County and its immediate surroundings.

In addition, the Preston H. Thomas Memorial Lecture Series will feature Marlon Blackwell, Joshua Ramus, and Michael Maltzan, as well as "Building Research," a symposium curated by Assistant Professor David Costanza. Kim Yao will deliver the Gensler Visiting Critic Lecture, and the HAUS student-curated symposium will feature Gökçe Günel as the keynote lecturer.

Department of Architecture

The architecture department will offer two new option studios that will travel to the Midwest and the West Coast this semester. Kim Yao, principal at New York's Architecture Research Office and a recognized educator, is the Spring 2026 Gensler Visiting Critic and will co-teach Museum of the City: Columbus with Architecture Professor Andrea Simitch. The studio will explore the vernacular cultural landscape of this Indiana city, culminating in a project that both serves the community and reflects its unique architectural heritage.

Also offered is the advanced urban design option studio Reparative Urbanism: Los Angeles River Basin, led by Architecture Professor Milton S. F. Curry. Curry's studio will focus on analysis, research, and speculations on the future of the 51-mile engineered waterway and adjacent lands that cut across multiple municipalities in Los Angeles County and its immediate surroundings.

In addition, the Preston H. Thomas Memorial Lecture Series will feature Marlon Blackwell, Joshua Ramus, and Michael Maltzan, as well as "Building Research," a symposium curated by Assistant Professor David Costanza. Kim Yao will deliver the Gensler Visiting Critic Lecture, and the HAUS student-curated symposium will feature Gökçe Günel as the keynote lecturer.

Continue reading on the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning website.