by Center for Architecture
On October 22, the Center for Architecture will be hosting Common Bond: The Center for Architecture Gala. This event, formerly known as the Heritage Ball, serves as our single largest funding source, allowing the organization to fulfill its mission to educate the public about the value of architecture and design. Besides offering a unique opportunity for professional networking, the event provides critical funding for the exhibitions, programs, scholarships and activities of the Center for Architecture, including our in-demand K-12 education programs.
The Center for Architecture needs your support now more than ever. At the outset of the pandemic, we committed to continue to provide our varied audiences with the full range of our programming, transitioning everything to online formats. Helping us now will provide us the resources to continue to serve our community throughout the pandemic while allowing us to prepare for our eventual reopening. Since closing our doors mid-March, we have continued to serve our public through:
Public Programs: Continuing to collaborate with AIA New York to offer a range of weekly online lectures, panels, and workshops. This summer, we launched the Presidential Lecture Series, hosted by Center for Architecture President Barry Bergdoll, to engage internationally renowned speakers in discussions around the creation of inclusive spaces
Scholarships: The Center for Architecture and AIA New York have committed to fully distributing scholarships available through invested and endowed funds, with a focus on reaching a more diverse range of applicants than ever before.
K-12 Education: Center for Architecture educators successfully adapted our K-12 educational programs to online formats, from our mostly-sold-out summer camps to our Learning by Design sessions for school classes and after-school programs. Our team also launched Architecture at Home, a series of free, downloadable activities for families to explore architecture and design from the comfort of their home.
Exhibitions: After the Center for Architecture closed its galleries at the start of the pandemic, we quickly transitioned our major fall 2020 exhibition, Visualize NYC 2021, to an online research project. Set to launch in November 2020, the project, a collaboration with MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab, explores pivotal design, infrastructure, and policy issues in NYC’s 2021 Municipal Elections. The Center for Architecture has also launched a new virtual exhibitions portal, which allows visitors to explore popular past exhibitions and new content remotely.
Archtober: Despite the pandemic, the Center for Architecture is celebrating 10 years of Archtober, New York City’s s annual festival of architecture and design. Archtober will be mostly online and has expanded to focus beyond NYC, engaging new partners further afield.
News + Social Media: At a time when we are dependent, more than ever, on our devices to get our news, our communications team has been keeping our subscribers informed and engaged with important design news and announcements.