BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.3.1//EN TZID:America/New_York X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/New_York BEGIN:VEVENT UID:762@ssa.ccny.cuny.edu DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260416T173000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260416T190000 DTSTAMP:20260126T233204Z URL:https://ssa.ccny.cuny.edu/events/spring-2026-sciame-lecture-series-mar tin-cobas/ SUMMARY:Spring 2026 Sciame Lecture Series: Martín Cobas DESCRIPTION:Please RSVP\nThis in-person lecture is part of the Spring 2026 Sciame Lecture Series\, "The Elephant in the Room: Locating Animal Lives i n Buildings\, Cities\, and Landscapes."\n\nMartín Cobas is Professor of A rchitectural History and Design and Co-director of the Ph.D. Program in Ar chitecture at the School of Architecture\, Design\, and Urbanism (FADU) of the Universidad de la República (Montevideo)\, where he previously serve d as Chair of the Department of Architectural History and as Associate Dea n of Graduate Studies. He has practiced with Fábrica de Paisaje (co-found ed in 2007)\, lectured internationally\, and had his scholarship published in specialized journals and edited volumes. Cobas is a founding editor of Vitruvia and is currently working on two book manuscripts. He holds a pro fessional degree in Architecture from FADU-Udelar\, a Master's in Design S tudies (with Distinction) from Harvard GSD\, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture from Princeton University. He was the F all 2025 Robertson Visiting Professor at the UVA School of Architecture.\n \n"A Stone Fallen From the Moon … or Elsewhere": The rarefied mineral co nstitution of a meteorite — yet also epiphytic life\, or a life-threaten ing “epidemic” unfolding in the arrière-pays. This talk examines the entangled lives (and afterlifes) of certain object-subjects in late ninete enth- and early twentieth-century Brazil\, tracing their institutional tra jectories and the ways in which they mediated between wondrous exoticism a nd emergent “global” scientific regimes. The remarkable story of the B endegó Meteorite serves as the protagonist in a broader narrative of mode rnization\, scientific systematization\, material geopolitics\, asymmetric cosmogonies\, and the emergence of new interspecies ecologies. Rather tha n a passive specimen— condemned to a foreign “deep time” and an extr a-telluric provenance — the meteorite\, I argue\, becomes a micro-ontolo gical diplomat. What would it mean to locate the modern in the “outside ” of modernity — in the Amazônia\, the Pantanal\, or the Sertão? Wha t forms of agency do nonhuman entities exert in shaping our existential do mains? How do they mediate a world of ontological unease? At the center of this exploration is the concept of the creaturely. Creaturing\, then\, be comes a method to reveal and theorize hitherto unexplored alter-ecologies\ , while foreshadowing lessons we might draw from the “other” in imagin ing (and designing) worlds of beyond-the-human camaraderie. Not quite a cr eature\, the meteorite nonetheless opens a space of radical alterity from which to explore its vital intimations.\n\nSuggested Readings: Cobas\, Mar tín. “Pig\,” in The Architect and the Animal\, edited by Kostas Tsiam baos (Cambridge: The MIT Press\, 2025): 70-75 and Cobas\, Martín. “(Ant i)venom Ecologies: Three or More Issues Concerning the Serpent\, edited by Santiago del Hierro\, Johanna Just\, and Ciro Miguel\, gta papers\, Amaz ônía (2025): 67-83.\n\n"The Elephant in the Room: Locating Animal Lives in Buildings\, Cities\, and Landscapes" takes its title from the expressio n “the elephant in the room\,” which originates in the Russian author Ivan Krylov’s 1814 fable “The Inquisitive Man.” In the story\, a vis itor to a natural history museum becomes so enthralled with countless “b irds and beasts” that he overlooks the largest of them all: a colossal e lephant. As the expression gained currency\, any reference to real animals gave way to metaphorical ones. The spring 2026 Sciame lecture series take s the idiom literally by addressing the common failure to notice all anima ls in the built environment. In the lecture series\, scholars\, designers\ , thinkers\, and activists cast light on imagining\, designing\, and shari ng buildings\, cities\, and landscapes with other species.\n\nMaking space for animals in the built environment often requires diverting attention a way from our human perspective and desires\, thus troubling our own anthro pocentrism and claims about human exceptionalism. More often than not\, th e built environment creates antagonistic\, if not deadly\, conditions for animals. Ballooning construction campaigns\, invasive resource extraction for building materials\, and hermetically sealed structures have all decim ated animal habitats and killed countless animals. Given the planetary thr eats of diminishing biodiversity\, the climate crisis\, and health emergen cies\, recentering animal lives and human-animal relationships in the buil t environment is critical to the survival of all animal life.\n\nAll lectu res are free\, open to the public\, and held in the Bernard and Anne Spitz er School of Architecture Sciame Auditorium. For live captioning\, ASL int erpretation\, or access requests\, please contact ssadean@ccny.cuny.edu.\n \nThis lecture series is made possible by the Spitzer Architecture Fund an d the generous support of Frank Sciame ’74\, CEO of Sciame Construction. CATEGORIES:Events,Lectures,Sciame Lectures LOCATION:Sciame Auditorium (Room 107)\, 141 Convent Avenue\, New York\, NY\ , 10031\, United States GEO:40.8177595;-73.95047339999996 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=141 Convent Avenue\, New Yo rk\, NY\, 10031\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Sciame Auditori um (Room 107):geo:40.8177595,-73.95047339999996 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York X-LIC-LOCATION:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260308T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR