This program is offered as part of the Center for Architecture exhibition Humanist modernity: Maciej and Stanisława Nowicki, on view October 1, 2026—March 27, 2027.
Modern architecture gradually separated buildings from their climatic and social contexts. The consequences of this shift can be seen around the world today in architecture that depends on energy-intensive mechanical systems rather than engaging productively with climate through passive design strategies. Maciej Nowicki's plan for Chandigarh, developed with Albert Mayer and left unbuilt after his death in 1950, treated shade, orientation and planting as the framework for daily life rather than as technical corrections to it. Read alongside Stanisława and Maciej Nowicki's wider body of work, it describes a modernism in which the response to climate and the response to community are the same design decision.
The panel discussion will surround Nowicki’s Chandigarh, with Evangelos Kotsioris presenting his research on Aditya Prakash's "Linear City," an alternative vision developed for Chandigarh between 1975–87. Catherine Seavitt will speak about her work on Burle Marx “Depositions” and his environmental advocacy through landscape design for Brasilia, a parallel modernist capital city. Beyond these historical examples, the panel will address the current moment in architecture and the environmental questions, including the undertones that are being taught, discussed, and implemented through the three different institutions and contexts represented by the panelists (NIAiU, MoMA/Ambasz Institute, UPenn Landscape Department). The panelists will explore their respective historical precedents and the ways in which environmental thinking is shaping architectural education and practice today.
Speakers:
Karolina Częczek, Principal, Only If; Critic, Yale School of Architecture
Kacper Kępiński, Deputy Director, National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning (NIAiU) in Warsaw
Evangelos Kotsioris, Director, Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment
Catherine Seavitt, FASLA, FAIA, Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, Stuart Weitzman School of Design
Center for Architecture
