Join us for an Art Department Lecture on Creating Place through Public Art. Nina Cooke John is our guest speaker.

Nina is the founding principal of Studio Cooke John Architecture and Design, a multidisciplinary design studio that values placemaking as a way to transform relationships between people and the built environment, exploring the continuum between art and architecture. Recent public projects include Shadow of a Face, the new Harriet Tubman Monument in Newark, NJ unveiled in March 2023, and Two Boxes of Oranges and Admonia Jackson in Alexandria, VA. The studio was awarded a 2021 AIA Merit Award for the public art installation, Point of Action, commissioned for the Flatiron Public Plazas in 2020. Nina was named a 2022 United States Artists Fellow. Her work has also been featured in Architectural Record, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Dwell, NBC’s Open House, and PBS NewsHour Weekend, among other publications and news outlets. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, she earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University and a Masters in Architecture from Columbia University, where she now teaches.