The Cooper Union Signage by Abbott Miller
November 21, 2009 | Levent OZLER
This fall the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art opened its new academic building on its Cooper Square campus in New York's East Village.
Designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis, the building has quickly become one of the city's new landmarks.
Abbott Miller has designed a unique program of signage and environmental graphics for the building that is fully integrated with the building's dynamic architecture.
Miller is a Cooper alumnus-this year he received the school's prestigious Augustus Saint-Gaudens Award-and he knew the campus well.
The new academic building, located at 41 Cooper Square, sits directly across Third Avenue from the Cooper Union's original 1859 building, called the Foundation building.
Like Mayne's architectural design, Miller's graphics for the new building establish a dialogue with the older structure.
For the signage typography Miller chose the font Foundry Gridnik, which resembles the lettering on the façade of the Foundation building.
The original signage has a strong, angular look that suggests art, architecture and engineering.
Gridnik also has a tough and futuristic character that makes it especially sympathetic to the forms and materials of the new building.
more: pentagram.com/en/new/2009/11/new-work-the-cooper-u (140)
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