In the Archive: Maristella Casciato – 4 June 2025 @ 18.30

Wednesday 4 June 2025
18.30 – 20.00
Doors open at 18.15
8 Smart’s Place, London, WC2B 5LW

Join us for the first ‘In the Archive’ evening at Drawing Matter with Maristella Casciato, Senior Curator and Head of Architecture Special Collections at the Getty Research Institute.

Since the beginning of April, Maristella has been our Visiting Scholar (our very first in London!). During her time with us she has made new discoveries and started many stimulating conversations.

Among other things, she has closely studied Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh Punjab Grille Capitol album, translated a selection of Gio Ponti’s illustrated letters, contextualised our Paul Revere Williams drawings in light of her work on a large upcoming retrospective, and told us stories about moving Frank Gehry models across the world.

We look forward to giving everyone a taste of this excitement before she leaves us.

This event has now sold out. You can join the waitlist here.

Le Corbusier, Grille CIAM D’Urbanisme, 7e Congrès, CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), France, 1948. Print, 309 × 240 mm. DMC 1441.2.
Le Corbusier, Grille CIAM D’Urbanisme, 7e Congrès, CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), France, 1948. Print, 309 × 240 mm. 1441.2.
Paul R. Williams, Proposed development of sky rights over Union Station, Union Station, Los Angeles, c.1965. Ink and gouache on illustration board, 475 × 788 mm. DMC 3209.
Le Corbusier, Chandigarh: presentation book for the plan of the city, Chandigarh, India, 1952. Print, 210 × 320 mm. DMC 1491.
Giò Ponti, Letter to Daria Guarnati, c.1953. Pen and ink, 280 × 220 mm. DMC 2018.22.

Maristella Casciato (architect, architectural historian, and educator) is senior curator, head of architectural collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles since 2016. During her tenure she has been responsible for major acquisitions such as Frank Gehry Papers, 1954–1988; the Papers of Paul R. Williams, Brenda Levin, and the archives of the LA Conservancy. She has co-curated exhibitions at the GRI, including The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930 (2017), MONUMENT(ALITY) (2018), and Bauhaus Beginnings (2019). Casciato was awarded a Fulbright grant (1992) and a Graham Foundation Publication grant (2016). At the Canadian Centre for Architecture, she was Mellon Senior Fellow (2010) prior to being appointed associate director of research.

Among her most recent publications: The Metropolis in Latin America 1830–1930. Cityscapes, Photographs, Debates, co-edited with I. Alonso (2021); Rethinking Global Modernism. Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial, co-edited with V. Prakash and D. E. Coslett (2022); Technoscape. The Architecture of Engineers, co-edited with Pippo Ciorra (2022); and the facsimile reprint of Le Corbusier Album Punjab, 1951 (2024). Casciato has been nominated 2023 Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians.