"When an architect is thinking, he's thinking architecture, and his work is always architecture, no matter what form it appears in." For five decades, that spirit animated the efforts of architect John Hejduk, whose allegorical and philosophically complex work includes traditional architecture but also encompasses drawings, paintings, models, and "masques."

Hejduk, dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union from 1975 until his death in March 2000, influenced several generations of architects and a wide number of exhibitions and books focused on his work. His buildings include the renovation of the Foundation Building at The Cooper Union, for which he was given an award by the Municipal Art Society and the New York State Council on the Arts. His structural installations include "The Tower of Cards," built in Groningen, The Netherlands. He also provided lithographs for the first illustrated edition of Thomas Mann's novel The Black Swan. Hejduk received numerous citations for his work, including a prize from the Internationale Bauausstellung Berlin 1984, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and an honorary membership from the Bund Deutscher Architetken BDA (Federation of German Architects).