CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/13/2026

The Cooper Union presents the exhibition panel discussion 'Primers for a Handmade Utopia'

Tuesday, October 13, from 6:30–8:30 PM, please join us at The Cooper Union for a panel discussion on the radical architecture of the 1960s back-to-the-land movement. This conversation accompanies the exhibition Primers for a Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California, on view at The Cooper Union from Thursday, October 8–Thursday, October 29, 2026. Writer David Jacob Kramer and photographer Michael Schmelling, who collaborated on the new book Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California, will be in conversation with Cooper Union associate professor Irene Cheng, design critic Alexandra Lange and back-to-the-lander Chris Larson.

Half a century ago, a legion of young idealists—disillusioned with the governance and exploding consumer culture of 1960s America—dropped out of society and went “back to the land,” in what proved to be the greatest urban-to-rural exodus in American history. The backwoods of Northern California became the movement’s epicenter, where a patchwork of utopian communes sprouted, together with an experimental, deeply individualized approach to building design and construction.

Author David Jacob Kramer and photographer Michael Schmelling’s new book Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California, co-published by D.A.P. and Edition Patrick Frey, documents the history, inspiration, and contemporary condition of these utopian communities. Together with panelists Irene Cheng, Alexandra Lange and Chris Larson, they will discuss the success—and failures—of this under-documented movement with experts in the field as well as one of the original back-to-the-landers.

Irene Cheng is associate professor in architecture at The Cooper Union and author of The Shape of Utopia: The Architecture of Radical Reform in Nineteenth-Century America (University of Minnesota Press, 2023).

David Jacob Kramer is co-author of Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California (D.A.P./Edition Patrick Frey, 2026) Heads Together: Weed and the Underground Press Syndicate, 1965–1973 (Edition Patrick Frey, 2023)

Alexandra Lange is architecture critic for Curbed and winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Chris Larson is a Northern California resident and one of the subjects featured in the book and exhibition.

Michael Schmelling is a photographer and the author of nine photography books, including Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California (D.A.P./Edition Patrick Frey, 2026), which he co-authored with David Jacob Kramer.

Primers for a Handmade Utopia Panel Discussion
The Cooper Union
Tuesday, October 13, 6:30–8:30 PM
Room 315F, Foundation Building
7 East 7th Street (between 3rd and 4th Avenues)