Upcoming/Current Events
Handshouse Studio: Notre-Dame Project featured in the Bard Graduate Center exhibition:
Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds
January 28, 2026 - May 24, 2026
BARD GRADUATE CENTER GALLERY
18 West 86th Street
New York, New York 10024
Description
Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds is the first major U.S. exhibition devoted to Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879), the visionary architect, designer, and theorist who redefined the Gothic past for a modern age. Bringing together nearly 200 drawings and objects—many never before seen in the United States—the exhibition reveals how his meticulous draftsmanship was both a creative process and a tool for reimagining history.
As an artist and theoretician, he reimagined the medieval period as a world grounded in craft and collective intelligence, a model of artistic freedom and national identity. For Viollet-le-Duc, Gothic buildings expressed a spirit of shared purpose—rational yet inventive—that his own world, nineteenth-century France, required. Although his endeavors were rooted in history, his concerns were urgent and contemporary. In Viollet-le-Duc’s visual universe, drawing is a way of thinking, and the past is alive in the present.
With pen and pencil, Viollet le-Duc scanned the anatomy of cathedrals, mapped geological formations, and gave life to an imagined past. The exhibition will trace his career from early travel sketches in Italy and the Alps to the soaring restorations of Notre-Dame de Paris and Carcassonne, culminating in late works that blur the boundaries between architecture, nature, and imagination.
The Handshouse Studio: Notre-Dame Project full scale replica of Choir Truss #6 at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY.
There will be a special presentation:
Handshouse Studio: Notre-Dame Project presentation
Wednesday, February 4th, 2026 at 6:00pm
BARD GRADUATE CENTER
38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall
New York, New York 10024
A presentation by Marie Brown (Handshouse Studio), Michael Burrey (North Bennet Street School), Lindsay Cook (Penn State University), and Jackson DuBois (Timber Framers Guild)
$15 General | $12 Seniors | Free for people associated with a college or university, people with museum ID, people with disabilities and caregivers, and BGC members
No late seating; admittance is not guaranteed after 6 pm.
Ongoing Exhibitions
The Bushnell “Turtle” Submarine on exhibition in the lobby at the International Spy Museum.
The Bushnell “Turtle” Submarine
A ragtag colonial army faced the mighty British Empire in 1776. Could American ingenuity turn the tide? Inventor David Bushnell hoped so. Bushnell built America’s first combat submarine, the pedal-powered Turtle. Its covert mission? Slip into New York Harbor and attach a bomb to a British warship. It almost worked. The pilot submerged beneath the ship undetected, but had to abort as his air ran low.
Handshouse Studio—aided by students, professional craftsmen, and the US Naval Academy—built this replica Revolutionary War wooden submarine. Using tools and techniques of the day, they proved that Bushnell’s seemingly radical idea was feasible.
Image of the Gwozdziec Synagogue Digital Archive highlights, from a section titled “Take a closer look”.
Wooden Synagogue: digital archive Project
Take a Tour of the Gwoździec Synagogue
This virtual tour of the Gwoździec Synagogue is flying your through the painted ceiling of the prayer hall, as recreated by Handshouse Studio for the Gwoździec Re!construction permanent exhibition at the Polin Museum for the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. This virtual tour is built of a digital composite made by Trillium Studios of photographs taken by Cary Wolinksy of the Handshouse Gwoździec reconstruction. This 3-D video rendering, made by Crazybride Studio, demonstrates the texture and quality of what the interactive virtual space we are hoping to creating can be.
The Gwozdziec Synagogue re/constructed roof and bimah on exhibition at the POLIN Museum.
Gwozdziec Synagogue Re/Construction
The POLIN Core Exhibition is a journey through 1000 years of the history of Polish Jews – from the Middle Ages until today. Visitors will find answers to questions such as: how did Jews come to Poland? How did Poland become the center of the Jewish Diaspora and the home of the largest Jewish community in the world? How did it cease to be one, and how is Jewish life being revived?
The Handshouse Studio: Gwoździec Synagogue Re/construction of the painted ceiling and bimah is currently on display as a feature in the POLIN core exhibition.