Research at the BGC

The BGC sponsors a rich array of research activities, from our weekly seminar series to special symposia hosted throughout the year.

The Bard Graduate Center Library is a non-circulating research collection supporting advanced studies in the decorative arts, design, garden history, landscape studies, and culture. The Library's collection comprises approximately 40,000 volumes, including rare books, microforms, and videos.

About the BGC

The Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture is a graduate research institute committed to studying the cultural history of the material world. Our degree program, research projects, and  exhibition program together work to suggest a new field of questions at the crossroads where the decorative arts, design history, and material culture studies meet. At the BGC, our focus is on Cultura. This ancient Latin word referred to the class of activities in which human beings acted on, and so transformed, their natural surroundings. We have taken this as the outline of our institutional project: studying the substances intervened upon, the processes used to make these interventions, and the consequences of these interventions for the lives of human actors.

The BGC was founded in 1993 in New York City, and is a part of Bard College. The BGC occupies a six-story townhouse at 18 West 86th Street that is the home of its Galleries, and a second townhouse at 38 West 86th Street that is the academic center. A third building, at 410 West 58th Street, offers faculty, student, and guest housing.

Degree Programs

The BGC offers two programs of study, one leading to a master of arts degree and the other to a doctor of philosophy degree.

Students in these programs can select from a wide array of courses dealing with various aspects of the cultural history of the material world.

Students in the MA and PhD programs take the same courses, although their programs are articulated in different ways. The curriculum for the master’s degree includes a number of required courses, tutorials, independent studies, travel, and internships in fields chosen by the student in consultation with a faculty adviser. Students are otherwise free to construct their own program of study.

Open Houses in 2010 will take place on Monday, October 18, 6:00 pm– 8:00 pm, Sunday, November 14, 11:00 am– 1:00 pm,  and Sunday, December 5, 11:00 am–1:00 pm.

Gallery at the BGC
18 Years of Exhibitions

October 1993 - January 2010

Since its establishment in 1993, the Bard Graduate Center has organized a broad range of exhibitions examining under recognized aspects of the decorative arts, design history, and material culture. Our gallery is devoted to enhancing scholarship and developing public awareness of the material world. While our building is under renovation, our Web site is featuring a selection of images from our past exhibitions. We invite you to visit the gallery again when we reopen in January 2011.