The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), founded in 1967, was an independent, non-profit organization that became an important center of architectural debate. The critical undertakings by members of the IAUS made it the center of new architectural ideas produced through research, public lectures, publications (such as Oppositions, Books, and Skyline), exhibitions, and education programs. The IAUS reversed architectural dependency on Europe, becoming  "the" international destination for architecture, and making New York architecture's global center. Participants at the IAUS included Peter Eisenman, founder and director; Emilio Ambasz; Mario Gandelsonas; Kenneth Frampton; Anthony Vidler; Rosalind Krauss; Philip Johnson; Richard Meier; Charles Gwathmey; Frank Gehry; Rem Koolhaas; and Aldo Rossi. The IAUS has had an enormous influence and legacy, both in terms of the great amount of work it produced, and through the dissemination of ideas that its fellows worked on and taught. Agrest's documentary film will bring new insight into this important institution.

Diana Agrest is an architect well-known for her unique approach to architecture and urbanism, in practice and theory. She is a professor of architecture at the Cooper Union and has taught at Columbia, Princeton, and Yale Universities. She was a fellow at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, 1971–84. She has designed and built projects at various scales for which she has won numerous awards. In 1993, she created and directed Framing the City: Film, Video, and Urban Architecture at the Whitney Museum, as part of an approach to urban discourse she developed through film. She has written, produced, and directed The Making of an Avant-Garde, and has been awarded grants from NYSCA, the Graham Foundation, and the AIA. She has published four books, and her writings have been widely included in books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers, while her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums.