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CONTACT: Dorie Baker 203-432-1345 or dorie.baker@yale.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 8, 2010

 

Yale School of Architecture Invites the Public to Free Events, Spring 2011

New Haven, Conn.— A lecture on January 6 by visionary Chinese developer Vincent Lo will open the season of free and public events offered by the Yale School of Architecture (YSoA) in the first half of 2011.
 
Unless otherwise noted, all lectures and symposia take place in Hastings Hall, basement level of Paul Rudolph Hall, 180 York Street, and begin at 6:30 p.m.
 
Homage to legendary architect and Pritzker Prize laureate Kevin Roche dominates the calendar at YSoA, as the Gallery of Paul Rudolph Hall will display a retrospective exhibition of his work, “Architecture as Environment” (February 7 to May 6). The school will also host a major symposium, “Thinking Big: Diagrams, Mediascapes, and Megastructures” (February 17–19), in which architectural historians, theoreticians and practitioners will explore architecture as an interconnected part of a larger whole, an approach identified with Roche.
 
A key event of the symposium will be a conversation on February 18 between Roche and preeminent architectural critic Paul Goldberger (B.A. ’72).
 
Other highlights of the forthcoming term will include: a symposium on January 21–22, titled “Middle Ground / Middle East:  Religious Sites in Urban Context,” exploring sites sacred to Abrahamic religions from a variety of perspectives; a symposium organized by students in the Master’s in Environmental Design program looking at architecture from the vantage point of the criminal fugitive; and a screening of the documentary “Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio.” Among the other distinguished lecturers at the school will be renowned London-based structural engineer Hanif Kara, cultural and media historian Thomas Y. Levin (B.A. ’79; M.A. ’83, M.Phil. ’85, Ph.D. ’91), eminent architect and theorist Peter Eisenman, the inaugural Charles Gwathmey Professor in Practice at Yale, and branding mastermind Peter Arnell.
 
The complete series of events follows.
 
Lectures and Events

January  6
Vincent Lo
Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Architecture Fellow
Lecture: “Superblock / Supertall Developments in China and Hong Kong”

January 10
Kristina Hill
Timothy Egan Lenahan Memorial Lecture:
“Beauty or the Beast:  Design and Infrastructure”

January 13
Makram el Kadi
Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor
Lecture: “Potentially Dangerous Space”

January 20
Hanif Kara
Gordon H. Smith Lecture:
“Within Architecture:  Design Engineering”

January 21
Nasser Rabat
Brendan Gill Lecture:
“When Religion Becomes the Embodiment of Politics”
(Keynote address at the symposium “Middle Ground / Middle East:  Religious Sites in Urban Context”)

January 27
Joel Kotkin
Brendan Gill Lecture:  
“The American Landscape in 2050”
 
February 10
Thomas de Monchaux
Myriam Bellazoug Memorial Lecture:
“Seven Architectural Embarrassments”

February 17
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
Lecture: “Architecture as Environment”
(Presented as a part of the symposium “Thinking Big:  Diagrams, Mediascapes and Megastructures”)

February 18
“A Conversation,” Paul Goldberger and Kevin Roche
(Presented as a part of the symposium “Thinking Big:  Diagrams, Mediascapes and Megastructures”)
 
March 21
Film Screening: “Citizen Architect:  Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio”

March 24
Thomas Y. Levin
David W. Roth and Robert H. Symonds Memorial Lecture:  
“Topographies of Elusion”
(Presented as the keynote address at the symposium “Fugitive Geographies”)

March 28
Peter Arnell
Eero Saarinen Lecture:  
“Creating Desire and Appeal in the Age of Branding”
 
April 7
Peter Eisenman
Charles Gwathmey Professor in Practice
Lecture: “‘Wither’ Architecture: Architecture vs. Design”

April 14
John Patkau
Lord Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor in Architecture
Lecture: “Buildings/Projects/Competitions:  2009 -2011”

 
Symposia

January 21–22
“Middle Ground / Middle East:  Religious Sites in Urban Context”
This symposium — co-sponsored by the Yale School of Architecture, the Yale Divinity School, the Yale Council on Middle East Studies and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music —  will focus on the role of religious sites representing the three Abrahamic traditions in shaping the urban environments in the Middle East.  Recognizing that sacred building – mosques, churches, synagogues, and other holy sites—has often been regarded as representative of patterns of social and cultural division, the symposium seeks to address the commonality of religious traditions, inter-faith relationships, and long practices of learning and tolerance. Leading architects and scholars from a variety of fields and religious backgrounds will examine through a plurality of perspectives the recent paradigm shifts regarding the relationship between architecture and religion and the ways in which religious sites currently engage urban regeneration, economic growth, cultural identity, memory and the limits of multiculturalism. (The symposium will be described in greater detail in a separate news release.)
 
Thursday, 1/21
2 p.m.
Participants and presenters:
Mohammad as-Asad, Howayda Al-Harithy, Neza AlSayyad, Karl Britton, Kishwar Rivzi, Sallama Shaker
 
6:30 p.m.
Keynote Address by Nasser Rabbat
 
Friday, 1/22
9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Participants and presenters:
Rasem Badran, Peter Eisenman, Makram el Kadi, Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil, Kenneth Frampton, Massimiliano Fuksas, Paul Goldberger, Marcia Inhorn, Vasileios Marinis, Lamin Sanneh, Hashim Sarkis, Rafi Segal, Brigitte Shim
 
February 17–19
“Thinking Big: Diagrams, Mediascapes, and Megastructures”
The 2011 J. Irwin Miller Symposium
This symposium, held in conjunction with the YSoA exhibition “Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment,” will explore modern architecture as part of larger environmental, symbolic and technological systems.  Leading architectural historians, theoreticians, and architects will discuss topics such as the integration of media, infrastructure and landscape into architecture, bigness and the role of diagrams and system theory as design tools. (The symposium will be described in greater detail in a separate news release.)
 
Thursday, 2/17
6:30 p.m.
Keynote address by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, organizer of the symposium

Friday, 2/18
6:30 p.m.
Paul Goldberger and Kevin Roche in conversation

Saturday, 2/19
9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Participants and presenters: Michelle Addington, Beatriz Colomina, Keller Easterling, Peter Eisenman, David Gissen, Jeffrey Inaba, Reinhold Martin, Dietrich Neumann, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Timothy Rohan, Felicity Scott, Kazys Varnelis

March 24–25
“Fugitive Geographies”
This symposium, organized by the school’s second-year M.E.D. students, will investigate the built environment from the unique perspective of the criminal fugitive, a figure who lives in a continuous present confronting a mercurial landscape that offers concealment one moment and prevents escape the next.  Drawing on ideas from the fields of architecture, art history, sociology, criminology, forensics, cartography, media studies, political science, psychology and history, advanced doctoral students from multiple universities will seek to understand the shifting orientation of the fugitive navigating through an environment where boundaries and borders are unclear. (The symposium will be described in greater detail in a separate news release.)
 
Thursday, 3/24
6:30 p.m.
Keynote Address by Thomas Y. Levin

Friday, 3/25
9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Presentation of papers

 
Exhibitions
The Architecture Gallery is located on the second floor of Paul Rudolph Hall, 180 York Street
Exhibition hours are:
Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
 
“An Architect’s Legacy:  James Stirling’s Students at Yale, 1959 – 1983”
October 13, 2010 – January 28, 2011

“Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment”
February 7 – May 6, 2011

“Year-End Exhibition of Student Work”
May 23 – July 29, 2011


Links:
Yale School of Architecture
http://www.architecture.yale.edu/

Peter Eisenmann
http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=7189

"An Architect's Legacy: James Stirling’s Students at Yale, 1959 – 1983”
http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=7684

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