Tag Archives: Architecture and Design Network

Photographing Everyday Arkansas Architecture the focus of talk tonight by Prof. Geoff Winningham

Posted on by

adn g winningham bookWORKING IN THE EYE OF THE SUN: Photographing the Vernacular Architecture of Arkansas is the title of remarks this evening by Geoff Winningham a Professor at Rice University and holder of the Lynette S. Aubrey Chair in the Humanities.

Arkansas has its share of vernacular architecture, everyday structures built by and for ordinary people, architecture without architects, so to speak. Working in the early eighties with Professor Cy Sutherland of the University of Arkansas School of Architecture, Geoff Winningham traveled throughout the state, identifying and photographing vernacular forms – houses, barns, silos, churches, schools, stores and more. Winningham will share a number of those images with his audience when he talks about Arkansas’s vernacular architecture.

Selections from his collection of black and white images of those structures, plus interviews with people long familiar with them, are the makings of “OF THE SOIL”, a book just published by the University of Arkansas Press. Professor Jeff Shannon of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, served as its editor.

Professor Winningham is presented by the Architecture & Design Network as part of their monthly lecture series. The talk will take place this evening, Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at 6pm. It will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 pm at the Arkansas Arts Center lecture hall.

Supporters of the Architecture and Design Network (ADN) include the Arkansas Arts Center, UA’s Fay Jones School of Architecture, the Central Arkansas Section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture. All ADN lectures are free and open to the public. For additional information contact ardenetwork@mac.com. This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Public Architecture is focus of ADN discussion tonight

Posted on by

ADN janneThe monthly Architecture and Design Network lecture is this evening.  Tonight’s speaker is Janne Terasvirta.

The program begins at 6pm tonight at the Arkansas Arts Center. A reception at 5:30 precedes the discussion.

In addition to his very busy practice, Janne Terasvirta, one of the founding partners and the chief executive of Helsinki, Finland-based ALA Architects, teaches public building design at Helsinki’s Aalto University and serves as a visiting professor at Estudios Superiores de Diseno de Monterrey, Santa Catarina, Mexico.

Recipient of more than 20 design awards in competitions worldwide, Terasvirta’s design for the Helsinki Public Library, now under construction, was selected from a field of 548 entries. ALA is recognized as one of the most innovative and influential architecture firms in the Nordic countries. In his talk, Terasvirta will address the importance of public space in our urbanizing world.

Terasvirta’s lecture is free and open to the public. Supporters of the Architecture and Design Network include the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture, the Arkansas Arts Center, the Central Section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and people in the community. For additional information, contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.

“Really Cool Digs” is topic of tonight’s Architecture and Design Network lecture

Posted on by

ADN Cool DigsIn his talk, Carl Matthews will examine the ways in which the media – television, film, advertising among them – use architecture and design to develop and project a particular image or mood. Examples abound and Matthew will share a generous sampling of them with his audience.

As head of the Fay Jones School of Architecture’s Interior Design Department, Matthews currently oversees the education of a hundred and ten students. Of that number, a majority, following graduation, will likely pursue careers in commercial design. As an educator, Matthews strives to create a link between academia and practice. Prior to his coming to the School, Matthews taught at the Universities of Texas and Kansas. He earned his Master’s degree from Pratt Institute.

The lecture starts at 6pm at the Arkansas Arts Center.  A reception will start at 5:30.

ADN lectures are free and open to the public. Supporters of ADN include the Arkansas Arts Center, the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture and the Central Arkansas section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. For further information contactardenetwork@mac.com.

Steve Wiesenthal FAIA discusses Architectural Heritage + Innovation at the University of Chicago

Posted on by

WiesenthalTonight the Architecture and Design network presents Steve Wiesenthal, FAIA discussing “Architectural Heritage + Innovation at the University of Chicago.”  He is currently Senior Associate Vice President for Facilities & University Architect at the University of Chicago.

The program begins at 6pm in the lecture hall of the Arkansas Arts Center. A reception precedes the lecture at 5:30.

The University of Chicago campus, rooted in the tradition of grey stone Collegiate Gothic and taking inspiration from the forward looking spirit of America’s premier city of architectural innovation, is in the midst of an historic transformation.

In the first two decades of the 21st century, the campus has undergone more change than it ever did in its 110 year history. Guided by principle and overarching planning themes, the University’s campus has buildings designed by a number of architectural luminaries – Helmut Jahn, Tod Willams, Billie Tsien, Jeanne Gang, Ann Beha, MIchael Van Walkenberg, Rafael Vinoly, Ricardo Legoretta among them. In spite of transformative physical changes to its campus, the University remains committed to its core values.

Weisenthal, who has been at the University since 2008, earned undergraduate degrees in architecture and urban studies at the University of Maryland and a Master of Liberal Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Subsequent employment included six years as an architect with Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, the internationally acclaimed architectural firm. Prior to coming to the University, he oversaw the development of the University of California San Francisco’s Mission Bay research and academic campus.

Supporters of the Architecture and Design Network, include the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture, the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Arkansas Arts Center and friends in the community. All ADN lectures are free and open to the public. For additional information, contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.

Architecture critic Mark Lamster featured tonight at Architecture & Design Network

Posted on by

Smark-lamster-presented-dallas-archit-66IZING UP ARCHITECTURE: A Critic’s View

Mark Lamster
Architecture Critic | Dallas Morning News 
Assistant Professor and Dillon Center Fellow | School of Architecture University of Texas Arlington

DATE: Tuesday, March 18, 2014
TIME: 6:00 pm, preceded by a reception at 5:30
PLACE: Arkansas Arts Center lecture hall

Architecture critics are a rare breed in this part of the country. Mark Lamster, a recent arrival at the Dallas Morning News, offers a perspective on the built environment that enables others to see and talk about their surroundings in new and different ways. Lamster, who also teaches a graduate seminar on criticism and critical writing at the University, has, according to the newspaper’s editor, Bob Mong, a “range of interests that rivals those of any architecture critic in the country.” His background in art as well as architecture informs his writing. A contributing editor to Architectural Review and Design Observer, his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and many other national publications. Lamster is currently at work on a definitive new biography of the late architect Philip Johnson who, among his many accomplishments, established the architecture department at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The book is to be published by Little Brown.

For more than a decade, Lamster served as editor of the Princeton Architecture Press. He is the author of several books including Master of Shadows (2009) a political biography of the painter Peter Paul Rubens. Baseball fans may be familiar with his first book, Spalding’s World Tour, the story of a group of all-star baseball players who circled the globe in the 19th Century. That work was a New York Times Editor’s selection. Lamster, a native of New York City, has a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and an M.A. from Tufts.

Supporters of the Architecture and Design Network lecture series include the Arkansas Arts Center, the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture and the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture. All Network lectures are free and open to the public. For further information, contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.

Architect Michael Rotondi discusses Hybrid of Extremes tonight

Posted on by

RotondiTonight at the Arkansas Arts Center, the latest in the continuing series of lectures about architecture. HYBRID OF EXTREMES, a lecture by Michael Rotondi, FAIA, architect and educator. He is founding partner and principal of RoTo Architects, Los Angeles, and a Professor in Practice of the Arizona State University School of Architecture.

Based in Los Angeles, Michael Rotondi has been the co-founder of two esteemed architectural firms. He and Thom Mayne, with whom he had a productive partnership, founded Morphosis in 1975. Almost two decades later he established RoTo Architects, a firm committed to enlarging the scope of architectural practice to include issues of socio-economic concern and the environment.

The 2009 recipient of the Los Angeles Chapter the American Institute of Architects gold medal for creating a body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture, Rotondi has emphasized  architecture’s role  in “making the world a better place”. He has stressed the importance of architects being aware of the impact of their work on people, places and communities.

Rotondi and a group of friends were instrumental in the 1972 founding of the Los Angeles based California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Among the school’s first graduates, the innovative young architect who had earned a degree from California State Polytechnic University in 1971, later served as SCI-Arc’s director (1987-1997). Currently a member of its Board of Trustees, he also teaches there. Rotondi has lectured and taught all over the world.

Rotondi’s participation in Architecture and Design Network’s 13/14 lecture series has been made possible by the Fayetteville based University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture where he ls this year’s John G. Williams Distinguished Visiting Professor.

In addition to the School of Architecture, Network supporters include the Arkansas Arts Center and the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. All ADN lectures are free and open to the public. For additional information contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.

Starchitects, Prizes and the Changing Face of Architecture lecture tonight

Posted on by

ThorneTonight at 6pm at the Arkansas Arts Center, Martha Thorne will present a lecture entitled “Starchitects, Prizes and the Changing Face of Architecture.”

Martha Thorne served as an Associate Curator of the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1996 to 2005, the year she left to assume the directorship of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, headquartered in Madrid, Spain.

Established in 1979 by Jay and Cindy Pritzker and underwritten by the Hyatt Foundation, the award was conceived as a meaningful prize that would stimulate public awareness and inspire greater creativity within the profession of architecture. Recipients of the annual award, often called the “Nobel of architecture”, are selected by an international jury committed to the art of architecture and its social responsibility. Each year’s winner receives a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion.

Lord Peter Palumbo of England, a developer and art collector, is the current jury chair. Toyo Ito of Japan, selected (by a jury of seven which included Thorne) as the 2013 Pritzker laureate, was presented his award by Tom Pritzker, Jay Pritzker’s son.

Supporters of the Architecture and Design Network include the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, UA Fay Jones School of Architecture and the Arkansas Arts Center. ADN lectures are free and open to the public.