As the founding partner of the architecture and design firm that bears her name, Deborah Berke oversees a staff of fifty, a skilled team that deals with a diverse portfolio of projects ranging from campus master plans, cultural and arts facilities, university buildings, hotels – Bentonville’s 21c Hotel among them – and custom residences. All projects, large and small, share the Berke imprimatur: a “knowing simplicity”.

An award winning design professional, Berke has been an adjunct professor of Architectural Design at Yale University since 1987. Additionally, she has taught at a number of campuses across the country. In 2005, the Rhode Island School of Design, where she earned a BFA in 1975, awarded her an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.

Registered as an architect in a dozen states including Arkansas, Berke will talk about creating buildings that are “inevitable though not predictable”. She will describe the relationship between a designer’s vision, life patterns and place.

Berke’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, is made possible through the collaborative effort of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Architecture and Design Network. For additional information, contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.

Supporters of the Architecture and Design Network include the Arkansas Arts Center, the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture, the Central Arkansas section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and friends in the community.

March 3, 2015 – 6:00 pm, preceded by a reception at 5:30 p.m. Arkansas Arts Center Lecture Hall