]]> http://blog.biarch.eu/academic/mbiarch-overview/feed/ 0 http://blog.biarch.eu/media/lecture-allen/ http://blog.biarch.eu/media/lecture-allen/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:23:31 +0000 BIArch http://blog.biarch.eu/?p=414

BIArch Open Lectures - Stan Allen

The second BIArch Open Lecture of the Spring 2010 series is now available on BIArch’s Vimeo channel. Stan Allen, Dean of the Princeton University School of Architecture (SOA), member of the BIArch Board of Directors and MBIArch 2010-11 faculty member, presents a lecture titled “From Object to Field (and back)“. He is introduced by Madrid-based architect Arturo Franco.

BIArch’s Open Lectures are a complementary extension of the MBIArch, the Institute’s core academic Master’s Degree in Architecture program. The MBIArch starts in September 2010 and late applications will be received until July 15, 2010.

BIArch Open Lectures - Yung Ho Chang

Yung Ho Chang, founder of Atelier FCJZ, China’s first private architectural practice and head of the Architecture department at the MIT, delivered the first BIArch Open Lecture of the Spring 2010 cycle: “China, Carb, City, China”. A full-length video of the event is available online on our Vimeo channel:

BIArch Open Lectures: Yung Ho Chang from BIArch on Vimeo.

BIArch’s Open Lectures are a complementary extension of the MBIArch, the Institute’s core academic Master’s Degree in Architecture program. The MBIArch starts in September 2010 and late applications will be received until July 15, 2010.

The second BIArch Open Lecture of the Spring 2010 cycle will be delivered next Friday June 11th by Stan Allen, principal of Stan Allen Architect and Dean of the Princeton University School of Architecture (SOA). The lecture, titled “From Object to Field (and back)” will take place in the Auditorium of La Pedrera, at 7 pm. Allen will be introduced by Madrid-based architect Arturo Franco, Director of Arquitectura COAM.

Sagaponac House, The Hamptons, New York

Stan Allen studied at Brown University, The Cooper Union, and Princeton University. After working for Richard Meier and Partners in New York and Rafael Moneo in Spain, he established his own practice in 1990. For over 12 years he was a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), from 1989 to 2002. His work has been published in Points and Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (Princeton, 1999) and his theoretical essays in Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation (G+B Arts, 2000).

Maribor Gallery, Slovenia

Allen’s academic work and professional practice illustrate his conviction that “in an increasingly specialized world, architects are the last surviving generalists.” Allen believes that architecture demands a particular set of technical or formal skills and professional traits but also openness and flexibility to incorporate different types of inputs into a truly “synthetic art form”.

Stan Allen is a member of the BIArch Advisory Council and will be part of the MBIArch Master’s Degree in Architecture program 2010-11 faculty (he will be leading one of the program’s design studios). At the the first BIArch Advisory Council Meeting, Allen argued in favor of a dual role of architectural education: “to train the best possible practicing architects…to provide the necessary skills to function within the discipline,” but also to “drive the discipline forward”.

BIArch Open Lecture
“From Object to Field (and back)”
Stan Allen
Introduction by Arturo Franco

Friday, June 11, 2010. 7 PM
Auditorium of “La Pedrera”
Passeig de Gràcia 92
Barcelona

Download a detailed flyer of the event here.

Attendance is free, but capacity is limited. The lecture will be broadcast live online. RSVP through Facebook. For more information, visit the event page on the BIArch website or contact us at events@biarch.eu.

We want to hear what you think. Post your answers on this discussion thread at Archinect, or on our Facebook page.

David Adjaye was born in Tanzania in 1966. He pursued his studies in London, and obtained an architecture degree from the Royal College of Art in 1993. Adjaye worked for David Chipperfield Architects and Eduardo Souto de Moura in the 1990s, and then partnered with William Russell until he founded Adjaye Associates in 2000.

David Adjaye in the first meeting of the BIArch Advisory Council

In the office’s early years, Adjaye made a name for himself with his relatively small, elegant residential and bar/café projects in London’s still-gritty East End. Today, Adjaye Associates has offices in London, Berlin and New York and large commissions like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, D.C.

Regardless of scale, Adjaye’s approach to design is usually austere and balanced, more focused on plays of material textures and light than formal or structural acrobatics. Adjaye has demonstrated a particular passion for projects with a social bent, such as the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, the Whitechapel Idea Store, or the Stephen Lawrence Center. These projects run along the fine line between private and public, between openness and intimacy, and they push the definition of public space in a way that feels closer and more contemporary, even though these distinctions remain tense or uncertain at times. Adjaye is convinced that architecture is most relevant when it has a social purpose.

The Dirty House, London

Nobel Peace Center, Oslo

The Idea Store, Whitechapel

Most recently, David Adjaye is building the new Moscow School of Management, developing the African American History and Culture Museum project and has been shortlisted for the SFMOMA extension. He has also put together an intriguing exhibition at the Design Museum in London, with photos from his travels and views on “Urban Africa“.

“Sclera” Pavilion, London Design Festival, 2008

Skolkovo School of Management, Moscow

Design concept for the  National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC

Photo from Adjaye’s “Urban Africa” Show, currently at the Design Museum London

In the frame of BIArch and the MBIArch program, Adjaye will deliver a second-semester Architectural Design Seminar, most likely delving into the themes that he considers important: redefining architectural typologies in a way that projects might engage with the public, become socially relevant and respond adequately to the challenges of urban change.

*Photos by David Farran, Adjaye Associates and Flickr users Dave Gorman, Arnout Fonck, suburbanslice, Dan’s Photos.

Josep Acebillo participating in the “Energy” BIArch Seminar

Josep Anton Acebillo was born in Huesca, in north-eastern Spain, and received a degree in architecture from the ETSAB the School of Architecture in 1974. He currently teaches at the Architecture Academy at the Università della Svizzera italiana and is a partner at AuS Architecture and Urban Systems in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Acebillo is one of the key figures in the recent history of urban planning in Barcelona: he was director of Urban Projects for the city between 1981 and 1987, a period that marks the begging of the deep urban transformation experienced by the city in the last decades of the twentieth century. Acebillo led the Urban Development Insititute of the City of Barcelona between 1988 and 1994 and was responsible for the large-scale urban development projects carried out in the frame of the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Port Olimpic, Barcelona

His contribution to urban change in Barcelona earned him the Honorific Medal awarded by the city in 1992, as well as a Prince of Wales in urban design prize, awarded to him in 1990 by Harvard University. In 1994 he became CEO of Barcelona Regional, a think tank dedicated to the development of strategic urban projects and infrastructures for the city. In 1998 Acebillo was appointed “Commissioner of Infrastructures and Urban Planning” of Barcelona, and he became the city’s Chief Architect briefly after that. In 1999 he was named honorary member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Barcelona in Progress exhibition, organized by Barcelona Regional

Josep Acebillo is a member of the BIArch Board of Directors, and will be teaching Territorial & Urban Studies in the first edition of the MBIArch program. Focusing on a “post-crisis” context of accute socio-economic and environmental tensions associated with rapid urbanization, Acebillo will lead students to concentrate on the observation and analysis of the increasingly socio-technical nature of cities, exploring the impact of networks on territorial phenomena.

Iñaki Àbalos with Agustí Obiol during the first BIArch Advisory Council Meeting, June 2009

Born in San Sebastian, a Basque coastal town, Iñaki Àbalos obtained an architecture degree and a PhD in Architecture at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura in Madrid (ETSAM), where he holds a chair as Architecture Professor and directs the Master in Environmental and Landscape Studies program. Aside from being a member of the BIArch Board of Directors, he is also currently Kenzo Tange Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and founding partner at Abalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos. Iñaki Àbalos has been Buell Book Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Columbia University, New York (1995); Diploma Unit Master at the Architectural Association, London; Visiting Professor at the EPF Lausanne (1998); Jean Labatute Professor at Princeton University, New Jersey (from 2004 to 2007) and Visiting Professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2007-2008). He was a founding member of Ábalos & Herreros (1984-2006).

Merging landscape, urban design and architecture with environmental, social and aesthetic concerns, and focused on technological innovation, the work of Àbalos is both experimental and critical. The following are some of his most recent works and projects:

Renovation and extension of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona

Lolita. Office building, Madrid

Orfila Apartments, Store and Garage, Madrid

Atelier Oehlen, St. Gallen

Transportation Hub, Urban Park and Housing Towers, Logroño

Taipei Performing Arts Center

Tour Porte de la Chappelle, Paris

In the context of the MBIArch program, within the area of Architectural Design, Àbalos will head the Design Core Studio, in which students will address contemporary design issues through practical and analytical work, with the intention of responding to the pressures of technical advances and the simultaneous dissolution of the tasks and instruments of traditional architectures.

Members of the BIArch Board of Directors, the Institute’s Advisory Council and invited professors from some of the most prestigious institutions and innovative companies around the world will join us in Barcelona to share their expertise, knowledge and experience. The program achieves a healthy balance between figures with strong local ties to the city and truly global practices, as well as between professional and academic personalities.

Over the course of the next few weeks we will be sharing more information and details on our faculty’s biographies, recent work and their particular contributions to the field of architecture.

For now we leave you with the list:

Iñaki Ábalos: Architect. BIArch Board of Directors, Kenzo Tange Professor at Harvard University, Boston, Professor at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and Principal of Ábalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos, Madrid.

Josep Anton Acebillo: Architect. BIArch Board of Directors, Professor at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Director of Architecture Urban Systems, Mendrisio, and Chief Executive Officer of Barcelona Regional, Barcelona.

David Adjaye: Architect. BIArch Advisory Council, Principal of Adjaye Associates, London.

Stan Allen: Architect. BIArch Advisory Council, Dean and Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture, New Jersey, and Principal of SAA/Stan Allen Architect, New York.

Pier Vittorio Aureli: Architect. Professor at the Berlage Institute, Head of the Capital Cities Research Program and the “The City as a Project” PhD Program, Co-founder of Dogma, Rotterdam.

Pedro Gadanho: Architect, Professor at the Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, Editor in Chief of Beyond, Lisbon.

Juan Gallostra: Engineer. General Director of Grupo JG, Barcelona.

Toni Gironès: Architect. BIArch Board of Directors, Director of Architecture Studies at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus, and Principal of Toni Gironès Arquitectes, Barcelona.

Hans Ibelings: Art historian, architecture critic, and curator. Editor in chief of A10, Rotterdam.

Aleksandar Ivancic: Engineer, Barcelona Regional, Barcelona.

Gloria Moure: Art historian. BIArch Board of Directors, independent editor, art critic and curator, Barcelona.

Agustí Obiol: Architect. BIArch Board of Directors, Professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Co-founder of BOMA, Barcelona.

Joan Roig: Architect. Vice President of the BIArch Board of Directors, partner at Battle i Roig Arquitectes, Barcelona.

Enrique Walker: Architect. Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, New York.

We hope this encourages further interaction with prospective students and whomever is interested in knowing more about the Institute. We are also planning a series of exciting events for the spring, involving members of the BIArch Advisory Council with the purpose of offering further insights to the program. Details will be posted here shortly, so be sure to check in, or simply subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed.

In the meantime, we’re very happy to be receiving our first round of applications to the program, just in time for our first deadline which is this Friday, March 19th.  Just out of the sheer assortment of applications, from very different corners of the world, we can already say we’re expecting to have  an incredibly diverse, stimulating group of people joining us in September.