"Firsts" Lecture Series
"Firsts" Lecture Series - Continues
The School of Architecture, Portland State University, is proud to host its inaugural lecture series, titled “Firsts.” The series spans the 2011-2012 academic year with presentations by six notable academics, artists and professionals in architectural practice worldwide: Petra Kempf, John Ochsendorf, Gilles Saucier, Jeremy Till, Sarah Wigglesworth and Paul Pfeiffer.
The concepts of origins and beginnings, long a subject of interest among architects, will be explored throughout the series of lectures. As the Greek word Arche (meaning “first cause”) is at the root of the word architecture, the guest lecturers will discuss their own “first causes”—the spark that led them to follow their career path—as part of their presentations.
Jeremy Till
Thursday, April 19, 2012, 7pm
Jeremy Till has pursued a dual life as an architect and an educator. Till curated the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale and is the only person to be twice awarded the RIBA President's Award for Research. He is the author of Architecture Depends (2009), a series of polemics and reflections that call attention to the gap between what architecture actually is—contingent on many outside forces—and what architects seem to want it to be—autonomous and pure. As Till succinctly puts it: "Architecture, in all its dependency, has to remain open."
Sarah Wigglesworth
Friday, April 20, 2012, 7pm
Sarah Wigglesworth founded Sarah Wigglesworth Architects in London in 1994. As an architect, Wigglesworth strives to amplify the representation of women—as clients, users and architects—in the shaping of the built environment. Her work has been published and exhibited internationally, and she has lectured worldwide. Wigglesworth's work is acknowledged as a rising influence in British architecture: in 2004 she was awarded an MBE for services to architecture, the same year that the firm's "Straw House" at 9 Stock Orchard Street in London won two RIBA awards for its innovative sustainability technologies—many of which were being used in an urban context for the first time. She is Professor of Architecture at the University of Sheffield.
Paul Pfeiffer
Thursday, May 17, 2012, 7pm
Paul Pfeiffer is a New York–based artist whose groundbreaking work in video, sculpture and photography uses recent computer technologies to examine the role that the mass media plays in shaping consciousness. Pfeiffer prompts audiences to reconsider attitudes about the body, race, identity, faith and architectural space in contemporary society. His work has been exhibited internationally at renowned museums and galleries and is in private and public collections worldwide. He is the recipient of numerous awards and, notably, he is the inaugural recipient of the Bucksbaum Award, given by the Whitney Museum of American Art (2000).
The lectures by Petra Kempf and John Ochsendorf are part of the American Institute of Architects' Portland Architecture + Design Festival, which runs September 29 - October 31 and features tours, film screenings, exhibitions and lectures on design and our built environment.
